Kurt St Angelo

A reality-check list

2008-08-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

In the world of metaphysics, there are no real accidents and we always get what we ask for. In the world of politics, we often get poor results because we ask such poor questions.

The Greek philosopher Socrates had it right. Good questions can expose wrong thinking. That’s why I keep a set of questions handy to spring on politicians when they ask me for my votes.

My questions are both factual and philosophical. My factual questions expose ignorance. The philosophical ones expose immorality, including hypocrisy. I will not vote for politicians who are fundamentally ignorant about the role and power of government and immoral with its use. Here are my questions (and some reasons for asking).

1. How many constitutions does Indiana have and when were they ratified? (This is a factual question relating to whether politicians know even the first thing about our state’s constitutional government.)

2. Do you believe that government has the right to take 100 percent of what Americans earn and own? If not, what percentage is acceptable to you? (Our governments currently consume about 60 percent of our paychecks.)

3. Do you believe in forcing others to do things if those things are good for them? Do you believe in being forced to do things if they are good for you? Who should decide what is good for you and your family? (These questions expose whether politicians abide by the Golden Rule. Most support compulsory taxes, education and savings, as well as using force to jail others who merely offend them.)

4. Do you believe in taking other people's property if it is for a good cause? Do you believe in having your property taken if it is for a good cause? Who should decide what is a good cause? (These questions reflect whether politicians follow the commandment that prohibits stealing or instead the principles of Robin Hood.)

5. Do you take responsibility for everyone else's needs? Should everyone else be responsible for your needs? (These questions are about the role of government. Hint: Karl Marx would have answered “yes.”) Which needs?

6. Should you be responsible to pay for the consequences of other adults’ unhealthy lifestyle choices? Should other people be responsible for your bad choices? (These questions are about self-responsibility.)

7. Should Americans be required to ask government’s permission to work in their chosen professions? To ensure high standards, should government license lawyers, home inspectors and barbers? How ‘bout journalists?

8. Should government serve special-interest groups?

9. Do you know what is best for other adults and their children? (This question exposes delusion. Only deluded people presume to know what is best for you and me.)

10. Can you name any government programs that have solved the problems for which they were created? (There are thousands of programs to consider, but very few correct answers. Good luck.)

11. Should jurors be punished for refusing to apply bad laws? (This is a trick question. Under Indiana’s two constitutions, ratified in 1816 and 1851, jurors have the power to trump the wisdom of legislators. It’s good to remind politicians and jurors of this from time to time.)

Our political system is only as good as our political discourse. Our discourse is only as good as the issues we discuss. If we raise the standards of our discussion, we will raise the quality of our representative government. Let’s get started today.

A solution for illegal immigration

2007-06-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you up front: I'm a philosophical libertarian, so I don't really believe in national borders. Practically, I don't think they work or are fool-proof, particularly given the fools that run our national government. Ethically, I don't see where anyone has moral authority to forcibly stop or intimidate anyone else from exercising their natural rights to trade or travel to seek better ways of life. Economically, there's absolutely no justification for preventing the flow of goods, services and people, where not only participants but also the whole of society gains from exchange.

Alas, I support the general idea of amnesty to allow so-called "illegals" to remain in the United States without criminal sanctions. I have never had a problem with their coming to the United States, so I certainly don't believe in their imprisonment or deportation. I have no problem with them living in my neighborhood either, just so long as they are honest, nonviolent and self-sufficient, which they seem to be. Illegals are proof that our government's border security doesn't work and that as individuals we have no moral or economic justification to interfere with them, unless as individuals they do us wrong.

Having said this, I have only one problem with illegals, and a big one, for which our national discussion of a national border is universally irrelevant. The problem is not an economic one nor a moral one nor one of practicality. The problem is strictly a political one, and one which calls strictly for an easy political solution.

The political solution for illegals is this: give them amnesty from prosecution and deportation, but do not give them easy access to free government services, such as welfare, or to the right to vote via fast-tracking their citizenship. Living and working within the fifty states is one thing. Getting free government hand-outs and having the privilege to vote, and thus the power to steal other people's rights and property for self-interests, are altogether different. Perhaps if we can first prevent illegals from voting to convert other people's interests, then maybe we can eventually stop ourselves from the same insidious practice.

This political solution doesn't call for a stronger border, but instead a stronger will to prevent illegals from acquiring welfare and the privilege to vote. If they want such benefits, they need to first come here legally and qualify. Otherwise, let them remain citizens of their nations of origin, with natural rights to seek better lives here, but without any political privileges.

License lawmakers, not massage therapists

2007-03-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

Indiana lawmakers should set up a bureaucracy to license themselves long before they set up a new one, at public expense, to license massage therapists. Hoosiers do not need the state's help distinguishing between legitimate massage therapists and prostitutes.

If public safety is the reason for licensing, as proponents claim, then lawmakers should be the first professionals to be licensed. Their incompetence profoundly affects the lives of more people than any other profession. Their negligence in making policy can wreak havoc in our lives. If licensing is such a good thing to keep standards high, let's license lawmakers first.

To be licensed and certified, lawmakers should be required to pass a litany of classes and tests, just as they require lawyers, doctors and realtors to do at considerable expense.

First and foremost, they should be tested on Indiana's constitution, which should be required reading even before they file their candidacies. Once elected, they should be required to cite constitutional authority for each of their legislative acts. If lawmakers read their constitutions, they'd realize how little authority they've actually been delegated, and how much they've just taken from the rest of us through plunder.

Lawmakers should also be required to pass ethics classes on the morality of taking property from some citizens to give to special interest groups. The classes might also help them find moral courage to resist voting for needless regulatory legislation just because of petty political peer pressure.

A simple economics class would show them that prosperity and wealth comes from having more individual liberty, not more government, which is largely parasitic and non-productive, just as a new massage therapy bureaucracy will be.

Lawmakers should also take control-issue classes, so that they don't just act out to fulfill their own prejudices when they vote to control other people's lives and to put others who merely offend them in jail. All incumbents should take Continuing Control-Issue classes.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, but our ganders should be licensed first.

(Co-written with Jon S. Zwayer)

Better government is as easy as standing up, mate

2006-11-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

Those readers who watch television have probably seen a recent Geico insurance commercial about the ease of saving money. Check it out at Geico videos.

"Uh huh, easy money," remarks the Geico gecko in his adorable British accent. The commercial's message is that saving money on our car insurance is as easy as going to Geico.com.

"Which is like what?," asks the gecko, "(Like) asking you to stand up? (It's like I say to you), 'If you stand up, you can save loads of money.' What the hell, you're going to be like, 'No thanks. I'm so rich, I think I'm going to keep my seat.'"

Elections are a lot like shopping for car insurance on the Internet. Not only are they now dependent on computers, they're all about our exercise of choices.

What if there was one choice on the ballot that could save us loads of money, give us more personal choices and freedom, protect us from special interest groups and encourage responsibility in our neighbors? What if more prosperity, choices and integrity were as easy as voting for Libertarian Party candidates?

"But yikes, that would mean I'd have to vote Libertarian," responds a voter.

"Which is like what?," asks the gecko, "(Like) asking you to stand up? (It's like I say to you), 'If you stand up, you can save loads of tax money, gain your personal freedom back and quit being bullied into paying other people's way.' What the hell, you're going to be like, 'No thanks. I'm so rich, free and charitable, I think I'm going to keep my seat.'"

Should we license journalists?

2006-10-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

Indiana has over 40 licensed professions - everything from licensed doctors and nurses to licensed lawyers and hypnotists. Every year these professionals pony up money and ask permission from the state to call themselves professional whatevers.

The justification for this licensing process and its continuing education requirements is to ensure quality service to the public. In effect, when you listen to or hire a state licensed professional, the state certifies that the professional has met certain minimum standards in educational achievement, board certification and the taking of continuing education courses.

This way, the logic goes, the public is ensured that everyone who holds themselves out, for example, as a doctor or lawyer or teacher will meet minimum medical, legal and teaching standards.

If government can set a meaningful minimum standard for professional services, shouldn't we want every profession to be licensed? Midwives were added to the list a couple years ago. Roofers, lawn cutters, gutter installers and car mechanics could be next. Why are we waiting? If licensing serves the public, we should be demanding that all professionals be licensed.

This includes journalists.

