2020 Election---How I Voted and Why

     First of all, I voted Libertarian Party. That is because, after reading the party platforms of the four largest parties (Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian), I find that the Libertarian Party platform moves us in the direction of justice and prosperity significantly more than the other platforms. However, at least in 2020, Libertarian Party candidates are not available for many positions.

     Secondly, I voted for some select Republicans. This in spite of the fact that, although there may be language in the Republican platform that resembles some language in the Libertarian platform, once elected, Republicans in general tend to be under-performers with regards to promoting justice and prosperity. The exception is the Republican Liberty Caucus. RLC candidates can be trusted to vote in the direction of justice and prosperity on a wide range of issues. For this reason, I consulted the Arizona Republican Liberty Caucus Liberty Index 2020 ranking for candidates that I could vote for. I voted for candidates that got a score of 90% or higher on the Liberty Index. I won't explain here the workings of the Liberty Index or why I think it's such a useful tool. Please follow the link above and decide for yourself. I think I can prove that the Liberty Index does indeed promote justice and prosperity, but that is off the topic of this post.

     I also voted for a non-Libertarian if I judged that one candidate was a significantly greater threat to justice and prosperity than the other.

". . . without his consent having even been asked a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist; a government that forces him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights, under peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further, that, if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either kill others, or be killed himself. Because, to save his own life in battle, a man takes the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing. Neither in contests with the ballot---which is a mere substitute for a bullet---because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own natural rights, as a stake against those of others, to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that, in an exigency into which he had been forced by others, and in which no other means of self-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him." ~Lysander Spooner, "On Voting," No Treason No.VI: The Constitution of No Authority, 1870

I call the above the "Lysander Spooner Proviso." However, it can't be applied if both duopoly candidates are equally undesirable.

     There were many positions that couldn't be informed by the above criteria. I've conducted random internet searches for further information, but in some cases, where the information available does not help to decide which candidate is more likely to promote justice and prosperity, I decided not to vote one way or the other ("Abstain").

President and Vice-President---Jo Jorgensen and Spike Cohen

Libertarian Party candidates

U.S. Senator---Martha McSally

Though generally not liked by Libertarians for good reason, the alternative (Mark Kelly) seems even worse, so I invoke the Lysander Spooner Proviso.

U.S. Representative---Abstain

Although Tom O'Halleran (D) ignores his constituents (and me in particular), I was equally disenchanted with Tiffany Shedd (R)'s bordertarian pro-War on Drugs stance, so I abstained.

State Senator, LD11---Abstain

The incumbent, Vince Leach (R), only got a 75 in the Liberty Index, and the challenger is a Democrat, so I abstained.

State Representatives, LD11---Bret Roberts and Mark Finchem

Bret Roberts got a 100 on the Liberty Index and Mark Finchem got a 90. Nice going!

Corporation Commissioners---Abstain

The reason I don't vote for corporation commissioners is that I don't see the Arizona Corporation Commission as something that promotes justice and prosperity. In fact, I'd like to see it abolished. Perhaps there is a way that a corporation commissioner could move us in the direction of justice and prosperity, but I've not been able to see it. Suggestions welcome!

County Supervisor, District 4---Abstain

The Pinal County Libertarian Party website offers no advice on which supervisorial candidates to vote for. Most of them are running unopposed anyway. I've not been able to figure out how to construct a scorecard for county supervisors.

County Assessor---Abstain

Douglas Wolfe running unopposed

County Attorney---Abstain

Kent Volkmer, unopposed. Due to state law, the more people that vote for the county attorney, the harder it will be for third parties to get county-level recognition.

County Recorder---Abstain

Virginia Ross, unopposed.

County School Superintendent---Abstain

Jill Broussard, unopposed.

County Sheriff---Mark Lamb

Mark Lamb is unopposed and bad on the War on Drugs and immigration, but I voted for him as symbolic support for his stance on the hysteria-induced COVID-19 proclamations of Gov. Ducey.

County Treasurer---Abstain

Michael McCord, unopposed.

Shall the Following Justices be Retained?

Robert Brutinel, Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. Abstain. Couldn't find any info to help me make a decision.

Andrew Gould, Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. Yes. Described in the iVoterGuide as a "proven originalist."

John Lopez IV, Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. Yes. Described in the iVoterGuide as a "proven originalist."

Karl Eppich, Judge of the Court of Appeals, Division II. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Garye Vasquez, Judge of the Court of Appeals, Division II. No. The only info relevant to his judicial stance was that in 2008, he wrote a decision in a case concerning provision of state funds to private schools in which he stated:

"Only by ignoring the plain text of the Arizona Constitution prohibiting state aid to private schools could we find the aid represented by the payment of tuition fees to such schools in this case constitutional."

The legislation provided $2.5 million in state tax vouchers to the parents of former foster children who have been adopted, and $2.5 million for disabled children. I think that 1) a voucher system would move us at least a little bit in the direction of justice and prosperity, and 2) the "state aid" that was being withheld was originally money stolen from taxpayers. Granted that Vasquez's decision was correct according to the letter of the law, it was dubious from a justice pov, so I don't want to retain him.

Patrick Gard, Judge of the Superior Court, Div. 31. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Joseph R. Georgini, Judge of the Superior Court, Div. 20. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Jason R. Holmberg, Judge of the Superior Court, Div. 25. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Stephen F. McCarville , Judge of the Superior Court, Div. 17. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Christopher J. O'Neill, Judge of the Superior Court, Div. 29. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Robert Olson, Judge of the Superior Court, Div. 30. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Kelly Harrington, Chuck Wright, School Board Members. Abstain. Couldn't find any info.

Proposition 207 (partial liberalization of marijuana laws). Yes. According to the U.S. Libertarian Party platform, ". . . we favor the repeal of all laws creating 'crimes' without victims, such as . . . the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes . . . "

Proposition 208 (tax the rich for education). No. According to the U.S. Libertarian Party platform, ". . . We support any initiative to reduce or abolish any tax, and oppose any increase on any tax for any reason."

