Pennhurst & subsidiarity

I had a short-term job some years ago working at a home for dual-diagnosis adults. The best thing about that job was each night, on my way home, heading out of the driveway past some of the men's group homes where, in all but the harshest weather, the guys would all be gathered on the porch. So the last thing I would see and hear each night before leaving was a half-dozen beaming faces and waving hands as they wished me good night and told me they'd see me tomorrow. Best perk I've ever had.

The worst thing about that job was the paperwork, especially the paperwork for the dozen or so individuals in our care who were former residents of the Pennhurst State School. That paperwork was a difficult chore, but a worthy one.

You may have heard of Pennhurst. If not, picture the hospital in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, only worse. More than 2,500 mentally retarded Pennsylvanians were warehoused and neglected there in 1968 when WCAU reporter Bill Baldini arrived with a camera crew. Philadelphia's Channel 10 News is still proud of this Pennhurst Special Report, calling it "perhaps the most important news report" in the station's history. That pride is well deserved. This is what good journalism can do -- speaking up on behalf of people with no voice, shining a light into dark corners and provoking change.

That report helped to prompt a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the residents of Pennhurst -- a case that wound up going all the way to the Supreme Court of the U.S. three times, where it became a landmark decision regarding the care of the mentally ill. Eventually, nearly 20 years later, Pennhurst was closed and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania promised that its residents would never again suffer from the kind of conditions they suffered there. That promise involved, as I said, a great deal of paperwork to ensure that it was being kept, but we were glad to be keeping that promise and glad, even, of the burden of documenting it.

I've been thinking about the Pennhurst case lately due to a series of reports in the paper by Lee Williams documenting "Trouble at Delaware Psychiatric Center." The scope of this trouble is nowhere near the scale of the Pennhurst scandal, but it arises from many of the same underlying dynamics. Caring for those suffering from mental illness is not easy and it is not cheap and it never stops. This is even more true for dual diagnosis individuals (those with some combination of mental illness and mental retardation).

Deciding what our obligation is for such care and how we should go about providing it is a challenge made all the more confusing by the many different and undifferentiated competing notions of what we mean by "we" and "our."

Here is another instance in which the principle of subsidiarity is not only helpful, but necessary.

We are poorly served by the widespread belief that our society involves two, and only two, kinds of political actors: individuals and the state. Subsidiarity, by contrast, recognizes the existence of a host of other actors and agents: families, neighborhoods, civic groups, schools, universities, businesses, churches, religious congregations, nonprofits, etc. Refusing to acknowledge the existence of such actors means refusing to acknowledge the relationships and responsibilities that individuals and the state have to them, which leads in turn to a distorted, Hobbesian, understanding of both individuals and the state. Individuals become viewed as detached, solipsistic atoms engaged in a war of all against all. The state becomes viewed as a monolithic, gargantuan Leviathan -- a threat to, rather than the created servant of, the individuals. They are viewed as binary opposites, a view that allows in turn only the binary possibilities of socialism/totalitarianism or anarcho-libertarian/social Darwinism.

(It's worth noting that the American Constitution rejects this binary view with its distorted understanding both of individuals and of the state, and it does so in its first three words.)

This binary outlook cannot accommodate the mentally disabled. They are, like all children, dependent, and thus incapable of surviving in a Hobbesian jungle. They are dependent, first and foremost, on their families. Acknowledging the reality of such dependence, and of the reality of the existence and obligations of families, shatters the illusions of the binary outlook and forces us to consider the wide world that exists beyond its artificial walls.

The mentally disabled are like all children, only more so. They will never grow out of it. Raising a 4-year-old is a challenge. Caring for a 4-year-old who will always be a 4-year-old, even as his body becomes the body of a 24-year-old, and a 34-year-old, can be overwhelming. Families facing such overwhelming dependence tend to become, themselves, dependent on outside help.