Otherwise, how do we ensure that what we read in newspapers, magazines and the Internet meets professional standards? The lack of standards is why Indiana University basketball coach Kelvin Sampson recently closed practices to the public, after a nasty comment he once made to a player showed up on the Internet. (see "I.U.'s Sampson closes practice, blaming 'dumb Internet'"). If journalists can't police themselves, then they need to be licensed and policed.

Plus, it can be easily argued that journalism offers society greater risks than most professions that the state licenses. Journalistic misfeasance and prejudices can affect millions of people, whereas lawyers and doctors generally only decide the fate of their clients and patients. If journalists are so important and risky to us, why don't lawmakers license them for our protection?

Journalists' standard answer is that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and exempts them from licensing. But I can point to the Sixth Amendment that guarantees my choice of legal counsel, regardless if my counsel is certified by the state bar, but tell that to politically partial judges today who allow only state licensed attorneys, like me, to make arguments in court.

Fact is, the First Amendment is as legally flimsy as the Sixth. It just has more political clout. It would be dying just like the Sixth Amendment if it didn't have the support of most journalists, who bang its drum.

If I licensed journalists, I would require them to know and respect all the Bill of Rights to the same extent as they do the self-serving First Amendment. Journalists' lack of vigilance over growing government and our declining individual rights will likely doom our civilization. If there was ever a reason to license journalists, it is this.

But few people seriously are demanding this, and I am not one of them. There's a good reason for this: Licensing doesn't ensure or improve quality of service. A mechanic doesn't need a license to fix a car. A doctor or lawyer with a license can botch a job just as much as someone without these credentials.

Private accreditation associations and referral services, such as Angie's List in Indianapolis, offer consumers more useful information than the state's stamp of approval provides.

We have licensing not because the public demands it, but because professional associations conspired for their members to be licensed and regulated. (When I use the word "conspired," I mean criminally conspired). That way they can exclude others without their qualifications, or with different ones, from competing against them for business.

Licensing is a neat little scam. It works for the licensed professionals because economics is economics. If they can control their supply through licensing and the certification of trade schools, then they can keep their fees artificially high and protect their status in the community.

This leads to a simple maxim of licensing: If there's a shortage of doctors, teachers and nurses, you can always blame the doctors, teachers and nurses. Licensing is a state protection racket for these professionals. Car mechanics and gutter installers would seek state licensing, too, if they were better organized and more politically astute.

This isn't to say that licensed teachers and nurses and doctors aren't good. It's only to say that it's not licensing that makes teachers and nurses and doctors good. Licensing is not needed to maintain or improve their professional quality. Licensing hurts professional quality by graying standards and stifling or eliminating competition.

Licensing would play particular havoc with journalism. Just think how expensive or poorly reported news would be today if journalists were licensed and in limited supply.

The public is just as qualified to shop for professional services as it is to decide which newspaper, magazine or blog to read, without providers being state licensed. One framed certificate from the state should mean very little to a consumer compared to the other certificates of education and achievement on a professional's walls.

Only competition through the repeal of licensing ensures the best overall quality of services. We have the best quality journalism in America because journalism is not licensed and is competitive. Let's raise the bar and demand this standard from all professionals.

Lost voters need your guidance

2006-10-11T05:20:00.000-07:00

A letter to fellow Hoosier Libertarians:

Indiana voters desperately need your guidance on Election Day. Won't you step up to help them?

It's bad enough that fewer and fewer of them find their ways to the polls each year. Worse is that most voters are completely lost once they get there.

Just ask them. Few will know that this election determines if they have two or three choices on their ballots in future elections. (You'd think that the chance of losing a third of their choices might be important enough to know). Few will know that the only way to vote against Senator Dick Lugar is to vote for a Libertarian.

Voters need YOU to remind them of these important details that empower them beyond their typically narrow political consciousness, which is based on the limited information they pursue and are fed. YOU are the voters' last hope of using their votes wisely and powerfully, instead of wasting them on thieves who plunder our property and rights on behalf of special interest groups, be they sports franchises, penal businesses, moralists, licensed professionals or just the employees of our various bloated governments themselves, who vote for more government.

Except when our lawmakers are out of session or asleep, their plundering never stops. Let's never kid ourselves about what we're dealing with: at best, ignorant and fearful politicians whose auto-reflex is to try to control other peoples' lives without looking for non-coercive solutions. (Need an example? Not one Democrat or Republican elected official publicly proposed funding Lucas Oil Stadium with private capital).

Seeking government solutions is the common grotesque denominator of ALL non-Libertarians. Their use of government to bully or trick others into paying for their pet projects is the main reason why it's so easy, gratifying and imperative to volunteer at the polls to defeat them. They deserve to be challenged every day, not just Election Day. It's a full-time job. Have you done your part?

Won't you please help the voters this year by volunteering at the polls on behalf of your Libertarian Party candidates? Whether giving an entire day or just an hour before and after work, you can make a big difference in the lives of wandering, lost Hoosiers who have been looking for direction from all the wrong people.

I was once lost, but now I'm found. I hope you'll join me volunteering at the polls on Election Day.

Longing for better schools, shorting on all cylinders

2006-08-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

The Indianapolis Star's headline "Blacks long for better schools" (August 13, 2006) should have read "Minorities vote against better schools for themselves."

In my numerous runs for political office as a Libertarian Party candidate, including a bid for school board, I have yet to meet or run against a local minority politician who advocated anything but mediocrity in education. This includes one of my first political opponents, Congresswoman Julia Carson. Unfortunately, most local minority children get the mediocre education that their parents predominantly vote for, and have few people but their parents to blame for it. Here's why:

Public education in Indiana is run and supplied by the government, which is a monopoly. This monopoly provides its curriculum and teachers from the same stagnant pool, which has no competition. This pool is fed from the same stale educational source - namely, college education departments - and filtered of brilliance and creativity by blanket teacher accreditation requirements. Government-created monopolies, by their very nature, give mediocre service because there is nothing to compete with them, or nothing to stir up the pool.

Most local minority politicians support mediocre education because they support this government-run monopoly to the exclusion of educational competition. They support this monopoly, not on behalf of the interests of school children, but because the self-interested organizations that benefit from the monopoly, including teacher and public-employee unions, help them get elected.

An alternative to this monopoly is to have the government continue funding public education, but to let private providers supply it. This alternative, called educational or school choice, would break the monopoly of government-run schools by giving parents a choice not to choose their mediocrity. No longer would politicians, with their horrible accountability and lines in the sand, determine who gets the best education.

If, as the Star's article indicates, 67 percent of area blacks want private education for their children, then all they have to do is vote for school choice. But this will require breaking away from most of their political leaders who are on the record opposing this competitive solution and who have historically led their community astray on behalf of the self-interested players within the public education monopoly.

All Hoosier children deserve better education than the mediocre cookie-cutter version that adult voters provide them today. But Hoosier parents and taxpayers, no matter what skin color, have little basis to expect better educational outcomes without voting for competition among education providers and for universal school choice for parents.

Open minds to immigration

2006-03-29T06:51:00.000-08:00

This week Congress and the President may determine the fate of 12 million illegal, mostly Hispanic immigrants in the United States.

Some lawmakers want our current immigration laws enforced and to seize, jail and deport the illegals. Others want a wall built between the U.S. and Mexico to prevent future influxes. Still others believe that illegals already in the U.S. should be given amnesty, and that future government efforts be directed to enforcing the border with more manpower and technology.

The other choice - the one that gets no play in the major media - is the open immigration policy that the federal government employed for our country's first four score. It was only after several states passed their own immigration laws following the Civil War that Congress made immigration a national issue.

In 1875 Congress restricted the immigration of prostitutes and felons. In 1882 it barred the insane, the mentally handicapped, people likely in need of public care and Chinese immigrants. The Immigration Service was not established until 1891. Racial and national quotas became the norm during the 1920s.

This is to say that the federal government's role in controlling immigration is largely ahistorical and tainted with prejudice, which should be morally objectionable to all of us. Modern proponents say immigration control is necessary because of advances in technology, but their anti-immigrant attitudes began long before modern transportation and weapons of mass destruction.

Make no mistake that today's immigration debate is not about preventing white Canadians from immigrating to this country, but instead over people with a different skin color, language, culture and wealth than most of the Americans who object to them. Race and other socio-economic issues are at the heart of their objections.

The moral, political and economic answer to immigration is to embrace it, not fight it. There should be no barriers to opportunity. There is nothing moral in our use of threats and violence against people who peacefully seek better lives for themselves and their families. And we shouldn't blame them if we stupidly vote to tax ourselves to give them free benefits.