Proposition 451 (issuing of bonds by Toltec Elementary School District). No. Same reason as Proposition 208, plus I'm not a fan of public education in particular.

Why Shouldn't Low-Risk People Get the Virus?

     In news dated June 24, 2020:

"The state's top health official says the key to slowing the spread of COVID-19 could be finding a way to reach the people who believe they're the least likely to get infected of suffer ill effects.
     Dr. Cara Christ said the biggest group of positive  test results is now among those age 20 through 44.
     'They're likely not the ones who are going to have the outcomes and the risk factors from COVID-19,' she told Capitol News Services.
     'But we need everybody to keep in mind that all of us have connections to loved ones and family members that all of us have connections to loved ones and family members that are high risk or people out in the community,' Christ said. 'And that's what we're trying to protect by containing the spread.'
     The trick now, she said, is crafting a message that is designed with that audience in mind.
     "We do want to see these numbers go down and we want to see the percent positivity go down,' Christ said.
     That, however, means convincing individuals to act safely---including those who may believe that even if they don't think they're invincible that contracting the virus won't really hurt them. And that, Christ said, comes back to the messages of physically distancing and wearing a mask while out in public when staying six feet from others is impossible.
     That message, however, is not getting across to those in the 20-to-44-year old demographic, she said, as evidenced by the high number of people in that age group who are testing positive for the virus---and as shown by videos of people crowding bars without masks.
     These are the people who are less likely to suffer severe adverse effects. But they're clearly coming down with---and probably transmitting---the disease.
     Consider: Of more than 43,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far, more than 46 percent fall into that age group.
     But they make up less than a third of the population.
     Yet, they're not dying at the same rate of the disease, accounting for just 67 of the more than 1,300 deaths.
     Christ said exhortations for these people to protect themselves apparently does not work. So that, she said, requires a change in the message.
     'We need everybody to keep in mind that all of us have connections to loved ones and family members that are high risk, or people out in the community,' she said.
     'We need everyone to think about, "You may not feel sick, you may not think that you've been infected,"' Christ said. And a lot of people appear symptomatic.
     'So it's really important that if you are going to be within six feet of somebody you have got to wear that mask,' she said.

Let's examine the assumptions behind Dr. Christ's statements.   

Can wearing masks and physical distancing have any effect on the spread of the virus?
Theoretically, wearing masks and physical distancing could slow down the virus if implemented at a certain stage of the spread of the virus. However, there is no way of knowing exactly what stage one is at during the spread of the virus---such a determination can only be made ex post. Therefore, it can't be stated with certainty that wearing masks and social distancing have any effect on the spread of the virus.

Slowing down the spread of COVID-19 is a desirable thing. 
There are only two reasons commonly given for wanting to slow the spread of the virus:
1) To avoid overwhelming medical facilities. When it's said that medical facilities, the capacity of which has been determined by the state department of health of which Dr. Christ is the head, could be overwhelmed, they are talking about indoor ICU beds. There is nothing wrong with treating patients in field hospitals which, being outside, would lessen the danger of the spread of the virus.
2) To give researchers time to develop a vaccine. Unfortunately, vaccines against respiratory diseases have not historically been all that effective. They also require a long time to develop. Meanwhile, COVID viruses mutate rapidly which limits a vaccine's period of usefulness.
     Note that the claim is not made that slowing down the spread of COVID-19 will result in fewer deaths. If there is no vaccine, anyone who hasn't already contracted the disease will be a target for the virus. The only thing that could possibly protect uninfected people in the long run would be herd immunity. But slowing down the spread of the virus retards the formation of herd immunity.

Getting everyone to wear masks and physically distance will protect high-risk people.
It would if it could be implemented at exactly the right time (which can't be known), and if everyone went along with it. However, wouldn't it be more effective to concentrate on protecting the high-risk people instead of wasting resources on implementing measures that include low-risk people?

I've yet to hear a persuasive argument that there are any benefits from measures that keep low-risk people from getting the virus.

The Ten Demands

     I don't know about you, but being an oldster, I tend to look on the rioting antifa youth with a bit of a jaundiced eye. However, in addition to being a person of a certain age, I'm also a propertarian, so my take on political philosophy is not quite in synch with that of the Democrats and Republicans of my demographic. Nevertheless, it was with a certain amount of skepticism that, when I first came across a reference to the "Ten Demands," I clicked through.

     Demand #1: "Defund the police and reallocate resources to impacted communities"

     If defunding the police means letting the taxpayers spend their taxes as they wish, then I'd be all for "defunding." There are probably some things that the police do that some people would be willing to pay for, but this could be done in a market for police services.

     However, if defunding the police entails continued violent appropriation of resources (taxation) to be re-distributed to various minoritarian interest groups, I'd be against that, so based on the wording of the Demand and subject to the proviso that it could be re-written in a more just form, I'd say disagree.

     Demand #2: "Demilitarize the police"

     Agree. This demand speaks to a troubling trend in the government monopoly police forces. "Militarization" seems to be connected with crowd control and other functions of an oppressive state. If we are to have government police, let the police forces be small and weak!

     Demand #3: "Eliminate discriminatory policing, prosecution, and sentencing"

     Agree, but the problem with this demand is that, even if you could wave a magic wand, and the criminal justice system were somehow reformed in a way that it could be determined that Afro-Americans were treated the same as all other ethnic groups, the system itself still has built-in injustice.       Criminal justice is based on the premise that a "criminal" can be prosecuted for violating the criminal law because the infraction constitutes a violation of the "rights" of the state or the "people" collectively. I won't go into why I think this theory is wrong, but just note that we have a model for a just legal system in tort law. In tort law, there must be a specific victim and a specific perpetrator (tortfeasor), and the victim must be able to show that he or she suffered tangible damages at the hands of the tortfeasor. Most criminal laws would not pass such a high bar.

