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Self in Society Roundup 52

Vance on children, Walz and minding your own business, the problem with party primaries, postmenopausal women, Indiana homeschoolers, the Cass Report, chasing childhood, and more.

Vance Smears People without Children

Some people probably undervalue having children in that they would find it more meaningful than they imagine. We are biologically built in various ways to want and to have children. If this weren't the case we wouldn't exist as a species. And, although people don't have to pair bond, there's a lot about how we're built (including how sex works for us) that often fosters pair bonding. So a lot about the conservative case for family makes sense.

Moreover, partly because most people who have children value them so highly, people with children typically want to leave the world a better place for their children and grandchildren. This is the grain of truth in J. D. Vance's comments on the topic.

But obviously people do not need to have children to see value in improving the world. Most people value friends, family members, and causes such that they are motivated to improve the world while they are alive and to leave the world a better place after they die.

Some people do not want children, are not able to have children, or never find a parter with whom to raise children (and choose not to go it alone). Most people without children have a productive career, help their friends and family, and contribute to causes that they deem worthy.

Some people, whether or not they have children, are thoroughgoing narcissists who care only about their own wealth and power. A prime example of such a person is Donald Trump, whom Vance is attempting to again install as president.

Vance's 2001 comments about people without children, then, are horribly unjust:

We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it's just a basic fact.

You look at Kamala Harris [who has step children], Pete Buttigieg [who with his partner had children in 2021], [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children [this is a ridiculous lie]. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it? I just wanted to ask that question and propose that maybe if we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more.

We should support more people who actually have kids, because those are the people who ultimately have a more direct stake in the future of this country.

It is worth noting that Kamala Harris's veep pick Tim Walz and his wife had children through IVF, which some Republicans want to ban or severely restrict. Many Republicans also want to ban abortion even in the case of a twelve year old girl raped by her father. So it's worth asking in what respects Republicans are "pro-family."

Walz Placates Progressives but Worries Libertarians

Ilya Somin's take on Tim Walz mirrors my own. Josh Shapiro obviously would have been better for Pennsylvania. More:

On policy, Shapiro is pretty good on several issues on which many other Dems are bad (licensing, housing, school choice, a few others). Walz is almost always as bad as the average left-wing Democrat or even worse. His signature policies as governor have been pretty bad: universal free school lunch is a huge waste (no reason to give it to non-poor students); big spending increases; terrible Covid restrictions; and a few others.

Walz isn't all bad on policy! Under his leadership, Minnesota legalized marijuana, allowed undocumented immigrants to get licenses (this also enables them to contribute more to the economy), may become a sanctuary state (see my work on that subject for why it's good), enacted permitting reform for "green" energy projects, and passed a single-stair bill (this makes it easier to build new housing by no longer requiring two or more staircases). But, on balance, it's not a good record, and certainly worse than Shapiro's.

Robby Soave is particularly irritated by Walz's Covid restrictions.

Walz said, "Don't ever shy away from our progressive values. One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness." The charitable take is that Walz is dismissing people who call welfare statism "socialism." But he also seems to be embracing or at least tolerating the socialist label. Reminder: Socialist regimes slaughtered well over one hundred million people during the last century.

Walz also said, "There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy." That's just terrible and wrong. However, I will note here that left-wing efforts to limit speech are non-starters in the U.S., whereas Republicans have a real shot at banning pornography and the like. So today's right is the far more serious threat to free speech.

Gary Winslett offers a "pro-market moderate" case for Walz (via Cowen). Winslett likes that Walz "signed the country’s most comprehensive Right-to-Repair law," but, as I've argued, this is really unjust government intervention in contracts. Better: Walz is "proud of the state attracting business," he "signed a $100 million tax cut that also simplified the tax-filing system in Minnesota," and "he brags about tax cutting as part of his accomplishments."