Open immigration and few government benefits was the policy of our lawmakers until about a hundred years ago, and is the policy of modern libertarians. Libertarians believe that government should be used to support freedom and opportunity for less fortunate people, not to give fortunate people control over opportunity.

We also should make immigration easier for those from countries other than Mexico. Current regulations and thin staffing at immigration offices force immigrants to choose between wasting time, effort and thousands of dollars to comply with the law or to risk deportation.

As confusing as the immigration debate may seem, our political choices are really quite clear. Either we support people's natural rights to seek better lives, or we vote for policies to suppress them. An open immigration policy does not preclude our federal government from screening for diseases, weapons and other contraband, just as it does today.

The Golden Rule says to treat other people as we would like to be treated. Wouldn't we find it objectionable, immoral and even primitive if Mexicans built a wall against us and used threats and violence to send Americans packing?

Bad monkey !

2006-03-29T06:45:00.000-08:00

The email’s title innocently read: "Please sign the petition," so I clicked the hyperlink (http://www.indyzoo.com/content.aspx?cid=879) to see what it was about.

To my surprise appeared the following petition on the web site of the Indianapolis Zoo and Gardens. With all due respect to the Zoo, this petition is so politically senseless on so many levels that it's a perfect example of what not to do.

"We, the undersigned, ask Congress to provide $2 million for each of the wildlife species covered under the Multinational Species Conservation Fund program -- African elephant, Asian elephant, rhino, tiger, great apes and marine turtles. Thank you."

Unfortunately this petition will not help any wild animals by any measurable degree - only self-interested Homo sapiens.

The wild African and marine animals will get virtually nothing because it will take at least $2 million for the federal government to execute any plan to help them. This makes the $2 million request an insult to every animal on the list. Please don't sign a petition that insults politically helpless animals that can't speak for themselves!

I'm not a zoologist. I study political animals. From what I know about their governments, I would turn to politically tainted government programs as the last resort to save wild animals.

This is not to say that governments have no role in protecting wild African and marine animals - just not our federal government. Certainly the governments of Africa, for example, need to secure their public lands from poaching, and to prosecute violators. Good governments also promote the expansion of private property and provide legal systems to protect property rights, which offer wild animals their best chance of survival.

But otherwise, private organizations like the Indianapolis Zoo are wild animals' best hope - not governments. Other groups include the African Wildlife Foundation, American Oceans Campaign, Elephants of Africa Rescue Society and the Elephant Sanctuary of Hohenwald, to name a few. Petitioning government to help wild animals only competes with the organizations that can do the animals the most good. Each tax increase by government makes it more difficult to help wild animals.

There is very little that governments do well. By their very nature, they use and manage resources unwisely. This means that - to any extent possible - we should not entrust wild animals to government programs, which are far too subject to bureaucracy and politics.

If wild animals could speak for themselves, they'd likely ask us to funnel our contributions through private zoological organizations instead of government. It would be money much better spent.

Straight talk on school choice

2006-03-29T06:42:00.000-08:00

Let me state up front that I am an unadulterated supporter of competition in publicly funded education, better known as school choice.

However, having said this, I think the Florida Supreme Court correctly struck down Governor Jeb Bush's Opportunity Scholarships - a voucher program for students attending failing public schools - as contrary to Florida's constitution.

The Florida constitution calls for “a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality system of free public schools.” The 5-2 decision held that Bush's voucher program “diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida's children.”

Don't blame school vouchers for this constitutional defeat. Vouchers will ultimately save Florida's public education from the people who run it today and are running it into the ground. Instead blame the defeat on Florida's archaic state constitution. It clearly calls for “a uniform ... system of free public schools,” which publicly funded vouchers in private schools clearly are not.

Unfortunately, Indiana's constitution suffers the same malady. Our General Assembly is mandated to provide “a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” Just as in Florida, this wording is all that the Indiana Supreme Court would need to strike down most voucher legislation. This is why we should not rely on our courts to do a political job. It’s the legislature’s role to change our laws to make real educational improvements possible.

Indiana's constitution is nearly 190 years old, and so are its educational provisions. The idea of voucher education just turned 50 this year. We must bring our state constitution and political discussion up to date by focusing on the value of competition in education.

If competition provides accountability among competing merchants, mechanics and ministers in our society - which it does - then competition should be used to bring accountability to our public education system, also.

Accountability woefully lacks in Indiana’s government-run monopoly school systems. While our students are being taught how to pass the ISTEP test, students elsewhere are reading books, doing math exercises and learning foreign languages.

Yet school-choice opponents say accountability is not the issue, that school choice proponents like me are just hostile to public schools. This is how Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union for Florida, put it: “What fueled Opportunity Scholarships and other programs was not the inability of public schools to provide the needed programs but rather the opposition and hostility to public schools and the desire to create a competing school system.”

This is both silly and disingenuous. Most school choice advocates oppose neither public schools, which I attended, nor public funding of schools. Most of us are motivated strictly against the government monopoly of educators that run and control our public schools to the detriment of children and our society.

Even the most socially democratic of nations such as Belgium and Sweden give parents universal choice where to send their kids to school. These liberal systems, which educate children far better than ours does, prove that there is nothing inherently contradictory between providing public education and allowing educational choice and competition among educational providers.

These social welfare systems can teach American liberals that it is only through competition that excellence in public education can be achieved.

If we can all agree that competition is good and monopolies are bad, then our discussion should focus on how to infuse competition into publicly funded education and how to bust the government's bureaucratic education monopoly.

Sidewalk ordinance a slippery slope

2005-12-28T03:42:00.000-08:00

In these times of budgetary shortfalls, you'd think Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson would be singing, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow," and not just to fill the city's chuckholes.

Granted, he's charged with removing snow on most Indianapolis streets, which is no easy task, but he could be singing in the flurries rather than ever fretting them.

Snows are potential cash cows for his financially bootstrapped administration. According to an Indianapolis ordinance, businesses and residents must clear their sidewalks of snows or face a $50 fine.

If my eastside Indy neighborhood is any indication, its broken neglected sidewalks are worth their weight in rock salt. After our last big snow, Indianapolis police officers could have trudged house to house, passing out $50 tickets to most of my neighbors.

Which they didn't, thank goodness, but they legally could have. I can't think of a better extortion racket than taking advantage of people - especially elderly, out-of-shape and absent people - when the weather is really miserable ... but that's what the ordinance is set up to do. Its
intention to clear sidewalks is noble, but its potential for abuse is enormous.

For example, the police can net twice the return per ticket than they do on seat-belt violations and with much less effort. How hard can it be to walk up and down streets through snow and to leave a demand notice at every sitting duck's gate?

I'm glad that Mayor Peterson hasn't stooped to use such measures to raise revenue, although he can. There are better uses for police officers than policing snow on our sidewalks. Plus, this ordinance affects older and unhealthy people disproportional to healthy ones.

Indianapolis' city-county council would be smart to comb its code books of both under- and un-enforced ordinances, such as this one. I've lived in Indianapolis most of my fifty years, but until recently had never heard of the city's sidewalk rules. Laws and ordinances that aren't worth enforcing and can't be enforced uniformly should be struck.

It goes without saying, also, that police officers should not have discretion over which laws and ordinances to enforce. Most of the residents on my block were clearly in violation of the sidewalk ordinance, but the law went un-enforced. If the city can't or won't enforce its own written laws,
then there are too many laws.

Indianapolis' sidewalk ordinance is a perfect example of the futility of using statutes and ordinances to impose duties on our neighbors. This is a case where the city's legislature has enacted a rule that few people even know about and which its own administrators don't enforce. The city-county
council should clean house of all such ill-advised and unenforceable attempts to impose duties on people.

Ironically, I spent an invigorating hour clearing my sidewalks before I read about the city's sidewalk ordinance. I was motivated by the safety of my postman, of the blind guy down the street, and of the Hispanic kids at the bus stop in front of my house - not to mention my pride. I was not
motivated by some obligation that my local legislature said I owed them.

As well, I imagine most companies clear snow in front of their businesses for commercial reasons, and not because government tells them to.

Which suggests that government would do us all more good if it stopped imposing often unknown and unenforceable duties, and merely used the media to encourage us to be better neighbors.

###

Quit Your Biggering

2005-11-27T23:36:00.000-08:00

Some recent headlines read: "Partisan Bickering Continues," "Partisan Bickering Over Katrina Escalates," and "Poll: Americans Tired of Partisan Bickering." But what would American politics be without bickering?