     Demand #4: "Institute complete law enforcement transparency and accountability"

     Agree, but as the demand is somewhat vague, I wonder how it would be met.

     I'll guess that it is founded in the belief that a public entity, funded by public resources as it is, should be controlled or managed by the public. The problem is, who is the public? In a democracy, that can mean that control shifts when a new interest group wins an election. It could theoretically mean that if 51% of the voters didn't want "transparency and accountability," a demand to the contrary would be un-democratic.

     Contrast the confusion about who can do what with public security with the idea of private (propertarian) security. A propertarian security market would evolve in response to consumer demand. The functions of the police might indeed be divided among various specialists, i.e., parking enforcers, social workers, bail bondsmen, security guards, bounty hunters, neighborhood watch, detective agencies, insurance investigators, etc. There might only be a small number of armed responders to violent violations of property rights, perhaps backed up by trained voluntary citizens' posses.

     Demand #5: "Independently investigate all police crimes and abuses of power"

     Agree. It seems obvious that an organization whose member(s) are accused of malfeasance should not be in charge of the investigation!

     Demand #6: "Install community representation, oversight, and safety measures"

     Disagree. The institution of these measures in the existing criminal justice system would only lead to more bureaucratization and likely to regulatory capture in an already unresponsive and irresponsible system.

     Meanwhile, a propertarian legal system's adherence to legal norms is promoted by 1) continued voluntary patronization of for-profit entities by satisfied customers, and 2) citizen participation in non-profit voluntary organizations that perform certain functions in the legal system.

     Demand #7: "End strategic counter-protest violence"

     How do people in a propertarian society protest? If there were no "public property," protesters could nevertheless gather on any property whose owner(s) agreed to the protest event. "Counter-protesters" could only appear by consent of these owners, but a contract could be made between protesters and property owners that no counter-protesters would be allowed at the protest event.

     Meanwhile, who may or may not protest on "public property" is a complex question decided by politicians who carefully weigh their decisions' effects on their re-election chances.

     Demand #8: "Apologize and provide reparations"

     Disagree, with the caveat that I might agree if the wording were more specific.

     As for apologizing, it seems meaningless unless a specific rights-violator apologizes to his or her victim. A blanket "white-to-black" apology, if that's what's being demanded, would be a fallacy of collective thinking. One is supposed to be responsible for one's own actions, not the actions of other people.

     The same principle applies to reparations for slavery. In the case of the enslavement of a certain person A by person B, person A should have a claim against person B. However, persons C, D, E, etc. have no grounds for a claim against B merely on the basis of ethnic affiliation with A.

    Along these lines, Walter Block has made a seemingly valid propertarian argument for reparations, provided that just legal principles are followed. According to Block, reparations can be just if specific descendants of a victim of slavery can demonstrate a certain relationship to a certain slave-owner's property.

     I would have to agree with a proposal for reparations if it were worded in conformity with Block's argument.

     Demand #9: "End the War on Drugs"

     Agree. As a propertarian, I think it a true statement that human beings are self-owners. If one is a self-owner, then one has the right to take drugs. Furthermore, drug sellers have the right to sell drugs to drug buyers. The War on Drugs is therefore, in its most simplest terms, unjust.

     Demand #10: "End carceral punishment"

     Agree. In a propertarian society, there would be no taxes, and therefore no resources for incarcerating large numbers of people. Perhaps there would be jails where tortfeasors would be temporarily incarcerated during their trials, but long term incarceration---who would pay for that? And can incarceration be justified? I think not.

     Sentencing should be based on one of two basic principles: retribution or restitution. In the latter case, a tortfeasor could be justly enslaved to the extent necessary (and limited by proportionality) to pay back the victim for the tangible damages inflicted. While enslavement might (but might not) include living in a secure facility, the expenses should be paid out of the tortfeasor's resources, and not by a taxpayer who had no relationship to the tort.

                                                                              ***

    To my surprise, I agreed outright with six of the Demands, disagreed with three, and could not decide on one because it raised the question of who is entitled to control public property, which I claim is not resolvable by logical analysis and therefore no conclusion can be justified.

     In all cases, justice could be enhanced to a greater or lesser degree by moving the legal system in a propertarian direction.

People Are Not Property (?)

     Recently, protesters in the U.S. have justified the destruction of property on the grounds that such activity has no moral implications. Property can always be replaced; people can't. There are moral (justice) rules that should be applied to people, but these same rules should not be applied to property.

     The legal category "property" is based on the concept of ownership. Ownership can be attributed to any human action that implies control over a rivalrous entity. A human body is certainly a rivalrous entity, meaning that only one person can exert control over a human body (or any of its aspects that are conceptualizable as discrete constituents of the bundle of property rights) at a time. Therefore, human bodies may be analyzed according to the same principles as scarce physical objects or other rivalrous entities.

     Is ownership a moral category? According to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's deduction based in the ethics of argumentation, it would be illogical to argue that A. human beings are not self-owners, and B. that human beings have no right to own property.

     According to my own argument (in the process of being constructed), a person who wanted to argue that human beings are not self-owners and should not have a right to own property would have to affirm two statements: 1. it is desirable that there be conflict over rivalrous resources, and 2. it is desirable that rules of justice be particularistic (i.e., different rules for different people). If one were not willing to approve of these claims, one would have to accede to the claim that justice should be based on self-ownership and property and with the understanding that self-ownership is subsumed under property ownership in general. (I will refrain from reproducing the entire argument at this point in the interests of focusing attention on the topic of this essay. Feel free to comment in the comments section.)

     So, to deny the moral standing of property ownership is to affirm a preference for conflict over scarce (or rivalrous) resources and a preference also for different rules for different people. Against this, the proponents of the dichotomy between human bodies and other forms of property have only proposed a subjective preference that human bodies not be considered property.

     Now, there is an important point that should be clarified: what is meant by moral? My arguments apply to that segment of traditional moral philosophy known as "justice theory." In other words, my arguments are based on the supposition that there is a need for rules for interactions between human beings that are related to the question of "Who should be allowed to do what with what rivalrous entities?"

