Why The Nanny State Destroys All It Touches

Why The Nanny State Destroys All It Touches

Britain has just provided us with a fascinating example of why conservatism works and liberalism fails in the real world, and we should be paying attention. What they’re doing is removing street signs and other devices meant to keep people safe on the roads. Why they’re doing it, is because these signs were having the opposite effect. Get this!

Our story comes to us from the DailyMail Online (LINK), perhaps the greatest source of actual information left on the planet. This particular story deals with changes that have been made to Exhibition Road in the heart of London’s museum quarter.

For years now, liberal safety advocates have been installing ever more safety measures to protect drivers and pedestrians. This has ranged from restrictive rules for drivers to signs warning drivers about dangers to curbs meant to separate the road from the sidewalk to railings meant to pen in pedestrians to designated crosswalks, etc. The idea was that the government would find all the potential dangers and then warn drivers and pedestrians about them or they would find ways to eliminate those dangers.

Of course, that’s not how it worked out. Why? Because once the government took over warning people about what to watch for, they stopped taking precautions themselves and they relied on the government’s warnings. So now the conservative government is yanking these things out again and lo and behold, it’s actually getting safer. Here’s a picture of the road today with all the gates and curbs and signs removed:

Why is it getting safer? Because people are paying more attention. Said Sir Jeremy Dixon, the lead architect on the new project:

“When the rules by which traffic normally operates are removed - signs, barriers and curb markings - drivers become more observant. They make more eye-contact with pedestrians which produces greater watchfulness. They use the road more like pedestrians. They take more responsibility for their actions. [S]tudies have shown that when traffic lights are removed from crossings, traffic flows more freely and efficiently because drivers take more care.”

Imagine that. When the government takes responsibility for something, people take less personal responsibility for their own actions. When the government stops playing nanny, people take more responsibility for their actions. Who could have guessed?

And there’s more. Daniel Moylan, the Deputy Chairman of Transport for London said this:

“The psychology of this scheme is fascinating. Experience seems to show that when you dedicate space to traffic and control it with signs and green traffic lights, motorists develop a claim on it. It becomes ‘my space.’ Drivers become annoyed if people move into it.”

In other words, they develop a sense of entitlement.

Folks, this is exactly what conservatives warn about with government. When the government gives something to people, they develop feelings of entitlement and they become belligerent to anyone who violates “their rights.” What’s more, they stop taking personal responsibility for their own actions in those areas, i.e. they become dependent on the government.

This issue right here is the human condition in a nutshell and proves the conservative belief that the nanny state is destructive, not constructive. It destroys those it seeks to help. This is exactly why generations of government welfare have destroyed the families who accepted the government’s intervention in their lives. This is why big businesses who have come to rely on the government need bailouts to keep them afloat. This is why we are facing a crushing amount of regulation today, because once the government begins taking care of you, it keeps moving into more and more aspects of your life as you become increasingly helpless. These are not coincidences.

This is why government stinks on a human level and it applies to everything the government touches. There is an incredible lesson here, will anybody learn it? Seeing as how Los Angeles just banned footballs and frisbies from being thrown on the beach. . . I’m thinking the answer is no.

Britain has just provided us with a fascinating example of why conservatism works and liberalism fails in the real world, and we should be paying attention. What they’re doing is removing street signs and other devices meant to keep people safe on the roads. Why they’re doing it, is because these signs were having the opposite effect. Get this!

Our story comes to us from the DailyMail Online (LINK), perhaps the greatest source of actual information left on the planet. This particular story deals with changes that have been made to Exhibition Road in the heart of London’s museum quarter.

For years now, liberal safety advocates have been installing ever more safety measures to protect drivers and pedestrians. This has ranged from restrictive rules for drivers to signs warning drivers about dangers to curbs meant to separate the road from the sidewalk to railings meant to pen in pedestrians to designated crosswalks, etc. The idea was that the government would find all the potential dangers and then warn drivers and pedestrians about them or they would find ways to eliminate those dangers.