Two words: Greatly improved.

My dictionary says that to bicker is to have a petty quarrel. A petty quarrel is a trivial and insignificant one. Alas, even headlines proclaim that Congress is trivializing its important role and avoiding the tougher issues, such as the federal government's enormous and runaway growth.

Optimally voters could choose more government or less by voting for one major party or the other. Then the battles between the parties would be substantive, and not be trivial. Government would get bigger or smaller depending on the parties' respective votes.

However, where both major parties are walking in the same direction, their differences become less significant. They don't argue about the course of our country, but how fast we march down the course we're on. They don't really battle over the direction of budgets anymore. They bicker over how fast government should get big.

I call this biggering. Biggering is what the big parties do.

Congress' petty budget squabbles are like movie protagonists Thelma and Louise arguing over what speed to drive their convertible off the cliff. It's as if we've already voted to put our nation on a course to be second-rate; now we're just biggering over how much gas to fuel our demise.

As Congress broke Friday for a two-week vacation, biggering had left work undone on a budget reconciliation bill. The week before, the Senate Budget Committee endorsed spending cuts of $39 billion over the next five years. These cuts amount to a mere 0.3 percent (one-third of one percent) of projected federal spending.

Last Thursday, House Republicans narrowly enacted $50 billion in budget cuts over the next five years. Their bill reduces spending by a petty $5.6 billion in the 2006 budget of $2.5 trillion. This represents an annual savings of only $50 to families with $50,000 incomes. It amounts to just 3 percent of the $1.6 trillion in deficits projected for the five-year period.

This is all the result of petty biggering ... and our votes for petty biggerers.

Congressional spending has exceeded tax revenues for 45 of the last 50 years. The U.S. Treasury Department reports that the public debt exceeds $8 trillion, and $6 trillion of this has occurred during the last twenty years. Last year the federal government spent $2.3 trillion and ran a $412 billion deficit - that's $1.42 spent for every dollar brought in. This compares with the $1.8 trillion the government spent and the rare $86 billion surplus it found during President Clinton's final year in office.

President Bush's budget submission in February projected $3 trillion more of deficits by 2010. A public debt of $11.2 trillion amounts to $38,000 for each American. By 2010, the interest alone will cost Americans $561 billion - more than the $420 billion that we spend annually on the U.S. military.

This situation is intolerable. Within a few years, American taxpayers will be pressed and squeezed to pay more interest to creditors, much of which goes out of this country, than it costs us to support the world's greatest military. It's all because the big parties are out-biggering each other. They can hardly reduce the outrageous growth of government, let alone make even minor cuts to the voracious monster they've created.

At least, that's what Republican leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) suggested several weeks ago. He said that "no one has been able to come up with any [spending cuts] yet" and that the Republican majority had "pared down [federal spending] pretty good." Biggerer Barney Frank (D-MA) went further, saying Republicans have "shrunk the government, until now it's not there at all."

Biggering, truth-stretching and other political perversions come from lack of sound moral principles. One principle is that the best government governs least. Another is that governments shouldn't spend more than they take in. Simple principles.

So how did the Republican-controlled Congress reward itself last Friday for its constant unprincipled biggering? With a $3,100 pay raise, of course!

C'mon, let's give government a break

2005-10-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

If there is one thing for which we should commend our state legislators, it's for their wisdom not to hold elections every year. Once every four years they give our democracy - and most county election officials - a well-deserved rest.

Although this may ostensibly look like a vacation for politicians and government workers, it's voters who benefit most. Off-election years offer respites from the ubiquitous drone of unimaginative and uninformative political commercials.

Sadly, this pause button on political advertising leads more voters to greater political wisdom than most political commercials.

Perhaps it was political wisdom that also led Indiana lawmakers to adopt a part-time legislature. Or perhaps instead, as economist Milton Friedman suggests, it was due to the lack of central heating and air conditioning when our constitutions were written. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, our individual rights and property are safest when our legislators are not in session, and in Indiana that's at least once a year!

Another way to give government a break is what the voters of Oakley, Idaho may do. Oakley has two city council vacancies to fill in November, but no one has filed candidacies to fill them. Write-in candidates have until October 25 to register. So far, no one has signed up to qualify. If the vacancies aren't filled, the city council will lack the needed quorum to legally carry on its business.

Not only voter-imposed, but self-imposed government breaks are also possible. For example, if merely 5 percent of illegal marijuana smokers in America's major cities turned themselves in to the police and asked for jury trials, the weight of prohibition would literally break the back of our criminal justice systems. There wouldn't be enough courts, prison cells, prosecutors and defense attorneys, not enough bailiffs, clerks, prison guards and jurors.

Local governments would literally break down if they more than minimally enforced even a fraction of the criminal statutes enacted by our state lawmakers.

Perhaps the best example of giving government a break occurred during the Clinton administration when the U.S. government ran out of money except to perform essential government services. "Essential government services" was the administration's code word for a Libertarian government.

Lawmakers showed that the nation won't go to pot when we give government a good solid Libertarian break.

Consolidation of police services is better than collaboration

2005-09-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson recently urged the Indianapolis City-County Council to vote against merging his department with the Indianapolis Police Department under Mayor Bart Peterson's consolidation plan. Peterson contends that combining police services will save county taxpayers $9.7 million annually.

Anderson's main objection is the creation of an interim commission to oversee the merged departments. Anderson, Peterson and Council President Steven Talley - all elected Democrats - would comprise the commission that will dissolve when consolidation is complete.

Peterson thinks it's critical for him to help shape the new Sheriff's department. With Anderson likely to reassign law enforcement resources to the suburbs, Peterson's participation will better ensure reasonable continued police coverage in the inner city.

Anderson has vocally opposed the interim commission since its introduction. He knows that Peterson and Talley have their eyes on his department's pension fund to fill I.P.D.'s shortfalls.

Because Sheriff is an office created by Indiana's constitution, and cannot legislatively be abolished, Anderson believes that he should oversee any merger start to finish. Because this is not likely to happen, he has recently offered a plan to improve collaboration between the departments, but would not consolidate them.

This is a big mistake. Sheriff Anderson should seize this rare opportunity and do what is necessary to consolidate police power into one office - his office - even if it takes a transitional commission.

If Anderson has concerns that the commission will harm the Sheriff's office, he needs to tell the public about them. If Peterson and Talley gang up to plunder his resources or make bad policy for his new department, he should oppose the commission's final plan before the City-County Council. The council's Democratic majority will be hard-pressed to OK the merger over his objections.

Taxpayers will benefit if the Sheriff and I.P.D. merge investigative units, share practice and training centers, and unify arrest, detainment and transportation procedures. Consolidation is also a blessing to voters because it will make one elected official accountable for all law-enforcement activity in Indianapolis. As Sheriff Anderson said at a news conference, "The buck should stop at the sheriff's desk."

If it wasn't for partisan politics, coupled with voter neglect, I.P.D. would have merged into the sheriff's office long ago. There are political explanations, but no sound reasons to have two separate police services in Marion County, each with its own standards in training, compensation, workloads, and equipment.

It is rare to find an elected official such as Mayor Peterson who is willing to relinquish ultimate authority over a police force and to give such power to a more appropriate office. Sheriff Anderson should use his good judgment and considerable political skills to make consolidation a reality. Opportunities like this don't come around very often.

###

Kurt St. Angelo is a resident of Indianpolis and former chair of the Libertarian Party of Marion County.

Some police chases are necessary evils. Some aren't.

2005-08-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

I asked an orthodontist friend of mine why it is I.U. Dental School's policy to teach human anatomy instead of just the anatomy of the head. He said, "The head bone's connected to the neck bone. The neck bone's connected to the shoulder bone . . ."

Enough said. I got the picture. Of course everything's interrelated, and we want policies that encourage dentists to see the whole picture - not just part of it.

And so too with the police-chase policies of the Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff. We cannot tolerate policies that encourage unnecessary police chases and unnecessary deaths of innocent people, including passengers, bystanders and police officers.

On August 3, 19-year-old Kelly Baker died while on a blind date with 22-year-old guy named Leonard Moss. Wanted for a bench warrant, Moss fled police for two miles at 110 m.p.h. before wrapping his car around a utility poll, killing both Baker and himself.

On the morning of August 14, police chased a couple suspected of armed robbing a convenience store on Indianapolis' west side before the couple crashed their getaway car into a daycare center. Luckily it was Sunday and no children were present.