Here's something great that Walz said: "I might not agree with my neighbor's choices or make the same one. But this country is great because we have a golden rule that makes things work. We mind our own damn business on those things. We mind our own damn business." No one believes the Harris administration will consistently mind its own damn business, but Walz has created a great opportunity to frequently throw his words back at him.

I think that for typical voters, though, there's a lot to like about Waltz in terms of his background in the military, as a teacher, and as a father. He seems like a very decent person.

Abolish Party Primaries

Lots of people have complained that Biden dropping out to make room for Harris to run, when Biden appeared on Democratic primary ballots, is somehow not "democratic." That is ridiculous; our republican-style democracy does not require that every vote be direct. For example, we vote for electors for president. As a story from the Colorado Sun indicates, when people vote for a presidential candidate during a party primary, they technically are voting for party delegates who support that candidate.

The actual problem here is that government runs party primaries. As I have argued repeatedly, we need a complete separation of party and state, with no special government privileges for political parties.

Okay, so if government no longer ran party primaries, how would the matter be handled? One possibility: Government could run general elections only, set equal ballot access rules for all comers, along with approval voting (vote for as many candidates as you want), and parties could decide independently which candidates they want to advance to the ballot. In this scheme, parties would have no legal recourse if a candidate defied the party to get on the ballot anyway. As it should be!

Alternately, government could run primaries not related to parties. With approval voting, government could say, for example, that every candidate with at least 30% approval advances to the general election. A party could handle potential drop outs (such as the Biden-Harris case) by advancing two or more candidates through the primary, then withdrawing the "extra" candidate by the official cut-off date. (Technically, the individual candidate would withdraw.) Or a party could just run two candidates, workable with approval voting.

Tidbits from the Presidential Election

Trump's Name-Calling: All Trump has to offer are lies, bigotry, and name-calling. He obviously does not actually care about any serious policy, except that he is generally anti-immigrant (trophy wives excepted), anti-free trade, and pro-authoritarian. All of the religious right policies that he supports or tolerates are purely strategic. On the name-calling front, Trump called Harris a "bitch," "not smart," "nasty," also "so fucking bad," also not really black. Unsurprisingly, women tend to favor Harris.

Vance on Older Women: Meanwhile, J. D. Vance explained in 2020 that his wife's mother, a biology professor, "took a sabbatical for a year" to live with Vance and his wife and care for their infant child. Jolly for the Vance family, but most people in the U.S. do not have access to that sort of family support. At any rate, Vance's comments spurred Eric Weinstein, who was interviewing Vance, to proclaim, "That's the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female in theory." Vance pipes in with the word "yes" right after the word "postmenopausal." Vance, of course, denies that he was agreeing with Weinstein on this point. By itself, this exchange says little, but in the context of Vance's many other statements about women, it follows a pattern. There is a biological theory that Weinstein seems to be inartfully referencing to the effect that there's probably not much biological pressure to keep humans alive after they've helped raise their children's children, but there does seem to be some pressure to keep women alive after reproductive age so that they can contribute to their grandchildren's well-being. But biological pressures in an evolutionary context hardly define a person's "purpose"!

Grier on Harris-Walz: Jacob Grier offers reasons for liberty lovers to like the Harris-Walz ticket: "Harris has become admirably liberal on cannabis. Unlike Biden, she supports federal legalization and sponsored a legalization bill as a senator. Walz's record is even better. . . . Walz also offers a solid record of criminal justice reform. . . . [Walz is] one of the few governors to have tackled the problem of why blue states can't build, having recently signed a permitting reform bill to cut government red tape and expedite the construction of renewable energy projects. On housing he also seems to have some YIMBY cred, noting the need to remove barriers that artificially reduce the supply of housing." And Harris and Walz favor the right to abortion and are LGBTQ friendly.

Harris's Price Controls: Catherine Rampell via Alex Tabarrok: "It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food." So stupid. All Harris has to do to win is not be crazy. This is crazy. See also Noah Smith on the topic.

Harris on Not Taxing Tips: It's strategic politics but bad policy. Government should not put heavy pressures on how employers compensate employees, nor favor certain types of income over others. How about instead government stop imposing payroll taxes?