Of course, that’s not how it worked out. Why? Because once the government took over warning people about what to watch for, they stopped taking precautions themselves and they relied on the government’s warnings. So now the conservative government is yanking these things out again and lo and behold, it’s actually getting safer. Here’s a picture of the road today with all the gates and curbs and signs removed:

Why is it getting safer? Because people are paying more attention. Said Sir Jeremy Dixon, the lead architect on the new project:

“When the rules by which traffic normally operates are removed - signs, barriers and curb markings - drivers become more observant. They make more eye-contact with pedestrians which produces greater watchfulness. They use the road more like pedestrians. They take more responsibility for their actions. [S]tudies have shown that when traffic lights are removed from crossings, traffic flows more freely and efficiently because drivers take more care.”

Imagine that. When the government takes responsibility for something, people take less personal responsibility for their own actions. When the government stops playing nanny, people take more responsibility for their actions. Who could have guessed?

And there’s more. Daniel Moylan, the Deputy Chairman of Transport for London said this:

“The psychology of this scheme is fascinating. Experience seems to show that when you dedicate space to traffic and control it with signs and green traffic lights, motorists develop a claim on it. It becomes ‘my space.’ Drivers become annoyed if people move into it.”

In other words, they develop a sense of entitlement.

Folks, this is exactly what conservatives warn about with government. When the government gives something to people, they develop feelings of entitlement and they become belligerent to anyone who violates “their rights.” What’s more, they stop taking personal responsibility for their own actions in those areas, i.e. they become dependent on the government.

This issue right here is the human condition in a nutshell and proves the conservative belief that the nanny state is destructive, not constructive. It destroys those it seeks to help. This is exactly why generations of government welfare have destroyed the families who accepted the government’s intervention in their lives. This is why big businesses who have come to rely on the government need bailouts to keep them afloat. This is why we are facing a crushing amount of regulation today, because once the government begins taking care of you, it keeps moving into more and more aspects of your life as you become increasingly helpless. These are not coincidences.

This is why government stinks on a human level and it applies to everything the government touches. There is an incredible lesson here, will anybody learn it? Seeing as how Los Angeles just banned footballs and frisbies from being thrown on the beach. . . I’m thinking the answer is no.

Why The Nanny State Destroys All It Touches

View Detail

Should All Nominees Be Supported?

Should All Nominees Be Supported?

Should a political party’s nominee always be supported? Generally, the answer is yes. A political party is a collection of people whose views overlap enough to give them a common interest in getting each other elected. To that end, they form a party with the implicit agreement that they will compete with each other to represent the party and then will support the nominee regardless of the outcome of the competition. Thus, the nominee should be supported. But there is an exception.

This exception arises when (1) the nominee’s views are well outside the range of common interests which hold the party together, and (2) there is a legitimate belief that supporting this nominee will harm the long term goals of the party.

On the first point, Reagan famously said that he could support anyone with whom he agreed on 80% of the issues. Reagan was making the point that it is foolish and counterproductive to require 100% agreement with a nominee before you can support them. Indeed, 100% agreement is probably impossible. Hence, this is the reason moderates should support conservatives and conservatives should support moderates and libertarians should support social conservatives and vice versa.

But Reagan’s point also contains the implicit understanding that at some point (possibly below 80% using Reagan’s formula) there is no obligation to support the nominee. Why would this be? For that, we need to look at the question of harm.

Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to ensure their products remain consistent. They want to make sure you find the exact same amount in each cereal box, that every batch of Mac and Cheese tastes the same, that every sock has the same number of stitches, and that every Acura uses only Acura parts. Why? Because having a consistent level of quality affects how people perceive their brands. People want to know exactly what they are getting when they make a purchase and branding achieves that -- whereas failing to maintain that consistency damages the brand because people will no longer know what to expect from their purchase.

Whether we like the idea or not, a political party is nothing more than a company, and its product or brand is an ideological range. Choosing a nominee from outside that range blurs the identity of the party and damages its brand.

How? For one thing, this will alienate supporters. Supporters expect nominees to be within the ideological range. When they aren’t, the party has violated the contract under which it claims a right to the individual’s support. It is the equivalent of McDonalds selling you a Big Mac container but including a ham sandwich rather than a burger. This is a violation of trust.