Lawrence Police Officer Craig Herbert wasn't so lucky. He died last March when a 15-year-old boy crashed a stolen van into the officer's parked car during a police chase.

Critics of current police-chase policies say high-speed chases bring out the worst adrenal instincts in police officers, and often get out-of-hand. Policy defenders say that if the public expects the police to do their jobs, then some innocent people will occasionally be hurt and killed.

Given these valid sides - one that says police chases are necessary evils and the other that says this evil isn't worth the community's risks - let me offer a compromise plan that ensures police their authority to apprehend violent criminals, yet reduces harm to the unsuspecting public.

Rule number one. If a motorist flees a police officer or the scene of a crime, police officers may use all reasonable diligence to pursue the motorist. The act of fleeing police officers would be prima facie evidence that the motorist is engaged in improper activity or already wanted by the
police.

Rule number two. During the police chase, police officers should use all reasonable diligence to determine the nature of the offense for which the suspect is wanted. If the offense is violent, such as murder, rape, or armed robbery, then the suspect is likely as dangerous outside the vehicle as
inside it, and the chase could continue.

However, if the offense is of a nonviolent nature, such as one involving vice or fraud, or as in the case of Leonard Moss who was wanted for skipping out of a work-release facility, then the police chase itself is more dangerous to the community than the suspect would be outside of his car, and
the chase should stop.

Unfortunately, Kelly Baker fell prey to an unnecessary police chase. Moss was more dangerous driving at high-speeds than he would have been to anyone if he was outside of his car. Police policies should require supervisors to call off chases of nonviolent suspects as soon as the nature of the wanted offender is determined.

However, in the case of Kelly Baker, my proposed policy would not have saved her life. Moss lost control of his car within a couple minutes of fleeing a routine police stop, and no police supervisor could have prevented that.

Nor would my proposed policy have prevented the couple that robbed a convenience store at gunpoint from careening into a daycare facility on Sunday.

But in the case of the death of police officer Craig Herbert, a police supervisor might well have prevented a high-speed chase of the car-thieving 15-year-old who was on home detention and unfit to drive.

A rose by any other name smells the same

2005-07-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

A new report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University suggests that makers and sellers of legal prescription drugs are more dangerous to society than their illegal counterparts.

More than 15 million Americans - 1 in every 20 - abuse prescription drugs. These drugs include pain relievers such as OxyContin and Vicodin, central nervous system depressants such as Xanax and Valium, and stimulants including Adderall and Ritalin. There is almost twice the number of admitted prescription drug abusers today as in 1992. More Americans abuse prescription drugs than illegal cocaine, hallucinogens, heroin and inhalants combined.

The CASA study found that between 1992 and 2002 prescriptions for controlled drugs increased more than 150 percent and that the number of prescription abusers went up seven times the rate of the U.S. population. Adult abuse rose 81 percent. Abuse by kids ages 12 to 17 increased 212 percent.

The study found a 542 percent increase in the number of teens abusing painkillers for the first time, compared with a 124 percent increase for adults. In 2003, 2.3 million of these teenagers - roughly one in every ten - admitted to using at least one prescription drug for a non-medical purpose.

During the past fifeen years, the sale of prescription drugs has more than tripled in the United States. In 1990, national spending was $37.7 billion. Today Americans spend $132 billion. Prescription drug costs have risen at more than 15 percent per year for the past several years and are the fastest-growing portion of health-care costs in America.

So it seems odd that, according to the CASA study, 43.3 percent of physicians do not ask about prescription drug use when discussing a patient's health history. Nearly one-third of physicians fail to obtain records from previous doctors before prescribing controlled drugs. Maybe this is because only 39.6 percent received any training in medical school in identifying prescription drug abuse and addiction.

If illegal drug dealers are to be blamed and severely punished for the death, addiction and destruction caused by illegal drugs, then it's only fair that makers and dealers of legal drugs should be held equally accountable for the death, addiction and destruction caused by their
products.

It is estimated that over 2 million hospital patients in America each year - over 6 percent of all patients - have serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) from prescription drugs. In a study for the Journal of Clinical Pharmaceutical Therapy, ADRs were cited as the reason for 7.5 percent of all hospital admissions. In the year 2002 alone, prescription drugs were implicated in almost 30 percent of drug-related emergency room deaths.

According to best estimates, between 106,000 and 144,000 people die in America each year from prescription ADRs. Although figures vary, likely fewer than 10,000 people die each year from adverse reactions and overdoses to all illegal drugs. The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that prescription-drug-related morbidity and mortality cost this nation more than $136 billion a year.

In 1994 the data of two researchers from the University of Arizona indicated that 60 percent of all people who are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs end up with a drug-related problem. These result in almost 9 million hospital admissions a year, at an estimated cost of $47.4 billion.

Drug companies could not have devised a more lopsided regulatory scheme that insulates them from the harmful effects of their drugs and their drug distribution policies. Today some of the hardest drugs known to mankind, and some of the most addictive, are now more readily available for abuse than the traditionally less-harmful illegal ones. Wouldn't it be smarter and safer for people to, for instance, smoke marijuana instead of popping toxic pills and drinking alcohol for their fun? Freedom of choice includes the freedom to make better choices. Prohibition doesn't.

Behind every bad government policy are special-interest groups. Drug makers, doctors and pharmacists make billions in profits from over-producing, over-prescribing and over-dispensing very dangerous drugs. Their drugs are now competing - and winning - in the vast American ecreational marketplace. Ostensibly these legal drug dealers look a lot like the illegal ones. The big difference is that they use bigger guns - including government and the media - to secure their unwarranted monopoly positions.

Are we sick enough yet?

2005-06-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

Users of medical marijuana took some blows recently, and not just from their vaporizers.

On June 6, the United States Supreme Court upheld federal authority over marijuana, even in states where its use for medical purposes is legal. On June 15, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated, by a vote of 161-264, an amendment that would have stopped the executive branch from arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers.

I’m not a big fan of medical marijuana legislation because marijuana prohibition is much more than just medical abuse. It’s an affront to our health, enterprise and environment. It is also an insult to human rights because it violates, among other things, the rights of people over their own bodies and property.

One of the most important human rights issues involving marijuana concerns the power of government over plants grown for private, personal and non-commercial uses. If government has the legitimate authority to outlaw people growing marijuana for themselves, then theoretically nothing can stop it from outlawing any and all foods, herbs and the like in our gardens - including the gardens themselves. The power to destroy one plant is the power to destroy all of them.

I have combed Indiana’s two constitutions, and there simply isn’t any authority given to bullies who don’t like the fruits of gardening. Whether in 1816 or 1851, the idea of government telling agrarians what NOT to grow would have been considered egregious - just as it should be today.

But today, in contrast, we debate on what grounds government agents can enter our states and our homes to jail us and confiscate our property for their anti-plant programs. Today Indiana’s senior senator opposes marijuana, though he calls himself a farmer. Our other U.S. senator is a former user of the beloved thistle.

Medically, marijuana is used to fight nausea from chemotherapy, to gain hunger against wasting-away syndrome, and to fight some kinds of cancer. Its seeds are the most complete plant source of essential fatty acids, which are the key to healthy hearts.

The plant also has the strongest tensile fiber of any plant, making it a source of durable cloth, paper and building materials, without cutting down trees. It can readily be converted to methanol and biomass fuels. Government’s prohibition of marijuana has ensured our dependence on pharmaceuticals, synthetics, trees and fossil fuels. Thanks prohibitionists!

I’m for treating marijuana as we do tomatoes. I don’t know if you call that legalizing the plant or decriminalizing it, but I think our constitutions guarantee people the exercise of such natural God-given rights as putting a seed in the ground, watering it and watching it grow for their own use - whether it becomes a tomato, a marijuana plant or a Chia Pet. And I believe that people have a right to use reasonable force to protect their plants and other property from people who wish to take them.

This is antithetical to the medical marijuana movement. Proponents for medical marijuana advocate that sick people should ask government-licensed medical agents for permission to purchase and use plants over which government has no inherent jurisdiction. That’s a backward and ineffective way to argue for the rights of people, particularly sick people.

Asking government for permission to use marijuana is like asking government for permission to eat tomatoes. We would laugh in the governor’s face if he told us we needed a prescription to buy Brandywines, Early Girls and Romas, yet we don’t even blink when our state legislature denies doctors power to prescribe marijuana and when 750,000 Americans - a fraction of American users - are arrested each year for illegally possessing the plant.

