No on Prop 37 - Mandatory Food Labeling

Prop 37 would require mandatory labeling to show the percent content of food products grown from genetically modified (GM) seeds.  Specifically, Prop 37 targets the modern biotech process of precise gene splicing, rather than the earlier and more haphazard method of gene modification, the crossbreeding of hybrids.

Proponents want us to vote yes on 37 because (quote) - "We have a right to know what is in our food". I have some problems with that feel-good campaign slogan. First, the desire for information is definitely not a "right", because no one has a legitimate right to force other people to do anything for them.  Second, the use of the term "our food" is deceptive because the mandatory labeling applies to the food while it still belongs to the food companies. They may choose to sell us food if profitable, but they are under no obligation to feed anyone.

So a more honest version of the pro-37 campaign slogan would be: We have a desire to force food companies to tell us how their food was grown, to help us decide if we want to buy it. That's better, but I still have a problem with the use of the word "we"?  To whom does that refer? It certainly is not millions of consumers, because if they really were demanding GM labeling, natural market forces of profit and competition would have supplied it to them without the need for a law. Rather, it is the special interest groups supporting Prop 37 who want consumers to be aware of, and be alarmed about, GM content.

Who are these GM alarmist proponents and what are their motivations? They are: organic food companies, litigation attorneys, and environmental organizations. For organic food companies, they stand to possibly double their market share if they can get more people to fear and avoid GM food, since organic food is labeled GM-free. For litigation attorneys, they expect a bonanza of lucrative shake-down lawsuits by attacking food companies for alleged non-compliance with the new labeling law. Higher food prices will result.

As for environmental organizations, they routinely make horrendous unfounded claims about GM food and many other chemicals in order to boost their fear-driven funding stream. Their ultimate goal is nothing less than a world-wide forced ban of GM seeds, just like they have promoted needless and harmful bans of numerous other chemicals and technologies. Their antics will result in less food, more expensive food, more hunger for the world's poor, and ultimately fewer people on planet earth. That fits environmentalist long term goals perfectly.

GM seeds are a free-market development, not a government secret birth-control plot, as some claim. GM food, currently estimated at 70% of all groceries, has benefitted us with more food at lower cost, using less land, fewer herbicides, and reduced pesticides,. GM food has been consumed by millions of people over the last two decades without harm, environmentalist lies to the contrary. Ironically, GM technology is actually more safe and far better for the environment than all earlier methods, including organic. Please don't assist Big Green in its selfish effort to ban this great new technology; vote no on Prop 37.

Gay Marriage

I am dismayed that so many Republican candidates believe it is the duty of government to deny gays the right to marry. They call it “defending” marriage, as if gay marriage were somehow a threat to anyone. Are they afraid we are all going to turn gay? Or maybe it is just mean-spirited; they wish to make gays as miserable as possible.

The fact is that gays are going to continue to marry each other and live together, with or without state approval. Laws like California Proposition 8, to “define” marriage as between a man and a woman, do not affect the actual practice of gay marriage, but they do allow the state to discriminate against gays in the area of marital privilege, through laws governing such things as inheritance, divorce, community property, child custody, visitation rights, taxes, and benefits.

It is interesting that currently over sixty percent of major corporations provide employee benefits to same-sex partners, yet only five states plus D.C. recognize gay marriage. This is a disgrace, but it is not surprising. Government has a long history of discriminating against its own people. There was a time, for example, when 38 states banned inter-racial marriage.

Government has the obligation to treat all people equally. That comes from the 14th Amendment of the federal constitution, which says states may not deny any person the equal protection of the law. Perhaps a future Supreme Court ruling will strike down state laws which currently discriminate against gays.

Gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights as everyone else, including the right to form a legal contract commonly known as marriage. Moralists who believe they must defend the institution of marriage by discriminating against gays have their morals on backwards.

Legalize Marijuana

I have never used marijuana and don’t even know anyone who does. So how can I be so sure it is safe to make marijuana legal? The answer is simple. Legalizing marijuana has nothing to do with how safe or how harmful it may be. Lots of substances are harmful (like cyanide, and arsenic), yet BATF and DEA SWAT teams are not breaking down doors in the night looking for them.

If we are concerned that people may harm themselves with marijuana, why are we harming them even more with prison. We have over half a million people in prison for violating non-violent drug laws. Prison is more harmful than marijuana.

Is the threat of prison supposed to prevent drug use? If so, it is not working. We have about 40 million people in the U. S. who are occasional users of illegal drugs. That is more people than when President Nixon launched the federal war on drugs in 1972. Our last two presidents admit to trying marijuana. Do we really want all these people in prison? The U. S. already leads the world in incarceration rate.

If marijuana were legal, would it be more of a problem? Well, alcohol was more of a problem during prohibition than it ever has been since, so it seems logical that drugs would be less of a problem if they were legal. For one thing, we would not have pushers on campus like we do now. For another, terrorists would not be funding their activities with illegal drug money like they do now. For another, we would not have so much crime and gang violence like we do now.

Do we need drug laws to protect our children? Actually, teens report that marijuana is more accessible than alcohol and cigarettes. The reason is simple: pushers don’t ask for ID. It seems reasonable that if we treat marijuana like alcohol and cigarettes, marijuana will be less accessible to teens.

Do we need drug laws because marijuana is immoral? It seems dangerous to me to let the government decide morality, because there is no end to it. Gambling, pornography, homosexuality, being absent from church on Sunday – all these things have been illegal in the past because of government’s moral judgment. Here is my moral judgment: leave your neighbor alone as long as he is not hurting anybody but himself.