Moreover, this confuses voters. When a person represents a party or ideology, their views become associated with that party or ideology and their successes/failures taint the ideology. In other words, the nominee redefines how the public views conservatism or liberalism, and their meanings change. Hence, conservatism and Republicanism came to be associated with Nixon’s views in 1968, Reagan’s views in 1980, and Bush Jr.’s views in 2000 -- I exclude Bush Sr. because he claimed to be a moderate. Liberalism, by comparison, came to be associated with FDR, LBJ, Carter, and now Obama. Clinton called himself a moderate.

Prior to LBJ, the majority political view of the nation was FDR-liberalism. This could have continued indefinitely, except LBJ disgraced liberalism. His errors in Vietnam and his monstrous Great Society wiped out the Democratic party in the South and set the stage for a conservative resurgence. Jimmy Carter finished liberalism off by proving that Democrats are reckless spenders, incompetent managers of the economy, and militarily inept and cowardly. This set the stage for Reagan.

Reagan’s success revived conservatism while also redefining it back to its roots -- away from the big-government conservatism of the Nixon years. By the time Reagan left office, conservatism had become the natural ideology of the country and 60% of the public believed it.

This could have lasted for generations, except along came George Bush Jr. He wrapped himself in the conservative label and set about running a big government, civil-liberties-crushing, crony-capitalism, foreign-adventuring administration which so thoroughly discredited conservatism that in 2008, the voters were more radically liberal and more willing to accept liberalism than they had been at any time since LBJ. The ONLY THING THAT SAVED CONSERVATISM was the election of Barack Obama. If Obama hadn’t proven to be such a disaster, conservatism would be dead today. But Obama was a disaster and he caused a massive backlash which took the form of the Tea Party.

The lesson here is simple.

Ideologies get defined by their leaders and they get punished for the sins of their leaders. If a nominee calls himself conservative but acts like a liberal, the public doesn’t blame liberalism for his crimes and failures, it blames conservatism even if that person never once acted like a true conservative. Thus, Bush and Nixon, neither of whom could be called conservatives, discredited conservatism. LBJ/Carter/Obama, each of who were progressives and not liberals, discredited liberalism. And in each case, the only thing to save conservatism/liberalism was pure luck that someone worse came along to discredit the other side. If Moderate Joe Democrat had come along after George Bush Jr., we could well be looking at an America that views liberalism as the natural order of things and sees conservatism as meaning reckless spending, bad economic management, and cronyism.

Moreover, the nominee need not even be as disastrous as a Bush/Obama to harm the ideology. The goal of politics is to effect long term change in the country. That is simply not possible when the person representing your ideology holds views that are inconsistent with the ideology. This muddies the ideological waters and confuses the differences between the parties. In other words, when the Republicans and the Democrats both push the same solutions to the same issues, voters will come to believe there is no difference, and they will either stop voting or they will pick the party that promises them the most loot -- advantage Democrats.

This is what happens when you pick someone who is far outside the acceptable ideological range for the party or who happens to be insane. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if Newt or Santorum or Romney or Paul are so far outside the bounds that you should not support them, but ask yourself: “how bad would it be for the party, for my beliefs, and for the country if conservatism came to be defined in the way ____ sees it?”

Winning elections is important, but you don’t want to sacrifice the future to win a single election.


By the way, there's an interesting poll out which shows that 33% of Republicans want a new candidate to jump into the race. This is down from 68% only two months ago. I think the field is set.

Should a political party’s nominee always be supported? Generally, the answer is yes. A political party is a collection of people whose views overlap enough to give them a common interest in getting each other elected. To that end, they form a party with the implicit agreement that they will compete with each other to represent the party and then will support the nominee regardless of the outcome of the competition. Thus, the nominee should be supported. But there is an exception.

This exception arises when (1) the nominee’s views are well outside the range of common interests which hold the party together, and (2) there is a legitimate belief that supporting this nominee will harm the long term goals of the party.