Even wackier is that some state governments would force the sick to get their marijuana prescriptions from doctors. During my entire life, the medical industry and government has conspired to keep doctors ignorant and misinformed about the plant.

The bottom line is that no one should have to be sick to use marijuana, and no one should have to ask government’s permission to grow anything in his or her own garden. But prohibitionists have convinced most of us that our society is different than that when our constitutions were written, and therefore our unalienable rights should be different also.

Rx for better understanding

2005-05-18T03:14:00.000-07:00

By Kurt St. Angelo

A May 11 Indianapolis Star headline reads innocently enough: "Anti-meth law has cut crime in Vigo County.”

The article tells how a countywide ordinance beginning January 2005, which restricts sales of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, has led to fewer methamphetamine labs seized in the county from 71 last year to 41 this year over the same four-month period.

Clearly the number of meth labs seized in Vigo County is down, but where's the lower "crime" that the headline promised?

On its website at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict_c.htm#property, the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics offers the most up-to-date information about crime in America. However, meth-lab busts are nowhere in the Bureau's crime statistics.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, all crime fits into two categories: violent crime against people and crime against people's property, both categories of which include direct legal victims.

"Violent crime includes murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and assault," reads the website. "Property crimes include burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft." If eradicating meth labs is the same as eradicating "crime," as the Indianapolis Star’s headline suggests, why aren't meth-lab
seizures listed in the U.S. Department of Justice's crime statistics?

The easy and only answer is that operating a home lab is not really a crime by any legal definition. It is merely a violation of the will of our state General Assembly, which draws most of its lines arbitrarily in the sand.

If making methamphetamine was a real crime, the directors of most pharmaceutical companies would be in jail. Instead, it is just an offense, with about as much legal and moral authority as if our state legislature prohibited our children’s home chemistry labs.

The main issue upon which voters should focus is what effect Governor Daniel ’s new bureaucratic solution will have on meth use and on real crime, as the Justice Department defines it. Will meth users resort to stealing, thieving and burglarizing the rest of us to pay for scarcer, higher priced
methamphetamine?

Not likely … at least not any more than they are now. (The U.S. Department of Justice reports that drug prohibition alone accounts for the commission of over 25 percent of all thefts in the United States.) The Governor’s new law is not targeted at the source of most illegal methamphetamine, so supply and use won’t likely be much affected.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, about 80 percent of meth sold in the United States is made in “super labs” in Mexico and California, using pseudoephedrine in bulk from Canada, China or India. These super labs can produce meth that is twice as pure as that made from cold tablets, which account for less than one-fifth the national supply.

The new law won’t likely ave any children in Indiana from meth-lab explosions either. No children in Indiana have yet to die due to meth-lab explosions. In fact, in an hour of Google-searching, I uncovered only six child deaths nationally since 1996.

And if it’s anhydrous ammonium fumes that contaminate homes and endanger children, it would make more sense to better control supplies of anhydrous ammonium than cold tablets.

No wonder we make no headway in our war against drugs. Black marketers will always outsmart prohibitionists. Plus they’ve got until July 1, when the new Indiana law takes effect, to get a head start.

There is a solution that would not be burdensome, yet would address the real problems of addiction. The easier it is for users to satisfy their addicted bodies’ needs, the less they will resort to real crimes to satisfy those needs, and the less they will deal with people who will kill to sell them drugs.

Methadone treatment centers give prescribed doses of heavy narcotics to addicts so they won’t have reason to steal, prostitute themselves, or endanger themselves and others to satisfy their addictions. We should extend this civility also to troubled cocaine and meth users.

As the number of meth labs go down in Indiana - thanks to better policing by pharmacists - what will the police and media do? Will they focus their attention on real crimes, or will they work harder looking for the fewer meth labs, which are themselves the direct result of drug prohibition?

What was once unthinkable is now on national television

2005-04-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

Where have I been?

I follow college basketball on television and watch almost every I.U. game.
I’m also an avid Notre Dame football fan. I’ll even set my VCR to catch
college-wrestling matches. But the idea of paying college athletes to play
college football and basketball hit me unaware and in the worst way.

About a month ago, just preceding the NCAA basketball tournament, ESPNU held
a nationally televised forum on the issue of paying college athletes.

Yes, I vaguely remember the sorrowful incident of Maurice Clarett, who
railed against Ohio State for not buying him a ticket home from a Fiesta
Bowl practice to attend the funeral of a boyhood friend, even though his
school netted $13 million from the game.

But yikes, I didn’t think a discussion about the NCAA’s rigid rules and
bureaucracy would result in one about paying college athletes – just to do
what they love to do. To me, paying college students cash to attend college
is as unthinkable and repulsive as the General Assembly doubling our tax
burden.

What’s unthinkable is that the greatest bastion of pure sports competition
in America is being shaken by the greed and ungratefulness of the very
students who are getting scholarships. Their issue is no longer about the
unfairness and indignity of not having enough money to attend their friends’
funerals. Now they want cold, hard spending money.

To address this, the NCAA will spend over $11 million this year to pay for
clothing, emergency travel and medical expenses of needy athletes. It has
allocated another $19 million to cover an array of personal needs of all
student athletes, regardless of financial status. With these programs, plus
the ability to work during the academic year, scholarship athletes ought not
have money problems.

Given that these athletes receive education (including tutoring), room,
board, medical care and travel for their participation in sports (plus
frequent flyer points), they get what they need and more. They leave school
with no debt plus a reasonable chance of earning $500,000 more in their
lifetime than peers who did not graduate from college.

But now some scholarship athletes believe they’re entitled to more than a
free education. Sure, according to the NCAA, there are about 40 major
Division 1-A schools that make money off of their star football and
basketball athletes. But for each university in the black, there are about
25 other colleges or universities whose sports programs are in the red.

Just like many fans prefer successful teams, superstar athletes choose high
profile and extremely competitive university sports programs to launch their
professional careers. Winning teams make players – not the other way around.
Where would Michael Jordan be if he’d gone to Wabash or DePauw instead of
North Carolina?

The Indiana Hoosiers may have recently lost Bracey Wright and Patrick Ewing,
Jr. from their roster, but Hoosier fans will tune-in to I.U. basketball next
year anyway, particularly if the team starts winning more.

Likewise, fans support Notre Dame because of its winning football tradition,
not because so-and-so is playing quarterback.

Having said this, pay-for-play should be a moot issue with regard to all
college sports, except football. Great high-school basketball players can
skip college and go directly to the NBA. Superstar basketball players have a
real choice where to play and are not exploited by playing for a college
scholarship.

But because NFL players must be 20 years or older, college football has
become the de facto minor leagues for the NFL. The best and usually only way
to go pro for most football players is to play college football. But because
it is so physically tough, outstanding players risk potential professional
careers for an education that some of them don’t really value.

This situation is unfortunate, but we shouldn’t blame it on the amateur
status of college sports. The solution is not to professionalize college
football, but to convince the NFL and other professional sports to lower
their age requirement to 18 years. Then all superstar athletes would have
the choice of getting paychecks from professional sports teams right out of
high school or accepting a free college education as fair compensation.

Choice is good.

It still doesn’t pay to be gay

2005-03-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

From my legal perspective, I see the issue of gay marriages or civil unions as one of civil rights.

The federal government’s civil rights laws prohibit discrimination against people based on race, age, or gender. So how can state legislatures legally discriminate against a class of people – homosexual couples – based on the sameness of their gender?

Having raised this question for intellectual purposes only, I’ve got to admit that I’m not a big fan of civil rights, and I don’t defend them. In spite of their egalitarian motivations, they are a misnomer.

Civil rights are neither civil nor rights. They are privileges bestowed by government on one group of people, which always come at the expense of the equal rights of others.

Marriage privileges are civil rights. Both government and business give married people perks that the rest of us don’t get and that we largely subsidize. Licensed married people get preferential tax rates, better employee benefits and legal protections. Advocates of gay marriages or civil unions want these privileges of marriage extended to gay couples.

I can’t say that I do … and it’s not because I’m against anyone’s sexual preferences. I don’t want government bestowing more privileges upon anyone.

Heck, if gay couples get civil-marriage rights, there will be one fewer disfavored class of people to subsidize the taxes and insurance rates of married heterosexuals. How fair will that be on singles like me and ordinary cohabitants?

It’s one thing to exercise our natural rights to marry under God. It’s another to force others who are unlicensed to subsidize our behavior, hetero or otherwise.