Harris's Marxist Dad: Confirmed. Reporters certainly should ask Harris whether, and to what degree, she was influenced by her father's anti-capitalist views.

Disparaging Homeschoolers in Indiana

I sent the following message to the reporter who wrote an August 12 article on "unschooling" and a previous article on test scores.

By chance I read your article on "unschooling" because it ran in the Colorado Chalkbeat newsletter (I live in Colorado). Here's what drives me crazy about the sort of article you wrote, variants of which I've read several times.

You voice complaints that unschooling/homeschooling is "unregulated," but, just a few weeks ago, a talented reporter by the name of Haley Miller [yes, the same person] wrote a great article to the effect that, according to standardized testing (grades 3 to 8), most public-school students are performing poorly in reading and math. So. . . maybe the problem is highly regimented systems, not "unregulated" ones?

Then there's the fact-free complaint about potential abuse of homeschooled students. (This is of course possible but there's no evidence it's an especial problem.) Meanwhile, if I Google "bullying Indiana schools," I am immediately inundated with reports about actual, reported abuse at public schools (such as this one). Discussing hypothetical abuse of homeschooled students, without mentioning the real, verifiable, and serious abuse in public schools, is, bluntly, not what real journalism looks like. Indeed, one big reason that many people decide to homeschool is to get their kids out of abusive situations at school. (You might also try Googling "Indiana teacher arrested.")

As you might suspect, I'm a homeschooling father (my child has a lot of autonomy but we don't "unschool"). At any rate, one reason I'm writing is that you obviously are a talented journalist, I see an intern, so, in addition to complaining a bit about your article, I wanted to wish you well in this rough news media job market.

* * *

Here's a funny tidbit about the main article in question. One critic of homeschooling does not trust claims that "home-schooled children score higher on exams." True, the reported results may not be representative. Here is the critic's line that I found amusing: "Kids who come from families with more educational resources, where parents are more invested in education, tend to do better in school whether they're home-schooled or not." So . . . homeschoolers are so awesome we shouldn't compare them to those unfortunate souls stuck in public schools?

Polgreen on the Cass Report

Lydia Polgreen has out a helpful op-ed on the Cass Report, named for the British pediatrician Hilary Cass, and related issues. The question at hand is whether minors should be able, with the consent of their parents and of doctors, to choose to get gender-affirming hormone treatments and even surgeries. (Consent of the parents is the norm, but I think older miners should be able to seek legal independence through the courts in certain circumstances.) The Cass Report is highly critical of gender-affirming care. Polgreen writes:

United States v. Skrmetti has been brought by the Biden administration to challenge a ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming care for adolescents that all major American medical organizations support. . . .

Lawyers arguing in favor of these bans have . . . asserted, against the consensus of the mainstream medical science, that the standard treatments for transgender children are not based in evidence and represent a grave risk to the health and well-being of young people. . . .

Transgender activists, by contrast, have harshly criticized the report. Research scientists and journalists have questioned the validity of its conclusions and its interpretations of the science. On July 31, the organization that represents nearly 200,000 doctors in Britain said it plans to review the methodology and conclusions of the report. [Polgreen later links to a critical study.] . . .

I spent the months since it was released poring over the document. . . . What I have come to realize is that this report, for all its claims of impartiality, is fundamentally a subjective, political document.

I found Polgreen's review of the matter to be generally interesting. Importantly, as Polgreen points out, transgender care has been possible only for the past sixty or so years. Early on, it was offered in a highly paternalistic way, with doctors basically distrusting transgender people and offering care as a means of "social rehabilitation" (as one doctor wrote). Care slowly has moved more in the direction of "informed consent," which strikes me as entirely appropriate especially for adults. In what contexts and to what degree minors can rationally consent is a thornier question.