On the first point, Reagan famously said that he could support anyone with whom he agreed on 80% of the issues. Reagan was making the point that it is foolish and counterproductive to require 100% agreement with a nominee before you can support them. Indeed, 100% agreement is probably impossible. Hence, this is the reason moderates should support conservatives and conservatives should support moderates and libertarians should support social conservatives and vice versa.

But Reagan’s point also contains the implicit understanding that at some point (possibly below 80% using Reagan’s formula) there is no obligation to support the nominee. Why would this be? For that, we need to look at the question of harm.

Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to ensure their products remain consistent. They want to make sure you find the exact same amount in each cereal box, that every batch of Mac and Cheese tastes the same, that every sock has the same number of stitches, and that every Acura uses only Acura parts. Why? Because having a consistent level of quality affects how people perceive their brands. People want to know exactly what they are getting when they make a purchase and branding achieves that -- whereas failing to maintain that consistency damages the brand because people will no longer know what to expect from their purchase.

Whether we like the idea or not, a political party is nothing more than a company, and its product or brand is an ideological range. Choosing a nominee from outside that range blurs the identity of the party and damages its brand.

How? For one thing, this will alienate supporters. Supporters expect nominees to be within the ideological range. When they aren’t, the party has violated the contract under which it claims a right to the individual’s support. It is the equivalent of McDonalds selling you a Big Mac container but including a ham sandwich rather than a burger. This is a violation of trust.

Moreover, this confuses voters. When a person represents a party or ideology, their views become associated with that party or ideology and their successes/failures taint the ideology. In other words, the nominee redefines how the public views conservatism or liberalism, and their meanings change. Hence, conservatism and Republicanism came to be associated with Nixon’s views in 1968, Reagan’s views in 1980, and Bush Jr.’s views in 2000 -- I exclude Bush Sr. because he claimed to be a moderate. Liberalism, by comparison, came to be associated with FDR, LBJ, Carter, and now Obama. Clinton called himself a moderate.

Prior to LBJ, the majority political view of the nation was FDR-liberalism. This could have continued indefinitely, except LBJ disgraced liberalism. His errors in Vietnam and his monstrous Great Society wiped out the Democratic party in the South and set the stage for a conservative resurgence. Jimmy Carter finished liberalism off by proving that Democrats are reckless spenders, incompetent managers of the economy, and militarily inept and cowardly. This set the stage for Reagan.

Reagan’s success revived conservatism while also redefining it back to its roots -- away from the big-government conservatism of the Nixon years. By the time Reagan left office, conservatism had become the natural ideology of the country and 60% of the public believed it.

This could have lasted for generations, except along came George Bush Jr. He wrapped himself in the conservative label and set about running a big government, civil-liberties-crushing, crony-capitalism, foreign-adventuring administration which so thoroughly discredited conservatism that in 2008, the voters were more radically liberal and more willing to accept liberalism than they had been at any time since LBJ. The ONLY THING THAT SAVED CONSERVATISM was the election of Barack Obama. If Obama hadn’t proven to be such a disaster, conservatism would be dead today. But Obama was a disaster and he caused a massive backlash which took the form of the Tea Party.

The lesson here is simple.

Ideologies get defined by their leaders and they get punished for the sins of their leaders. If a nominee calls himself conservative but acts like a liberal, the public doesn’t blame liberalism for his crimes and failures, it blames conservatism even if that person never once acted like a true conservative. Thus, Bush and Nixon, neither of whom could be called conservatives, discredited conservatism. LBJ/Carter/Obama, each of who were progressives and not liberals, discredited liberalism. And in each case, the only thing to save conservatism/liberalism was pure luck that someone worse came along to discredit the other side. If Moderate Joe Democrat had come along after George Bush Jr., we could well be looking at an America that views liberalism as the natural order of things and sees conservatism as meaning reckless spending, bad economic management, and cronyism.

Moreover, the nominee need not even be as disastrous as a Bush/Obama to harm the ideology. The goal of politics is to effect long term change in the country. That is simply not possible when the person representing your ideology holds views that are inconsistent with the ideology. This muddies the ideological waters and confuses the differences between the parties. In other words, when the Republicans and the Democrats both push the same solutions to the same issues, voters will come to believe there is no difference, and they will either stop voting or they will pick the party that promises them the most loot -- advantage Democrats.