We would be best to dismantle special interest privileges, not add to them. Besides, I wouldn’t wish government privileges upon anybody. They come with too much government servitude and accountability.

Marriage licenses grant the state power to divide marital assets according to the whims of the General Assembly. I don’t understand why gay couples would want their relationship subject to our state legislators.

Ultimately I’d like to see all licensed people freed from their unnecessary commitments to government. This would include not only licensed married people, but also licensed attorneys, doctors, electricians and sports trainers.

The government can no more certify the quality of doctors or lawyers through licensing than it can the quality of marriages or civil unions.

Licensed professions use government as a bully to thwart unlicensed – and thus, unprivileged – competitors. All professional licenses are licenses to steal your opportunity to hire someone possibly more qualified but unwilling to do the government’s bidding. Consumers have better tools than licensing to gauge professional quality.

The history of marriage licensing is equally laden with obvious special interests. Marriage licenses were once used – perhaps invented – to discourage interracial relationships. Today they are used to discourage gay relationships. Heterosexuality has its privileges, and it still doesn’t pay to be gay.

For disfavored singles and unlicensed couples – gay or otherwise – let’s aspire to remain unlicensed. Let’s exercise our God-given rights instead of seeking government’s permission to exercise them. Let’s work to get our own houses in order.

Licensed or not, all adults can draft a will or a trust to pass their property at death to their loved one(s), regardless of gender. Nobody needs a marriage license to fulfill this important function.

No couple needs legislators defining each side’s respective property rights when its relationship dissolves. This can and should be done contractually – not just by gay couples but also by husbands and wives.

I sympathize with people – gay or otherwise – whose employers do not extend the privilege of certain employment benefits to their live-in co-habitants, as they do their employees’ married spouses. The solutions to this are better employers, not government adding a class of people to its A list.

There is only one valid justification for marriage licenses – legal convenience. They are useful to courts in determining legal relationships, duties and powers when couples break up or testify.

However, the common-law privilege against coerced spousal testimony predates marriage licenses. Marriage licenses were never legally necessary to prove marital status.

We would be smart to get government completely out of marriage and give it back to God, where it all began and belongs.

Let God, not government, administer and sanction all of our loving relationships. Make government available to preside over our material disputes.

Obvious often means overlooked

2005-02-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

by Kurt St. Angelo
Libertarian Writers' Bureau

My favorite childhood story was about a herd of hippos that played hide n' seek. The baby hippo's best hiding place was on a ledge just above – though in plain view of – the herd's elders, who never found the baby because they never looked up. Obvious often means overlooked.

And so it is with jail overcrowding in the Circle City. County jails lack space for everyone who's been arrested. Last year there were almost 2,000 emergency releases to free space.

Led by a group of mostly Republicans, including Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi and Superior Court judges Cale Bradford and William Young, there 's a move to greatly expand the county's criminal justice budget, build another jail facility, expand or build a new juvenile center, elect more judges, and – if they get their way – build a brand new criminal-justice center with even more capacity to turn suspects into government prospects.

The more prospects they can harness and herd, the more money taxpayers will give them.

Anyone who has watched Brizzi, Bradford or Young recently on Indianapolis television knows how callous they are toward the accused. Young, who presides over the county's drug court, says the defendants are from 'a sludge pool." By his own count, he has personally released at least six
people who have then murdered others.

Presiding Superior Court Judge Bradford chairs the Marion County Criminal Justice Planning Council, which also includes Brizzi and Mayor Bart Peterson. The Council is preparing an expensive criminal justice wish list to present to the City-County Council. At its January meeting, Bradford noted that the county's newest jail facility, built in 1997 to handle the main jail's overcrowding, was itself overcrowded.

This latest situation shows the obvious, which again won't be discussed at the next planning council meeting – that a new jail is not the solution to the latest bout of jail overcrowding. As experience shows us, a new jail will only be a standing invitation for politicians and judges to fill it.

Money is not the solution, either. Since 2001, the county's criminal justice budget has almost single-handedly been responsible for the county's whopping 40 percent budget increase, from $126 million to $176 million.

The folks in charge are overlooking the obvious answer to jail overcrowding and the legal backlog: Quit arresting so many people!

Go back to doing government's fundamental job of protecting us from real criminals – people who steal our cars, break into our homes, defraud us, or are violent – not just our immoral neighbors who offend us with their petty needs and vices.

And quit herding people who aren't real criminals through our criminal justice system – which is for real criminals. Then, these people who have not harmed others can keep their jobs, support their families, contribute to the economy and pay taxes instead of forcing taxpayers to pay for their
unneeded food, lodging and supervision in jail.

This will leave space to segregate violent and dishonest people who can't live socially with the rest of us. Isn't that the point of our criminal justice system?

If Indianapolis is true to national statistics, we spend nearly half of our criminal-justice resources fighting vice instead of crime. The distinction between vice and crimes is fundamental. As legal scholar Sir William Blackstone wrote, 'In all cases, the crime includes an injury."

The Indiana Constitution grants jurisdiction to Indiana courts based on such harm or injury. 'All courts shall be open, and every person, for injury done to him in his person, property, or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law." (Article 1, Section 12)

This does not grant courts authority to punish those who merely offend us. Article 1, Section 37 of the Constitution prohibits government from depriving people of liberty "otherwise than for the punishment of crimes." (See also Article 1, Section 13 and 19.) If Brizzi, Bradford and Young
enforced this simple covenant, jail overcrowding would likely vanish overnight.

Every time we waste our resources policing, prosecuting and imprisoning potheads and prostitutes, then car thieves, burglars or murderers go free. Plus, we lie about being true to the constitution.

Why is this so hard to understand or discuss? Why are the elders of our herd overlooking this practical, moral and constitutional consideration that is so utterly obvious?

###

Attorney, screen writer and former chair of the Libertarian Party of Marion County.

Colts’ stadium short on horse sense (part 3 of 3)

2005-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

The predominant discussion in the Indianapolis media over the proposed $500 million Colts stadium is how to fund it, not over the wisdom and propriety of taxpayers going into debt to build it.

Apparently the leaders of both major political parties in Indiana have signed off on the concept, including a poor building design, and are content to confine their discussion to who’s picking up the tab.

Come hell or high water on White River, Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson has vowed not to lose the Colts during his administration. His plan in part is to raise $13 million annually through higher car rental, innkeeper and admissions taxes in Marion County, as well as with annual gambling profits of $46 million from 2,500 pull-tab gambling machines in downtown Indianapolis.

Regional Republicans have their own plans to fund a new stadium. Rep. Luke Messer of Shelbyville proposes giving Indianapolis $30 million in annual revenue from 2,500 slot machines at the Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs horse tracks. Marion County GOP chairman and state Rep. Michael Murphy has a similar plan that would divide the slot machine profits differently, giving Indianapolis $48 million annually.

Here are three problems with these major party proposals, besides any issues that readers might have over funding the stadium with gambling profits.

First, they do not address the issue of stadium obsolescence. Taxpayers cannot afford to again let government build a stadium that the NFL outgrows, especially one that is three-times the real cost of the first one. Proponents should guarantee that the stadium will be valuable for 50 years, or promise to indenture the lives of their children and grandchildren at double the rate of our servitude.

Second, their proposals treat businesses unequally. They subsidize rich millionaires at the expense of smaller or more deserving businesses. Likewise, they treat businesses such as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway unfairly by taxing them to underwrite their sports competitor. It’s a slap in the face to the Speedway, which funds itself.

And why should we indenture each Indianapolis citizens with more than $1,000 in debt for eight regular-season football games each year? If gambling revenue projections are not met, are residents of Indianapolis willing to be on the hook for the balance? I’m certainly not.

But here’s the real crux. The RCA Dome is perfectly good as it is, except for one basic flaw. No, the flaw is NOT the size of the Dome. Although it is the smallest in the league at 57,900 seats, the Colts barely sell the Dome out even with ticket prices just below the league’s average of $54.75.

The problem with the RCA Dome stems from how NFL teams share revenue. Owners keep their revenues from private luxury suites. At the Dome, Colts owner Jim Irsay has 104 suites. The league’s most profitable franchise, the Washington Redskins, has 280.

Irsay seeks a stadium with enough suites to give him a shot at a medium profit relative to the rest of the league. He would have already moved his franchise to Los Angeles had that city promised him a stadium with enough suites, which it could not afford to do.