     It is possible to use the word "moral" as it was traditionally used in a religious sense: that is to say, rules that were arbitrarily determined by religious authorities and philosophers of religion. These rules could guide not only human interactions, but also how a human should act even if the question of conflict over rivalrous entities was not relevant to an action. Although the tradition of forming these rules based on religious precepts may be waning, their logical character has not changed in that they are still arbitrary and their basic assumptions are nothing but subjective preferences.

    Thankfully, philosophy has advanced beyond the need to pay homage to unverifiable and arbitrary assumptions, and we can demonstrate that the "moral" precept that "people are not property" (short for "social rules should apply to people more than property") is unjust.

     Finally, I'd like to clarify that "people are more important than property" may be a sound statement in one area of justice theory: namely, the study of sentencing (retribution and restitution). It is generally agreed among propertarians that the property one has in a human body is the most important property that a human being can possess, this for obvious reasons. Therefore, in the limited field of sentencing, the statement that human beings (human bodies) are more important than (other forms of) property is a correct and valuable precept.

Anatomy of a Lie

     I frequently spend too much time scanning the headlines in Google News. In my defense, I will claim that it can serve a purpose as the propositions that appear in the mainstream news media may provide useful material for debunking in this blog.
    This morning, my attention was gotten by the headline "Arizona's rugged individualism poses barrier to mask rules." 
     The article, dated July 19, 2020, was unsurprisingly written from a "consensus" point of view: that wearing masks can mitigate the spread of the virus. Many Arizonans, the article claims, don't agree with mask-wearing because of their individualist (read "selfish") culture.
     OK, I thought, cultural differences are "de gustibus non est disputandum," and the writer wants to attract attention by pandering to his readership's prejudices. I could write a similar essay that denigrated the subjective preferences of his readership if a large corporation like ABC would pay me to do it. It's all part of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas.
      Then I came across this statement: 

"...the state [Arizona] has become one of the world’s top hot spots for the spread of the coronavirus."

     Whoa. Am I living in one of the top hot spots for the spread of the coronavirus? I consulted what I take to be an authoritative source for coronavirus statistics in Arizona: the Arizona Department of Health Services website's "Data Dashboard."
    There are various statistics provided on the Dashboard, but the one that relates to "hot spot for the spread of the coronavirus" must surely be "Confirmed COVID-19 Cases by Day." According to the bar graph, there was a peak of reported cases on June 29 (5,396). The daily number of reported cases has been falling precipitously since then, and the number for July 19 (yesterday) was 30.
     So how can I be living in a top hot spot for the spread of the coronavirus when the Confirmed Cases by Day are falling precipitously? It depends on the metrics for "hot spot for the spread of the coronavirus." In the article, we are not told what these metrics are, so we'll have to guess.
     Here are the latest statistics on new cases on either July 18 or 19, depending on last day reported, for randomly-selected states:

California: 9,329
New York: 519
Pennsylvania: 683
Florida: 10,508
Texas: 7,300
Arizona: 30

     So obviously, Arizona is not a "hot spot" in terms of absolute numbers. Must be some sort of ratio, like cases per 100,000 population. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109004/coronavirus-covid19-cases-rate-us-americans-by-state/

Cases per 100,000 population (top four in US)
Arizona = 1973
New York = 2091
New Jersey = 1990
Louisiana = 1973

     Gosh, Arizona is in the top four states as of July 20. But wait; this number 1973 seems to be based on the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic! Can an aggregation of cases over a period of several months support the statement "...the state has become one of the world’s top hot spots for the spread of the coronavirus?"
     It seems misleading, to say the least, to say that Arizona "has become" a hot spot based on counting cases that happened in the past when current case numbers have fallen precipitously. One could perhaps have made such a statement two weeks ago, but at this point in time, it's a misrepresentation.

Thanks Again to Sheriff Lamb

     We read in the Arizona City Independent of June 24, 1990 the headline “Lamb still opposes Ducey's stay-at-home order” subtitled “Even as he is diagnosed with COVID-19.”

While ostensibly a reporting of facts, it seemed to me that the authors of the article were trying to suggest something. The use of the word “even” in “Even as he is diagnosed with COVID-19” implies that the fact that Sheriff Lamb was diagnosed with COVID-19 should cause him to reconsider his previous stance on Ducey's stay-at-home order.

     Let's look at how this line of reasoning plays out in syllogistic form:

---Lamb opposed Ducey's stay-at-home order

---Lamb contracted COVID-19

---Therefore, Lamb should retract his opposition to the stay-at-home order

     Obviously, this makes no sense. Since the authors of the article didn't make a clear argument, I can of course be accused of attributing to them an argument they never intended (straw-manning). However, I believe their use of the word “even” in the subtitle of the article justifies an attempt at trying to reconstruct an argument that uses the fact of Sheriff Lamb's contraction of COVID-19 to impugn his stance on the stay-at-home order.

     Let's try again.

---Lamb oppose Ducey's stay-at-home order

---As a result, people in Pinal County were infected with COVID-19

---Lamb was one of those people

---Therefore, Lamb should retract his opposition to the stay-at-home order

     There is an unstated assumption: if people had obeyed Ducey's stay-at-home order, there would have been no COVID-19 infections. I don't believe many would try to defend this proposition. Clever people would likely put it in a milder form: “if people had obeyed Ducey's stay-at-home order, there would have been fewer COVID-19 infections.” But in that case, we can no longer link Sheriff Lamb's opposition to the stay-at-home order to his COVID-19 infection, as he might have been infected no matter what his stance had been.

     There is also the matter of the assumption that the danger of COVID-19 infection warrants the abrogation of individual rights of self-ownership and property. I've dealt with this topic in several recent blog posts and so will not repeat myself at this time.

     In any case, I'd like to thank Sheriff Lamb for his continuing courageous stance on the COVID-19 hysteria.