So why do we have drug laws anyway? One reason comes to mind: the ever-expanding power and authority of the federal government. It is seen in the merciless pursuit of sick and dieing medical marijuana patients in California by the federal DEA, even after our state legalized medical marijuana. It is seen in the asset forfeiture laws which allow the government to confiscate your property without due process of law. It is seen in the ban on growing hemp. The war on drugs has become an excuse to expand government power.

Most of the points I have made here would apply not just to marijuana but to all illegal drugs. However, the voting public is not ready to consider legalizing all drugs. So let’s take them one at a time. Marijuana, being the least harmful and the most medically useful, is the logical place to start.

Recommended reading: “Why our Drug Laws Have Failed and what we can do about it”, book by Judge James P. Gray.

Stop Bashing Immigrants

Conservative talk radio and political campaign ads are full of concern these days about how immigrants are taking our jobs, burdening our welfare state, and increasing crime. Employers of illegal workers are vilified. There are even plans for building a fence at the Mexican border.

Fortunately, none of the complaints against immigrants are valid. Here are some arguments to counter the immigrant bashers.

Immigrants cause unemployment? No, because workers are also consumers, so population expansion can never create unemployment. Furthermore, Cato has shown that cities with the most immigrants have the lowest unemployment.

Immigrants send money out of country? Yes, but all that money eventually comes back. A dollar is a claim against the U.S. economy, and it would be foolish to forfeit that claim.

Immigrants are over-represented in the prison population? Not when you adjust for age, and subtract those detained for simply being illegal.

Immigrants burden the welfare state? Well, everyone does, but immigrants less so because they tend to be younger and require less healthcare. And don’t forget, immigrants pay taxes too.

“My ancestors came here legally!” Yes, that’s because there were no quota limits before 1924.

“Immigrants don’t assimilate!” I’ll bet they were saying that about your ancestors one hundred or more years ago.

Having countered some of the negative claims about immigration, what about the benefits? The primary benefit is that immigration creates wealth in the same way that free trade creates wealth. Immigration is a form of international trade in labor. The single best thing America can do for other countries is not foreign aid; it is to allow free trade in goods and services, labor and capital.

In addition to economic arguments, there are human arguments as well. People have a right to migrate; it is called freedom of movement. Think of the Berlin Wall and the people in the captive countries of Eastern Europe. Migration is an important check on tyranny. Why is keeping people out any different from keeping people in?

Our immigration laws are a bungling attempt at economic and cultural central planning. Current law, existing since 1968, places an annual ceiling on legal immigrant visas of 20,000 per country of origin. What arrogance that our lawmakers would think they know how many immigrants our country would need, even into the future!

What to do about illegal immigration? I suggest we simply repeal the visa limits. That is the situation we had before 1924, when America stood for freedom. Illegal immigration will dry up as legal immigration expands. Total immigration might increase, but that might be a good thing. Bad law has been the problem all along, and once again, freedom is the answer.

Outsourcing Jobs

We are hearing lately about job loss due to "greedy" U.S. corporations contracting for IT services with workers in India at low wage rates. John Kerry has stated "… I want to repeal every tax break and loophole that rewards any Benedict Arnold CEO .. for shipping American jobs overseas". However, Bush chief economist Gregory Mankiw calls outsourcing "… probably a plus for the economy."

California joint legislative hearings in early 2004 reviewed possible options for dealing with this latest perceived crisis. One action considered was to deny state contracts to those companies which outsource jobs to foreign lands. It is clear that the California Legislature holds the interests of California taxpayers in very low priority.

The two questions I first would ask are, - Is this a real problem? If so, what did government do to cause the problem? My answer to both questions is - it is only a problem to the extent that government is causing the problem.

In my view, market trends based on freedom of choice and self interest are never a problem. Cheap foreign labor boosts American prosperity, whether the labor comes here (immigration), or whether the jobs go there (outsourcing). Free trade benefits both us and our foreign partners, whether the trade is in goods, services, labor, or capital.

Expect the outcry about outsourcing to evaporate once job creation recovers. Meanwhile, state government could (but won't) help, by ending some of the policies that reduce the competitive advantage of our California workforce; policies such as - minimum wage laws, payroll taxes, worker's comp, mandated unemployment insurance, work practice regulations, environmental regulations, and healthcare coverage mandates.

Technology and capital spending have made U.S. workers among the most productive, and therefore the best paid, workers in the world; misguided government attempts to forcibly "help" workers serves only to create unemployment and to drive jobs abroad.

Education

Public school costs per student are now about twice that of private schools. Charter schools help supply needed competition, but true reform will begin when students pay some tuition directly to the public school of their choice. I do not support vouchers, tax credits, or expanded school funding. I do support charter schools, and I also advocate significant reforms to introduce competition and other market forces, as the only way to make the system responsive to customer needs. Specific steps in that path are:

(1) Repeal compulsory education laws; children are not the property of the state.

(2) Allow students to choose any public school.

(3) Allow schools to reject or expel any student for any reason;

(4) Allow schools to charge student tuition, in amount to be determined by each school in accordance with entrance demand, with the resulting funds to go directly to that school.

I also advocate reforms that require breaking the grip of the teacher unions. They are:

(5) Eliminate teacher tenure regulations and credential requirements, but simply require schools to publish teacher qualifications.

(6) Empower principals to hire and fire teachers at will, and to determine teacher pay based on such things as merit, workload, and supply/demand considerations.

With regard to the tendency toward legislative micromanagement, I would

(7) eliminate all legislative control of curriculum and methodology.

In summary, I would give educators the freedom to educate, and I would give them market-based incentives to be rewarded for success, punished for failure.