Those who can't imagine any actors other than individuals or the (federal) state cannot imagine any sources for such outside help other than some kind of federal response -- whether institutional or a cash transfer, paid for with tax revenue that they view, by definition, as confiscatory. Here in the real world, however, that help can come in a variety of forms from a variety of different sources: from extended family, neighbors, community groups, schools, businesses and charities (faith-based or otherwise), and from multiple levels of government -- municipal, county and state as well as federal.

The idea of subsidiarity is that all of these different actors have different and complementary responsibilities in society. Each has a particular role to play, and the most just and most efficient scenario is one in which each plays its appropriate role and meets its appropriate responsibilities. The presence in our society of intensely dependent mentally disabled people is similar to the the presence in our society of orphans -- the situation we looked at earlier as an illustration of the importance of subsidiarity. These individuals' families hold the primary responsibility for caring for them, but when the family is unable to do so all of these other actors have a role to play.

Ideally, these other actors will be able to support the family, strengthening its ability to care for its members in need. Such support may be financial, or in kind, or in assistance with providing care. But the individuals may still require more specialized, professional care. We could walk through numerous best-case, and next-best-case, and next-to-next-best-case scenarios here, as we did in looking at the foster care system, seeing how in each scenario the failure of any of the various actors to play its appropriate role will result in slightly worse, slightly less effective care. Ultimately, if all the actors from the family on down the line fail to fulfill their responsibilities, then all that will be left is the state -- the actor furthest removed and therefore least likely to provide efficient, quality care. Again, this does not result from nefarious government seeking to amass power to itself by usurping the role of these other actors, but rather from these other actors abdicating their responsibilities so that only the state remains as the provider of last resort. The end result of such a situation tends to look like the Pennhurst State School.

Judge Broderick's decision to close down Pennhurst and to recommit to the mentally disabled, whenever possible, living in the community was a reaffirmation of subsidiarity. It requires a vigorous, but appropriate, role for all levels of government. The state's role in all this is, foremost, to empower and enable all the other actors to meet their appropriate responsibilities as well. That involves both incentives and regulations, both tax deductions and funding that comes from tax revenue.

The taxes that provide such revenue are legitimate because they arise from the decision by "we, the people" that we do not wish to live in a society in which our most vulnerable and dependent are locked away in houses of horror like Pennhurst, because we have decided that these perpetual children ought not to have to fend for themselves on the street and that their families ought not to be crushed by the responsibilities they may not be financially or technically capable of fulfilling.

You anarcho-libertarians are free, of course, to disagree with this decision. You can complain that any taxation, even the negligible amounts required here, constitutes the theft of money that belongs to solipsistic, atomistic, individual you. But please recognize that in doing so -- in abdicating your membership in "we, the people," and refusing to participate in meeting any responsibilities that entails -- you are contributing to the growth of the very government you supposedly dread, forcing it to expand to fill the vacuum left by your refusal to be a citizen, neighbor, parent, cousin, parishioner, executive, volunteer or taxpayer.

But in any case, don't complain to me about it. I really had nothing to do with making humans social animals who live in differentiated, mutually dependent societies far more complex than your cramped, binary scheme. That just happens to be the way it is, whether you like it or not.

(Pennhurst photo from this site.)

Comments

[Jeff]

One awaits, with bated breath, the arrival of the ScottBot.

While waiting, let me applaud you on a well-written essay. I know a man, 24 years old, but at age 10 or so, who is schizophrenic. He belongs in a well-run home where they can handle his meds, and where they can handle him when he goes into fugue state. (And where they know what to do when he just lashes out in anger, not really related to either condition.)

Instead, we have his mother (who has anger issues of her own), the near-by mental hospital, which will only hold him over-night, if they take him at all, or where I fear he may be headed: jail.

I feel he could be happy, if only there was a place for him. As it is, I don't know what's going to happen to him.

[Mike Timonin]

"Raising a 4-year-old is a challenge. Caring for a 4-year-old who will always be a 4-year-old, even as his body becomes the body of a 24-year-old, and a 34-year-old, can be overwhelming."

What makes it more difficult, as I recall from working in a similar group home, is that their understanding remains at 4 years old, but many of their physical urges are those of the 24, or the 34 year old. They don't understand why they feel that way, or how best to react in that sort of situation, and it's clearly embarrasing for everyone involved.