Technology Corridor Corporatism

Recently, we read about the Technology Corridor being bruited by the Pinal County BOS in conjunction with Arizona universities. Pinal Cy is going to pay UA $225,000 for “research, planning and leadership,” as well as $108,200 to ASU for an inland port study. To this, we add the resources consumed by county officials working on the plan, which is supposed to attract “$70 billion worth of high-tech companies” to Pinal Cy over a 35-year period.

So, basically, the idea is that

1. The county develops the infrastructure for the Technology Corridor
2.  Technology companies looking for a location for their facilities, noticing that Pinal County has done this, will be motivated to locate their facilities in the Technology Corridor.
3. More jobs locally, and the county government will be rewarded for its efforts by increased tax revenues.

This looks to me like a feature of what can be called a “corporatist” political economy.

Corporatism is the alliance of (usually big) business and government to create top-down solutions to economic and social “problems,” or, in its most grandiose version, to simply be the locus of decision-making in most or all socio-economic sectors of society. In other words, the big bosses of everything.

One feature of the corporatist plan for the development of Pinal County was not mentioned in the article. That is that the capital for the development of the plan and the creation of the infrastructure is to be provided by the taxpayers of Pinal County.

The corporatist model can be contrasted with the laissez-faire model. In the laissez-faire model, capital for planning and implementation of infrastructure would be provided by entrepreneurs. The entreprenuers would be the ones to voluntarily risk their capital in hopes of procuring future profits.

On the other hand, the corporatist model has the taxpayers involuntarily providing the capital for no future reward!

Don't get me wrong; I'm not against economic development. But I think that justice has to take precedence. A just, or at least more just, way of promoting economic development in Pinal County would be to lower or abolish taxes on businesses, thus creating a business-friendly political environment. Then let those who stand to benefit most from development be the ones to fund it.

Masks Optional

     Good news from the Pinal Cy BOS---wearing of masks in public is to be voluntary, according to news dated June 24 concerning a vote on whether masks should be mandatory or not.

     Of course, the vote was symbolic, since state orders mandating the wearing of masks supersede those of Pinal County. But let's see if there's anything interesting to be learned here.

     One dissenting vote on the Board was Pete Rios, who said "we have a lot of individual folk out there who don't give a hootenanny. They may have COVID-19, they're asymptomatic, and they're out there spreading this . . . And if they're not doing their due diligence to protect the rest of society, that is my concern. . ." 

     Rios seems to be claiming that people have a moral duty (and should have a legal duty) to adopt measures that are claimed to protect people from catching the virus ("due diligence to protect the rest of society"). Under what circumstances should a person have a legal duty to take measures to prevent another person from contracting a contagious disease? To justify the answer to such a question, one must resort to justice theory.

I---Self-ownership

     If one accepts that self-ownership is the most logical alternative to different possibilities for the ownership of human bodies, then there are some implications with regards to infectious diseases.

     There are three possible scenarios for the spread of contagious diseases from one human body to another:

1. An infected person knowingly spreads the disease to others.
2. An infected person unknowingly spreads the disease to others (the "asymptomatic" spreader of Rios's complaint).
3. A person, infected or not, doesn't spread the disease.

     In scenarios 1) and 2) the distinction is made between knowing and unknowing spread. This is important because, as in scenario 1), if a person hasn't consented to the risk of being infected, then intentional (or negligent) infection can constitute a violation of that person's rights.

     With regards to unintentional infection, the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition of the "Act of God (Nature)" seems to be a good precedent, as it seems unfair to be held responsible for something over which one has no control. On the other hand, there might not necessarily be a hard and fast line between being excused from responsibility because of an Act of Nature and negligence.

     Negligence is the idea that a person can be held responsible for failing to perform an act, even if it was not their intention to do so. For example, if a person were to get drunk and run over someone in his car, that would be considered negligent, as it is assumed that reasonable (cf. the "Reasonable Man" doctrine)  people would not drive while drunk.

     Whether or not a person can be considered negligent for not wearing a mask, however, depends on  the following assumptions: 1) An asymptomatic COVID-19 spreader is reasonably expected to take precautions to prevent spreading a disease, even though they're not aware of being infected, and 2) wearing masks actually does prevent spread of COVID-19. In particular, 2) might be difficult to prove in court.

     In scenario 3), there is no justice problem, because nothing that could be considered a violation of rights has occurred. On the contrary, any violently coercive measures applied to such a person, as Rios seems to want to recommend, would in themselves constitute a violation of that person's rights.

II---Real Property

     Something more can be said about mask-wearing if we expand our analysis from the principle of self-ownership to the ownership of real property. If it can be justified that people can own real property, then among ownership rights is the right to determine who can or can't access the property.

     Furthermore, property owners have the right to set conditions for the accessing of their property: they can require entrants to wear masks (or not) or whatever else (as long as it doesn't constitute a violation of their self-ownership rights). People thinking of accessing a property would have the right to decide if they wanted to do so according to the owner's requirements (or lack of such). In this way, the wearing or not of masks would be left up to the individual judgement of property owners and self-owners.

III---Public Property

     Unfortunately, this theory doesn't tell us what to do in the case of public property. Who has the right to set the rules for access? Do the rule-setters not then become the de facto owners of public property? If the "public" owns the property, then shouldn't the "public" have a say in rule-making? Perhaps in an ideal democracy, the rules would be voted on. But what about the minority whose rules were not adopted? Wouldn't they thereby be effectively divested of their share of the ownership of the "public" property? When it comes to public property, questions of ownership, and therefore of justice, can't be resolved by logical justification, and are therefore typically resolved by violent coercion or the threat thereof.

Will "Black Lives Matter" Matter?

I have a problem with the BLM movement.
Don't get me wrong---black lives do matter. So do all the other lives, if "mattering" means "should be equal before the law." To put it in different words "legal rules should apply to all people equally." This is in contrast to "different rules for different people" a formulation that violates Kant's Categorical Imperative.
Back to BLM. Their movement is based on the premise that the main problem with the American justice system is racism.