This is what happens when you pick someone who is far outside the acceptable ideological range for the party or who happens to be insane. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if Newt or Santorum or Romney or Paul are so far outside the bounds that you should not support them, but ask yourself: “how bad would it be for the party, for my beliefs, and for the country if conservatism came to be defined in the way ____ sees it?”

Winning elections is important, but you don’t want to sacrifice the future to win a single election.


By the way, there's an interesting poll out which shows that 33% of Republicans want a new candidate to jump into the race. This is down from 68% only two months ago. I think the field is set.

Should All Nominees Be Supported?

View Detail

The “Right” Tax Hikes

The “Right” Tax Hikes

Before Turkey Day, Pat Toomey and Jeb Hensarling were taking a lot of heat for a tax proposal they made as part of their supercommittee work. Let’s talk about why their proposal actually is something conservatives should adopt. The proposal in question involves either capping or eliminating both the state tax deduction and the home interest deduction. Here’s why you should support this.

The arguments against this are that it would constitute a broad-based tax increase. In other words, most taxpayers would see their taxes go up as a result of this. And if you phase this out above a certain income, then you are playing into the Democrats’ class warfare arguments. Also, eliminating the home mortgage deduction would hurt the home industry by eliminating the incentive for people to buy homes, which conservatives see as promoting personal financial responsibility.

The MSM argument for this is that eliminating these deductions would result in a pretty massive increase in tax revenues, and something on this scale will be needed to reduce the deficit or pay off the debt.

Sounds like a loser, right? Well, not so fast. Consider these points.

● As a conservative, the idea of helping a particular industry through the tax code should be anathema to us. We should not be picking winners and losers no matter how much we like particular industries. And we should not look favorably upon social engineering.

● The complaint that this would broadly raise taxes can be offset by lowering rates as part of the agreement. Some people would end up paying more and some would pay less, but overall lower, flatter rates without distorting deductions should always be the conservative goal.

● The class warfare point doesn’t really support the idea of leaving the current system in place either. Instead, it argues against phasing out the deduction for the rich. But if we eliminate these deductions entirely or simply cap them at some amount, then everyone is treated equally and there is no support for class warfare.

● And in favor of capping these deductions, if not eliminating them entirely, consider this. The purpose of the home mortgage deduction is to encourage home ownership because that’s fiscally responsible, but does this argument still make sense when we are talking about people who are buying million dollar homes? Presumably, they don’t need the government trying to tell them where it’s best to put their money.

Those are the preliminaries. Now it gets interesting. See, it turns out that both the state tax deduction and the home mortgage deduction disproportionately benefit liberals and support liberalism.

By allowing state taxes to be deducted, lower tax states are essentially subsidizing higher tax states and making higher taxes more palatable. In other words, through the state tax deduction, the federal government will effectively pick up about a third of the tax burden imposed by the states. Thus, if State A taxes income at 6% and State B taxes income at 12%, the federal government gives State A a hidden 2% subsidy and State B a hidden 4% subsidy by reducing the federal taxes it demands from the taxpayers of those states. Because federal spending is a zero sum game, meaning it is finite, that extra 2% is basically money transferred from other states to State B, i.e. lower tax states are subsidizing higher tax states.

Why should a responsible state like Texas be forced to subsidize an irresponsible state like New York or California? If New Yorkers want to pay 12%, let them pay 12%, don’t let them pay only 8% with tax money from Texas going to make up the other 4%. Make these liberal states experience the full consequences of their stupid policies!

And make no mistake, liberal states are the ones benefiting from this.

Moreover, “the rich” who benefit the most from this deduction and the home mortgage deduction are disproportionately supporters of liberals. In fact, according to Michael Barone, voters in high-tax, high-income states overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Nationally, those with incomes over $200,000 voted for Obama by 6% more than voters below $200,000. And in the high-income-tax states, Obama blew McCain away: Connecticut (55%), New York (56%), New Jersey (52%), Maryland (55%), Illinois (54%), California (57%).