So he and his franchise are leveraging Indianapolis and our state government into building him a stadium by 2008 that merely gives him more profit potential. Ironically, Irsay’s best selling point is that he will not also hold the city hostage by making it guarantee that the suites it builds him will be sold. Huh? Until then, the city expects to pay him at least $36 million to keep the Colts in town.

Compare this to the real costs of a new stadium. Its $500 million price tag can triple by the time its bond is paid. For the 400 permanent jobs that the stadium creates and the hundred or so new suites that are created, that amounts to a public investment of over $1 million per job and $3 million per luxury suite. Plus, we will build a stadium with no more capacity than the original Hoosier Dome and, from the looks of the design, one with lousy viewing for NCAA basketball.

That’s maddening. Our elected officials are about to build another obsolete stadium with limited capacity, a poor configuration and an exorbitant price tag. They will again saddle us with public debt that is tall on political horseplay and short on horse sense.

Don’t let government build an obsolete stadium (Part 2 of 3)

2004-12-20T23:29:00.000-08:00

About 21 years ago I was one of the several thousand who publicly greeted then-owner Robert Irsay at the Hoosier Dome when he brought his Colts franchise to town.

It’s hard now to believe that the city of Indianapolis – with help of a county-wide hospitality tax granted by the state General Assembly and a generous $25 million grant from the Lilly Endowment – built an $82 million, 63,000-seat professional football stadium on pure speculation, without having a team to play in it.

Less than 13 years later, by the time it was politically acceptable to mention it, Colts’ owner Jim Irsay appeared on national television to call for a new publicly funded stadium. As then-chairman of the Libertarian Party of Marion County, I publicly denounced this idea. I asked how an $82 million public works project could become obsolete shortly more than a decade after it was built.

The straight and fundamental answer is that the RCA Dome was built by three entities that had no experience in the business of professional football: a local government, a state government and a tax-exempt foundation. Why should we have expected anything but a no-frills building, one that had too few luxury suites and too few fancy club seats to turn an NFL team moderately profitable in the modern age? Relying on the usual experts lacking imagination and foresight, government built a facility that was too small, and was neither expandable nor convertible.

Worse, it tied the project to special interest groups, such as downtown parking-lot owners. But the main problem with government-built stadiums like the RCA Dome is that no one is really accountable for the decisions once the stadiums turn out to be inappropriate. The William Hudnut administration, which built the Dome and brought the Colts to town, was long gone before the inadequacies of the facility become apparent.

For example, the RCA Dome has always been small by NFL standards. However, since adding extra luxury suites and club seats in 1998, the Dome is the NFL ’s smallest with 57,500 seats.

Major League Baseball once considered Indianapolis in an expansion. However, due to lack of planning, it would have cost over $40 million to convert the RCA Dome to baseball. Later, MLB abandoned offering franchises to cities with indoor stadiums.

Game parking is inadequate and expensive around the RCA Dome. Event parking more than a mile from the Dome starts at $5. The Dome has no underground parking and very little parking revenue to share with an NFL team owner. (To the credit of the Hudnut administration, the RCA Dome is modest. In real terms, it cost about as much as Conseco Fieldhouse, which holds over 17,000. Other than lacking adequate profit-enhancing amenities to keep NFL franchises happy, the Dome is a very functional stadium that is used 200-plus times per year, only 10 of which are for regularly-scheduled professional football games.)

Now Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson wants to relive the glory days of the Hudnut administration, but without that past administration’s modesty. If Peterson gets his way, taxpayers will spend over $500 million to build the NFL’s newest stadium, premiering in 2008. In inflation-adjusted terms, that's about three times the real expense of the ill-planned RCA Dome. The Colts have agreed to contribute only $100 million to the project, a third of which is in the form of a favorable NFL loan.

Indianapolis would be smarter to follow the recent lead of Washington. Last week by a 7-to-6 vote, Washington’s city council voted against the deal struck between Major League Baseball and Mayor Anthony Williams, which required the city to build a new $579 million stadium for the former Montreal Expos. Mayor Williams now has until June to find private financing for the other half of the stadium’s costs.

That’s the kind of deal the voters of Indianapolis should demand. Less government involvement in the city's next stadium means less risk for taxpayers, better planning and less pressure to raise taxes. We should resist the temptation to let government build another obsolete stadium.

Can Indianapolis afford an NFL franchise? (part 1 of 3)

2004-11-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

by Kurt St. Angelo

Since at least 1997 – only 14 years after the 63,000-seat Hoosier Dome was built for $82 million – Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was publicly lobbying for a new stadium to host his team.

Although pushed back by the Pacers’ $175 million taxpayer-supported Conseco Field House deal, he said his turn would come. He has repeatedly said that his NFL franchise “cannot survive”[i] on the revenues provided from the RCA Dome, and that a new stadium is needed “sooner or later.”[ii]

It’s tough making big money on an NFL franchise in a market this size without taxpayers subsidizing much of the costs. Taxpayers coughed up $20 million in 1998 to enlarge the RCA Dome’s suites and enhance the value of its expensive box seats. This actually cut the dome’s capacity to 57,900 seats, making it the smallest stadium in the league.[iii] In 2003 the team ranked 27th out of 32 NFL teams in terms of revenue and 29th in value.[iv]

"We're significantly, significantly below the average (in revenue), and that disparity is growing,” Irsay told Indianapolis television viewers. “Yet the average determines what our expenses are with the salary cap. That's what makes things so difficult."[v]

However, as the Cincinnati Bengals have proven, a new stadium does not ensure a better profit. Even with a new stadium, the Bengals were 24th in revenue in 2002, with only $4 million more in revenues than the Colts.[vi]

The Colts’ lease at the RCA Dome runs until 2013, but the team can break the deal after the 2006 season if its revenues aren’t greater than or equal to the median in the NFL in two out of the next three seasons. Indianapolis could require the Colts to stay by paying the difference between the team’s revenues and the league’s median.

In 2002 the Colts fell short by about $13 million. Under this arrangement, Indianapolis taxpayers presently pay the Colts about $12 million per year in direct subsidies.[vii]

The long-term solution, Irsay proposes, is a new stadium with more expensive suites, club seats and ticket prices. He says the team’s future in Indianapolis depends on “the ability … to market yourself and sell seats, particularly the expensive suites and club seats.”[viii] Agreed.

The RCA Dome has 104 suites. The league’s top franchise, the Washington Redskins, offers 280. The difference in revenue between the Colts’ and Redskins’ luxury suites likely exceeds $15 million annually.[ix] Total team revenues were $137 million and $227 million, respectively, in 2002.[x]

Certainly it behooves Irsay to shop his team to the city that gives him the best deal. During the past decade, 21 of the league’s 32 teams have received new or renovated stadiums. An average sweetheart deal is a $323-million stadium, paid 65 percent by taxpayers[xi], that holds 69,200 spectators.

But here are the $66,000 questions for Mr. Irsay: Even with an average $323-million stadium funded two-thirds by taxpayers, can the Colts sell more suites at greater prices to bring team revenues above the NFL median? Likewise, can the central Indiana football market sustain more suites, box seats and higher prices to keep the Colts in town?

I’ve been thinking of recommending that the Libertarian Party buy the naming rights to the next Indianapolis Colts’ stadium, but now I’m having second thoughts.

At a recent sold-out home game, I was unable to sell the two extra $45-seats that I had – at any price. There was no one besides ticket scalpers to give the tickets. I swallowed the $90 in losses, not to mention two grossly expensive $6 beers during the game. (Hey, I was thirsty and now have my third plastic commemorative Colts cup!)

Before a new stadium becomes economically realistic in Indianapolis, demand for Colts tickets, box seats and luxury suites must exceed their supply. This burden of truth falls on Jim Irsay, and he must meet this before taxpayers make more concessions.

Funding a new stadium with $400-plus million of taxpayer debt (excluding interest) is to gamble on the team’s ability to sell itself to more fans and at a higher premium.

This will be a much harder task than giving away my extra tickets.

[i] http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript525.html
[ii] http://www.theindychannel.com/sports/2637045/detail.html
[iii] http://www.leagueoffans.org/nflstadiumdeals.html
[iv] http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0915/081tab.html
[v] http://www.theindychannel.com/sports/2637045/detail.html
[vi] http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0915/081tab.html
[vii] http://www.theindychannel.com/sports/2637045/detail.html
[viii] http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript525.html
[ix] http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript525.html
[x] http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0915/081tab.html
[xi] http://www.stadium.state.mn.us/faq.pdf