[Meredith]

As someone with a mental illness, thank you, thank you, thank you. This post should be required reading for everyone, especially those on the left who forget sometimes about some of the people that really need assistance. Mental health issues are society's issues, and it's refreshing to read a post which states that.

[Bugmaster]

While I applaud the sentiment behind community outreach and care, I'd like to point out that some illnesses -- mental or otherwise -- are too difficult for laypeople to cope with. Their treatment require the constant attention of skilled, hard-working professionals (i.e., doctors and nurses), and, occasionally, massive amounts of heavy-duty technology. Thus, a system of hospitals is required in order to treat people with these illnesses; in practice, the government is probably the best agent to provide this care, because there's no profit in treating the severely ill.

I realize that Fred wasn't suggesting that the community can take care of all illnesses; I'm just making a preemptive strike against the dreaded ScottBot.

[Narya]

Whoa, whoa, whoa there Fred.

Mental illness and developmental disabilities are not the same (although, of course, people may have a variety of conditions, including both mental illness and developmental disabilities, or both mental illness and addiction issues). Pennhurst was primarily (if not exclusively?) an institution for people with developmental disabilities. The Pennhurst decision was a landmark case regarding treatment of people with developmental disabilities, not people with mental illness.

W/r/t how disabled a person is by his or her disabilities, it varies quite widely. It does turn out that living in the community, learning self-care skills, etc. improves the ability of people to function more independently. One of the useful things, for example, is using scales that assess a person's ability to perform such skills, rather than trying to rely on "standard" intelligence tests. Yes, many or even most people with developmental disabilities will require some kinds of assistance, but much more is possible--with early intervention, support, etc.--than most people realize.

I worked with the people who had a contract to study Pennhurst Class Members (i.e., people who were affected by the Pennhurst decision and were moved to the community), and we had an incredible opportunity to see how people were doing AT Pennhurst and then see how they were doing after they had moved to a community living arrangement. (Such pre-post data is extremely hard to get, as you might imagine.) What struck me the most is that, even after former Pennhurst residents had moved to the community and made significant gains in their abilities, their families (and, likely, others) didn't believe additional growth or gains were likely. That is, we don't know what people can do until we provide the support and possibilities for them to do it.

Which speaks to your larger point, with which I heartily agree, i.e., that tremendous support is, in fact, necessary. Many people have medical issues as well as developmental disabilities, for example, and if a parent doesn't have health insurance and the werewithal to negotiate the systems involved, that child is doomed.

[Darryl Pearce]

...gawl! This is why I keep coming back to the Church of the Slacktivist!

Thank you, Fred Clark.

[Bugmaster]

Back, back you italics beast !

[Bugmaster]

I command you !

[Jeff]

It does turn out that living in the community, learning self-care skills, etc. improves the ability of people to function more independently.

I believe it would help the man I described above. He has a program, but he only goes a few times a week, for a few hours at a time, and there's nothing forcing him to go, so he often doesn't. I'd like for him to be a full-time program with an outreach segment, but that doesn't seem likely.

[Narya]

Jeff, don't know where you are, but if you're in a position to help (and you may well not be) you might consider talking to the folks at Bowery Residents Committee (BRC) in NYC. They do a lot of work with people who are mentally ill, addicted, and/or at risk for homelessness, i.e., people with a lot of issues.

[ako]

While I agree with the main point of the post (the help society needs to offer, and the real complexity behind the the word "society"), a lot of the language and assumptions about mental age and "real" age in people with developmental disabilities bother me.

The best explanation of the problem with these attitudes and presumptions comes from another blogger who is far more qualified to speak about the experiences of people diagnosed with mental disabilities than I am. I'll just say that the problem of someone with the "mind of a 4-year old" and "body of a 24 year old" is heavily exacerbated by viewing and describing the person as "really" or "mentally" 4, not as a person with 24 years of life, experience, and memories, and limited intellectual skills. And that most people would hesitate before describing someone with a physical disability as having the "movement age" or "coordination age" of a two-year-old.