Now even if the cops weren't racist, would qualified immunity, no-knock raids, the drug war, the paramilitary structure of police forces, powerful police unions, incarceration, and military equipment for internal policing thereby not become a problem?

Qualified immunity makes it nearly impossible for an LEO to commit a tort while on the job.

No-knock raids make it impossible for a citizen to know whether they're being raided by the police or attacked by criminals.

Incarceration of non-violent criminals, usually for offenses against drug laws, result in flagrantly disproportionate punishment at the expense of the taxpayer.

 The paramilitary structure of the police encourages a military-type esprit de corps and feelings of loyalty among LEOs to each other (as opposed to their putative employers, the taxpayers, who they typically refer to as "the little people").

Powerful police unions protect their members no matter what harm they may do to innocent citizens.

Military-grade equipment is made available to municipal-level police forces for "crowd-control" purposes, but also used in military-style assaults on private residences(!}

So, no, even if the police administered their injustice without regards to race, there would still be injustice!

What are the BLM asking for in concrete terms? Nothing. Nothing concrete is being asked for. They're just saying "racism is wrong." What does that mean to the system? The system already acknowledges that racism is wrong.

Unless they start thinking more deeply about the problem, I think nothing useful will come of all this sound and fury. And that would be a pity.

If It Saves One Life . . .

     Speaking of anti-coronavirus measures, New York governor Andrew Cuomo has been quoted as saying "if everything we do saves just one life, I'll be happy."
     And, to give equal time, Vice-President Pence said "As the President said, if your actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking."
     Although politicians have a natural aversion to stating anything in its extreme form, the above statements are evidence that attention is being paid to quite a bold statement: there is a moral imperative to save a life that trumps all other considerations. What are the implications of such a statement?

  "Five-thousand Americans die each year from choking on solid food. We could save every one of those lives by mandating that all meals be pureed. Pureed food isn’t appetizing, but if it saves just one life, it must be worth doing." ~Antony Davies, James R. Harrigan

To this can be added:
 ---35,000 Americans die each year in motor-vehicle-related accidents. We could save every one of those lives by banning motor vehicle travel. Sure, the division of labor and the economy would break down from lack of transportation, but if it saved just one life, it must be worth doing. (If anyone was thinking that we could replace motor vehicle transport with animal transport, think again. About 100 people a year die in riding or animal-drawn vehicle accidents.)

---About 250 people are killed by trains each year. We could save every one of those lives by closing down the railroads. Sure, the division of labor would break down from lack of transportation, but if it saved just one life, it must be worth doing.

---4,000 Americans die each year from drowning. We could save every one of those lives by filling in swimming pools and forbidding people to go near bodies of water over 3" deep. Sure, we'd have to give up seafood, water-borne transport, and the benefits of swimming as exercise, but if it saved just one life, it must be worth doing. 

---500 Americans die each year from causes related to machinery. We could save every one of those lives by destroying all machines. Sure, we'd have to go back to subsistence agriculture, but if it saved just one life, it must be worth doing. 

---2000 Americans are murdered each year with knives. We could save every one of those lives by a manufacturing ban and a program to collect and destroy knives. Sure, you'd have to eat most of your food raw (cutting food into pieces suitable for cooking is an integral part of the cooking process, in case you aren't familiar with the art of cooking), but if it saved just one life, it must be worth doing.

     By now, you probably get the picture and could make up your own examples. The point is that the argument that begins "If it saves just one life . . ." is a ridiculous argument.

     It's truly dismaying that politicians feel they have to cater to this low common denominator. Hopefully, they are overestimating the number of voters who would be swayed by such an argument, but I'm not optimistic!

The Boy Who Cried "Wolf"

". . . when we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?" ~Samuel Croxall (c. 1690 – 1752)

     Aesop's Fable #210 is about a boy who, in his capacity as a shepherd guarding his sheep from wolves, amused himself by crying "wolf." Hearing the cry, the villagers ran to his assistance, only to be laughed at as fools for responding to a false alarm. However, when one day the boy's sheep actually were attacked by wolves, his cries no longer served to summon aid from the villagers, as they had by that time formed the impression that he was attempting to trick them as usual.
     The enduring popularity of this fable and its adoption into language as a well-known idiom (to "cry wolf," meaning to assert vociferously that there is danger when in reality there is none) attests to its power to represent a very general aspect of human life in society, and also says something about communication.
     But one aspect of the fable that is perhaps not often examined is the economic aspect. Why, for example, were the villagers unwilling to come to the boy's aid after being deceived so many times? Were they just angry at being made fools of? Perhaps. But the fact that they had been willing to come to the boy's aid in the first place might suggest a more complex explanation.
     Although such details are not reported in the fable, what was the economy of the village like?
     Were the sheep common property of the village, in which case having them devoured by wolves would probably represent a severe loss to the village as a whole, or were they owned by a certain individual? Given the antiquity of the fable and certain assumptions that seem to be made, I would guess the former. The boy then, had been entrusted with guarding the village's sheep.
     If the sheep belonged to the village as a whole, then every villager could be expected to have a strong interest in guarding them. Yet, they acquiesced in entrusting this important task to an unreliable agent---the boy who cried "wolf" when there were none. And according to the fable, after multiple such false alarms, the boy still continued in his role as shepherd; he wasn't fired!
     There could be various explanations for this. One that seems likely to me is that the village was so close to subsistence that they couldn't afford to replace the boy with a more reliable shepherd. In agricultural societies, it's typical for young children to do the work of shepherding while older children and adults engage in the more physically demanding work of agriculture.
     What can be overlooked in the simple understanding of the fable as a cautionary tale against mendacity is that the response of the villagers to the boy's crying "wolf" represented a significant economic cost to the village. If it were not so, the boy's crying "wolf" would not have enraged the villagers to such an extent. But it can be assumed that the meadow where the sheep grazed was a significant distance from the cultivated fields (this is typically so) and that the villagers lost a significant amount of time and energy in responding to the false alarms which manifested itself in lower productivity and perhaps even starvation. Agricultural production in a subsistence economy is a serious matter.
     Like the boy who cried wolf, epidemic modelers may someday produce an accurate epidemic model. But in the meantime, responding to their inaccurate models will come at a cost.