I worry that Polgreen does not take sufficient account of the raw fact that hormonal treatments and surgeries can be extremely rough on the body (surgery by definition is). I wonder, if society generally became more supportive of transgender people, and generally of people in all their diversity, if more transgender people would be comfortable with their gender identities without having to resort to hormones and surgeries to conform to traditional gender expectations. Yet I agree with Polgreen that adults definitely, and minors contextually, should have the freedom to pursue gender-affirming care. Your body, your choice.

An aside for those of us concerned about government-run medicine: "Millions of people are on waiting lists for treatment of all kinds by Britain's crumbling health system."

Polgreen offers a good case that Cass's report is flawed and biased in that it marshals a superficially scientific case to reach the preordained conclusion that a child should be strongly discouraged from being transgender. Polgreen likens it to claims "that the abortion medication mifepristone is unsafe, or that women are psychologically harmed by abortion."

Although I think Polgreen badly mangles the concepts "objective" and "subjective," if you substitute the term "social" for her term "objective," she ends up with a breathtaking conclusion:

Imagine that your health care required objective justification, if access to birth control or erectile dysfunction medications required proving that you were having monogamous sex, or good sex, or sex at all. Or if fertility care was provided only if you could prove that becoming a parent would make you happy, or you would be a good parent. Or that abortion would be available only if you could prove that it would improve your life.

In a free society we agree that these are private matters, decided by individuals and their families, with the support of doctors using mainstream medical science as a guide, even when they involve children. We invite politicians and judges into them at great peril to our freedom.

But that line of reasoning goes only so far. There has to be some rational basis for medical intervention. Abortion is justified in part because we know that pregnancy and delivery can be physically difficult and quite dangerous. If someone asked a surgeon to remove a perfectly good leg, just because the person felt like living life as a one-legger, no one would think the surgery was justifiable. So there has to be some sort of "objective" basis for the benefits of a medical intervention, including in cases of gender-affirming care.

Quick Takes

Trans Rights and Gender Authoritarianism: That's the title of Aaron Ross Powell's podcast episode with Gillian Branstetter.

The Post-Liberal Intelligentsia: Emily Chamlee-Wright has an essay on the movement that holds that "the constitutionally constrained liberal-democratic order is the source of everything that is wrong in the world." The alternative? "According to the PLI, a new elite must emerge, one that sets aside the separation of powers, seizes the administrative state, and flexes its authority to impose political control over the economy and a pre-modern notion of 'the common good' as the country's governing ideal."

Liquid Water on Mars: Victoria Gill: Nasa’s Mars Insight Lander has "revealed 'seismic signals' of liquid water." This radically improves the odds that native life on Mars, if it ever existed, still exists in these waters.

Fossils and Ideology: Brenda Wineapple: "The discovery of prehistoric fossils, largely in Britain, challenged long-held theological and scientific assumptions about nature and humankind’s place in it: that the Bible was to be taken literally; that the world had been made a mere 6,000 years before; that a divine being wrought man in his own image; that humans were the pinnacle of all Creation."

Brutal Capitalism: It's supposedly what's ailing socialistic Venezuela. Sheesh.

Horpedahl on Haidt: Jeremy Horpedahl points out (via Cowen) that some of Jonathan Haidt's concerns about social media use among children are backed by surprisingly light evidence. Yet Horpedahl concedes that Haidt often offers "good parenting advice. For example, for kids ages 6–13, Haidt recommends things such as encouraging sleepovers, walking to school, free play after school (instead of 'enrichment activities'), camping, sleepaway camps, and forming child-friendly neighborhoods. These suggestions have nothing to do with screens (though some are to avoid the temptation of screens), and are all good advice regardless of whether social media is causing a mental health crisis." See also an article about a phone-free camping trip.

Chasing Childhood: Recently my wife and I watched the documentary. Generally it's good. It argues that children need a lot of free play, more independence, and less pressure to perform academically. This is all good, but the opposite error that parents can make is to not encourage their children's interests. It's okay for kids to work hard and to have important long-term goals.

Gorsuch: He says we have too many laws and regulations. I agree.

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