[Mnemosyne]

The best explanation of the problem with these attitudes and presumptions comes from another blogger who is far more qualified to speak about the experiences of people diagnosed with mental disabilities than I am.

I understand that autistic people -- most of whom have a pretty good intellectual functioning -- have blogs and do very well with them.

My cousin does very well, too. At the age of 45 and after many years of education, she is finally able to live by herself. I have a feeling that her life and her kind of brain damage (she was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck) are, um, a bit different than that of an autistic person. She needed A LOT of help to be able to live as an independent adult. And, frankly, I felt like that blog entry really denigrated the work that she and her family did because, hey, mental age means nothing and she was completely able to make rational decisions at all times if only we hadn't been holding her back with our insistence on things like having her learn how to use the stove safely so she didn't set the kitchen on fire a second time.

[Mnemosyne]

Though I need to say one thing I agreed with in the thread: it's more useful (and probably more accurate) to talk about a person's emotional age rather than their "mental age." It's not like my cousin has no idea she's 45 years old. But her self-control and reasoning abilities are approximately those of a smart 12-year-old.

[Jeff]

Narya, thanks but I'm in LA (bulbul and Dwayne have both been gonew for a while -- where is the notebook?).

As to whether one calls it "mental age', "emotional age" or "fried potatos", dealing with a dual-disability individual takes a lot: patience, time, energy and money. Those who can do such work are real heroes.

[Jos]

I'm just making a preemptive strike against the dreaded ScottBot.

I thought this entire entry was a preemptive strike against ScottBot.

And yeah, I have to agree with Fred. But that's mostly because I have a mental illness and I really don't relish the idea of getting locked up or having to wander the streets.

[ScotBot]

'He is patting himself on the back for actually working with the sort of people that Jesus talked about? Is that a True Christian (TM) mentality, or just more showboating so the story is only about his virtue?'

Seems that this program still needs some tweaking - anyone want to help, so the comments are about me, and not Fred?

Thanks - it is a Darwinian jungle out there, especially when trying to parody a one trick pony.

[not someone else]

Mmm. Yeah. I really like the last paragraph. I have anarcho-libertarian sympathies myself, but... unfortunately, humans once again fail to live up to my standards and continue to be obsessively social. Boo, biology. :P Things like that are what have helped, over the years, to reduce that feeling to sympathies in myself.

Well, that and the realization that there was a snowball's chance in hell of my getting back some of my social investment without dancing around like a trained poodle for the rest of my life, but that's Mr. Lingering Bitterness speaking.

Kind of a scary story, that one. Just the extent to which people go to continue such things, allegedly or not...

[Scott]

We are poorly served by the widespread belief that our society involves two, and only two, kinds of political actors: individuals and the state.

Then the state can take fewer resources and leave some room for other actors. Oh, that's right, "other political actors" means people get to get organized to push for more money and power to the state. See how independent of govt that is?

Those who can't imagine any actors other than individuals or the (federal) state cannot imagine any sources for such outside help other than some kind of federal response -- whether institutional or a cash transfer, paid for with tax revenue that they view, by definition, as confiscatory.

Given how often the left shows a knee-jerk reaction of "the fedgov must step in", no liberal has any business complaining that others see only the fedgov as an 'actor'.

You anarcho-libertarians are free, of course, to disagree with this decision. You can complain that any taxation, even the negligible amounts required here, constitutes the theft of money that belongs to solipsistic, atomistic, individual you. But please recognize that in doing so -- in abdicating your membership in "we, the people," and refusing to participate in meeting any responsibilities that entails -- you are contributing to the growth of the very government you supposedly dread, forcing it to expand to fill the vacuum left by your refusal to be a citizen, neighbor, parent, cousin, parishioner, executive, volunteer or taxpayer.

Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist, do you have my financial records to back up your assertion that I'm not voluntarily participating in anything? That's right, you don't need facts. You're Compassionate(tm). Your Compassion(tm) is all the knowledge you need.