Why should a middle class worker in Kentucky be forced to send tax dollars to Washington so that Washington can support the spending habits of rich liberals and rich liberal states?

It’s time to eliminate these deductions or cap them at a low level which doesn’t subsidize liberal states.

Toomey and Hensarling are right in this. Eliminating these deductions is solid conservative economics and philosophy and it’s solid conservative politics.

Before Turkey Day, Pat Toomey and Jeb Hensarling were taking a lot of heat for a tax proposal they made as part of their supercommittee work. Let’s talk about why their proposal actually is something conservatives should adopt. The proposal in question involves either capping or eliminating both the state tax deduction and the home interest deduction. Here’s why you should support this.

The arguments against this are that it would constitute a broad-based tax increase. In other words, most taxpayers would see their taxes go up as a result of this. And if you phase this out above a certain income, then you are playing into the Democrats’ class warfare arguments. Also, eliminating the home mortgage deduction would hurt the home industry by eliminating the incentive for people to buy homes, which conservatives see as promoting personal financial responsibility.

The MSM argument for this is that eliminating these deductions would result in a pretty massive increase in tax revenues, and something on this scale will be needed to reduce the deficit or pay off the debt.

Sounds like a loser, right? Well, not so fast. Consider these points.

● As a conservative, the idea of helping a particular industry through the tax code should be anathema to us. We should not be picking winners and losers no matter how much we like particular industries. And we should not look favorably upon social engineering.

● The complaint that this would broadly raise taxes can be offset by lowering rates as part of the agreement. Some people would end up paying more and some would pay less, but overall lower, flatter rates without distorting deductions should always be the conservative goal.

● The class warfare point doesn’t really support the idea of leaving the current system in place either. Instead, it argues against phasing out the deduction for the rich. But if we eliminate these deductions entirely or simply cap them at some amount, then everyone is treated equally and there is no support for class warfare.

● And in favor of capping these deductions, if not eliminating them entirely, consider this. The purpose of the home mortgage deduction is to encourage home ownership because that’s fiscally responsible, but does this argument still make sense when we are talking about people who are buying million dollar homes? Presumably, they don’t need the government trying to tell them where it’s best to put their money.

Those are the preliminaries. Now it gets interesting. See, it turns out that both the state tax deduction and the home mortgage deduction disproportionately benefit liberals and support liberalism.

By allowing state taxes to be deducted, lower tax states are essentially subsidizing higher tax states and making higher taxes more palatable. In other words, through the state tax deduction, the federal government will effectively pick up about a third of the tax burden imposed by the states. Thus, if State A taxes income at 6% and State B taxes income at 12%, the federal government gives State A a hidden 2% subsidy and State B a hidden 4% subsidy by reducing the federal taxes it demands from the taxpayers of those states. Because federal spending is a zero sum game, meaning it is finite, that extra 2% is basically money transferred from other states to State B, i.e. lower tax states are subsidizing higher tax states.

Why should a responsible state like Texas be forced to subsidize an irresponsible state like New York or California? If New Yorkers want to pay 12%, let them pay 12%, don’t let them pay only 8% with tax money from Texas going to make up the other 4%. Make these liberal states experience the full consequences of their stupid policies!

And make no mistake, liberal states are the ones benefiting from this.

Moreover, “the rich” who benefit the most from this deduction and the home mortgage deduction are disproportionately supporters of liberals. In fact, according to Michael Barone, voters in high-tax, high-income states overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Nationally, those with incomes over $200,000 voted for Obama by 6% more than voters below $200,000. And in the high-income-tax states, Obama blew McCain away: Connecticut (55%), New York (56%), New Jersey (52%), Maryland (55%), Illinois (54%), California (57%).

Why should a middle class worker in Kentucky be forced to send tax dollars to Washington so that Washington can support the spending habits of rich liberals and rich liberal states?

It’s time to eliminate these deductions or cap them at a low level which doesn’t subsidize liberal states.

Toomey and Hensarling are right in this. Eliminating these deductions is solid conservative economics and philosophy and it’s solid conservative politics.

The “Right” Tax Hikes

View Detail