COVID-19---The Moral Arguments

     Amidst all the hoopla of COVID-19 are lurking some moral arguments. "Morality" in this case refers to the question of what one should or should not be allowed to do that affects another person. A more precise word is "justice."

1. Rules of Justice Abrogated in Existential Crisis

     First of all, it has to be admitted that rules of justice are laid aside in an existential crisis. This has to do with the genetically-inherited will to survive which predates civilization. An existential crisis could be a military invasion, a global environmental catastrophe, or an epidemic such as the Black Death whose transmission mechanism is not understood (in the 14th century). The point about an existential crisis is that not enough is known to enable logical responses to be formulated, and so any course of action may be tried, including violating individual rights as "collateral damage." However, COVID-19 is not such a crisis. Enough is understood about the virus such that it does not constitute an existential threat and rules of justice don't need to be abrogated, even on a temporary basis.

2. Does the State Have the Right to Determine What Everyone's Assumption of Risk Should Be?
   
     Many activities that human beings engage in are risky. Activities such as driving a car, engaging in certain activities or occupations, traveling by air, etc., are avoidable risks that most (but not all) people are willing to assume according to their own personal risk-reward assessments.
     The argument goes, however, that allowing people to choose their own risk levels during an epidemic forces everyone to assume the same (minimal) level of caution.
     While this might be of concern in epidemics that cause an existential crisis, it's not true for COVID-19. Data on the COVID-19 virus suggest that 1) most infected people are asymptomatic or recover, and 2) most at-risk people can be identified in advance. Therefore, it's possible for individuals to assess their own personal level of risk without forcing other people to assume a potentially deadly level of risk.
   
3. Should a Person Be Held Responsible for Transmitting a Disease to Another Person?

     Can a person ever be held responsible for transmitting a disease to another person? Legal tradition holds that individuals are not responsible for Acts of Nature as such phenomena are held to be out of our control.
     On the other hand, if an individual A were to knowingly, either out of malice or negligence, transmit a disease to an individual B, there should be a prima facie case against A. B would however, have to prove that 1) he or she had suffered objective harm (tort), and 2) that A was responsible.

4. Should the State Proactively Prevent Possible Tortious Transmissions of Disease?
   
     If there is a chance that an individual could harm another, should the State act preemptively to prevent the possibility? Many would say "yes." However, if this principle were followed consistently, engaging in all potentially harmful activities would have to be banned. Suffice it to say that proponents of such measures never advocate that they be applied consistently, only on an arbitrary, case-by-case basis. This obviously collides with standards for just social rules (universalizability).
     Another problem with this attitude is that it's application would violate one of the basic principles of traditional Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence: that an individual is innocent until proven guilty.

5. Property and Choice of Risk Levels
   
     Like all questions pertaining to justice, choosing risk-levels can most logically be based on the concept of property. Each property owner can create a risk-level policy for his or her own property. Individuals can decide which properties they want to enter (or not) based on the various risk-level policies.
     The question becomes, of course, muddied for "public" property. Although it's based on the injustice of forcibly-appropriated resources, bureaucrats and politicians as "property managers" can and do assume the risk-level policy creation function, since, to some extent, they always do exercise some ownership rights over public property.

COVID-19 Links

Recently the COVID-19 virus has been getting a lot of attention in the press which in turn has led politicians to implement draconian public health measures and restrictions. Here, I will post some resources for understanding the argument that the response of politicians as advised by their public health advisors has almost certainly been disproportionate to the danger.

Prof. Marc Lipsitch---the only proven factor in the eradication or suppression of a virus is herd immunity:https://ccdd.hsph.harvard.edu/will-covid-19-go-away-on-its-own-in-warmer-weather/

Dr. Knut Wittkowski interview and draft of scientific paper---lockdowns have different effects on an epidemiological curve depending on when they are instituted. If successful, fatalities in the early phase may be delayed until a later phase with no difference in total fatalities. https://ratical.org/PerspectivesOnPandemic-II.html

Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel---strict lockdowns in various countries have not resulted in statistical differences when compared with countries where less severe measures were instituted. https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-israeli-prof-claims-simple-stats-show-virus-plays-itself-out-after-70-days/

Ioaniddis vs. Lipsitch---while many epidemiologists recommend lockdown on the subjective principle that in lieu of data, better to be safe at all costs, not all scientists agree. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coronavirus-covid-pandemic-response-scientists-1.5502423

Dr. John Ioaniddis---authorities, statisticians, and epidemiologists are drawing conclusions and making recommendations based on too little data: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

Dr. Scott Jensen interview---cause of death information, on which models of COVID-19 that inform policy decisions are based, may be unreliable due to conflicting CDC guidelines: https://www.foxnews.com/media/physician-blasts-cdc-coronavirus-death-count-guidelines

Prof. Johan Giesecke interview---lockdown measures have no scientific basis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=bfN2JWifLCY&feature=emb_logo

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya interview---no scientific data on which to base policy decisions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UO3Wd5urg0&feature=emb_rel_end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7v2F3usNVA

Government statistics for COVID-19 deaths inflated
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/birx-says-government-is-classifying-all-deaths-of-patients-with-coronavirus-as-covid-19-deaths-regardless-of-cause

Ioaniddis interview,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=433&v=d6MZy-2fcBw&feature=emb_logo

Wittkowski interview,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGC5sGdz4kg

Katz interview: protect high-risk people vs. lockdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK0Wtjh3HVA

Ioaniddis, follow-up interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwPqmLoZA4s

White House does its part to stoke hysteria
https://www.cato.org/blog/did-mitigation-save-two-million-lives?utm_campaign=Cato%20Today&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=86575343&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Xx-7gcZemlF6ZwExbxcw3RyNFHkuAcbDgi_tZo04G4tf8vV4aRWuaLA4JbgHLBswb-GsfXKpUlmU5hIyDs26R5DVKyQ&_hsmi=86575343

Dr. Richard Sullivan: lockdown causes more cancer fatalities than COVID-19.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1268059/cancer-deaths-coronavirus-nhs

Prof. Dr. Med. Sucharit  Bhakdi: some hard questions for Chancellor Merkel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=96&v=N-qk-nenbt0&feature=emb_logo

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg: Coronavirus epidemic is a fraud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qwiyxedC_o

Drs. Daniel Erickson and Artin Massih: Don't quarantine the healthy!

https://www.aier.org/article/open-up-society-now-say-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=xfLVxx_lBLU&feature=emb_logo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb6j7o1pLBw

Dr. Katz interviewed by Bill Maher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=96&v=Lze-rMYLf2E&feature=emb_logo

Death certificate corruption
https://fee.org/articles/physicians-say-hospitals-are-pressuring-er-docs-to-list-covid-19-on-death-certificates-here-s-why/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FEEDaily

Historian Phillip Magness examines ICL statistical data
https://www.aier.org/article/imperial-college-model-applied-to-sweden-yields-preposterous-results/

Mathematician Wesley Pegden asks MSM to honestly present the effects of flattening the curve:
https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b

The temptation to base research on faulty protocols may make it more difficult to develop a vaccine
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6490/476

Dr. Michael Levitt, structural biologist and Nobel Prize winner, calls indiscriminate lockdown "a huge mistake."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl-sZdfLcEk

German virologist actually does a study and finds IFR of 0.24-0.36%., much lower than Ferguson's 0.8-0.9%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrL9QKGQrWk

Dr. Steven Shaprio: time to open up
https://inside.upmc.com/shapiro-economy-roundtable/

Dr. Ioaniddis in interview with Greek TV
https://fee.org/articles/modelers-were-astronomically-wrong-in-covid-19-predictions-says-leading-epidemiologist-and-the-world-is-paying-the-price/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily

An open letter from various Canadian health authorities cautioning against the goal of trying to eradicate the COVID-19 virus.
http://balancedresponse.ca/

A study that has been claimed to prove that wearing masks (and other protective measures) reduces infections. But the study's methodology is  a Patient Reported Outcome survey (patients say what they experienced) which is one of the weakest study designs, with no collaboration by medical evidence or medical staff.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6923e4.htm

A great essay that touches on methodological problems in epidemiology and economics.
https://www.aier.org/article/what-economists-can-teach-epidemiologists/

A recent assessment of models related to COVID-19
https://www.aier.org/article/the-models-were-wildly-wrong-about-reopening-too/

A skeptical examination of the science behind wearing masks:

https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-masks-there-no-settled-science?utm_source=feedotorg&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fee_partners&fbclid=IwAR1AGF6sy4cbKCEQJfBLPwYQ8RAYiBE_YLxsy0HKaL-XbYLAp0t-MflmUp4

"Hygiene Theater" from the Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/

Fact-checking Fauci (Magness)

https://www.aier.org/article/fact-checking-fauci/

The Cognitive Biases Behind the Response to COVID-19

https://fee.org/articles/the-cognitive-biases-behind-societys-response-to-covid-19/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily

Lockdown statistics

https://www.aier.org/article/a-closer-look-at-the-states-that-stayed-open/

NPI effectiveness

https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-and-mask-mandates-do-not-lead-to-reduced-covid-transmission-rates-or-deaths-new-study-suggests/

Summary of Difference Between Sweden and other Nordic Countries

https://www.aier.org/article/swedens-high-covid-death-rates-among-the-nordics-dry-tinder-and-other-important-factors/

The Masque of Red Death as allegory for COVID-19

https://www.aier.org/article/how-the-virus-penetrated-fortress-new-zealand/

This list will be updated when and if new information comes to my attention.

Gouging and Hoarding

     If there's one thing that makes people mad these days, it's hoarding. Certain necessary (or at least inconvenient not to have) goods are simply not available at any store. Why?

     I have no inclination to delve into the murky motivations that are causing these shortages. However, I'd like to review what economics tells us about the situation. These goods that are flying off the shelves as soon as they're stocked all have prices. Producers have determined that they can maximize their profit at a certain price, selling a certain quantity. Consumers have demonstrated that they're willing to buy a certain quantity at a certain price. Now, all of a sudden, demand has sky-rocketed, and customers are buying more. According to the law of supply and demand, when demand increases and supply remains the same, price will rise. The rise in price and consequent rise in ROI is a signal for producers to devote more resources to the production of the good in question until the ROI falls back to the average level. Assuming no other changes, this causes the price to fall back to the pre-crisis level as well.

     Enter the prejudice against gouging. Gouging is thought to be immoral (though no one has ever explained why), and there is strong feeling against gougers, such that most store owners are not willing to raise prices. 

     This unwillingness to raise prices has two bad effects:

     1. Hoarders can continue to pursue their anti-social activities at a lower cost to themselves. Economics tells us that even the hoarder's demand must fall off at some price. Not raising prices in the face of increased demand enables hoarding.

     2. Higher prices defray the producers' costs of ramping up production. Without the higher prices, producers may be looking at a loss on faster production. This loss will inevitably be borne by the producers: stockholders, managers, and employees. Ergo producers are not incentivized to increase production.

     As a result of these two bad effects, consumers will fall into two classes: 1. The lucky or clever who manage to buy up all of the product at the pre-crisis price.  2. The unlucky who can't find the product for sale anywhere.

     Stores, responding to complaints by their customers, have instituted rationing for some goods. However, this policy does not necessarily prevent shortages, unless the store is willing to keep track of the identities of all its customers and verify that they are not purchasing more than their fair share of product (if a "fair share" can be determined). Furthermore, a hoarder can hoard by visiting several stores at a time.