Your argument here, that resistance to taxation is what causes the govt to grow, is bullshit. I don't cause the state to grow, you do.

Why is that liberals love preambles so much (we the people, references to militias, etc)? Is it because vague statements of general purpose are so much easier to twist, Left Behind style, into any pretzel you want? Making the preamble the most important part of the Constitution is like making Revelation the most important part of the Bible. You use that one part to basically ignore the rest. Jesus didn't come to Earth to predict Armageddon and the founders didn't write the preamble for no other reason than to politically empower Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist. Neither you nor L&J admit to changing the base document, you and the PMDers both claim that's what it said all along, we just needed to 'progress' enough to realize it.

The founding fathers said they were instituting a limited govt to "promote the general welfare". According to you, that just means that you can ignore those limits by claiming your goals are to "promote the general welfare". LaHaye and Jenkins would be proud of you, Fred.

They wrote "we the people"? That means other people exist simply as fodder for pursuing the goals of Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist. How wise of Washington, Jefferson, et al to have anticipated your arrival on this planet, Fred. Who needs a second coming when we have Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist?

[scotbot_mkII]

'Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist, do you have my financial records to back up your assertion that I'm not voluntarily participating in anything? That's right, you don't need facts. You're Compassionate(tm). Your Compassion(tm) is all the knowledge you need.'

Scotbot mode 'Have you, Fred, Human Being(TM) been provided any way to prove my assertion of involvment in anything but my own crusade to fight back the endless waves of compassion that Christians feel are a true hallmark of their faith? I'm a skipping record in its groove(TM) My certainty is all the certainty anyone requires to believe what I assert.'

'Your argument here, that resistance to taxation is what causes the govt to grow, is bullshit. I don't cause the state to grow, you do.'

Scotbot - 'Nanny-state boo-boo' Just because you actually worked with people who had difficulties even more obvious than mine doesn't mean that I have to acknowledge the humanity that ties us together as a community. I belong to my own community, and it is a better community because it doesn't actually deal with the reality of a real community involving the disadvantaged, the sick, and the dying. 'Nanny-state boo-boo, I can't hear you.'

'Why is that liberals love preambles so much (we the people, references to militias, etc)? '

Scotbot - 'That 'we the people' stuff is just more liberal nonsense. Besides, it was written mainly by slaveholders, who did not let women vote. See how flawed your liberal view of the world is - even in America, things have been downhill with taxes ever since slavery was repealed and women were able to vote as citizens.'

'Making the preamble the most important part of the Constitution is like making Revelation the most important part of the Bible.'

Scotbot - 'As a matter of fact, who needs that old pesky Constitution when discussing how Americans live. It might cause people to think that my view is not actually the ordained one.'

'The founding fathers said they were instituting a limited govt to "promote the general welfare". According to you, that just means that you can ignore those limits by claiming your goals are to "promote the general welfare".'

Scotbot - **WARNING WARNING - coolant failure, core breach** '''the Constitution not only refers to we the people, it also talks about THE GENERAL WELFARE''' ***DANGER DANGER***

'How wise of Washington, Jefferson, et al to have anticipated your arrival on this planet, Fred. Who needs a second coming when we have Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist?'

Scotbot - 'Luckily, I can end on a happy note after almost failing my mission - only the lack of a '(TM)' has prevented me from saying 'Mission Accomplished' with full pride in my own prowess - havbe you seen how I look in a flight suit? Try to restrain yourselves from overindulging in that image, hard as it may be.

[Scott]

Just because you actually worked with people who had difficulties even more obvious than mine doesn't mean that I have to acknowledge the humanity that ties us together as a community.

Let me guess, you're one of the people above who said they had some sort of mental illness. That would explain Fred's comments section.

[Scott]

The state's role in all this is, foremost, to empower and enable all the other actors to meet their appropriate responsibilities as well. That involves both incentives and regulations, both tax deductions and funding that comes from tax revenue.

So Fred, does this mean you favor Bush's "Faith Based" initiatives? Oops, that's tax dollars going to "actors" with the wrong political beliefs. We can't have that.

[Scotbot_MKIII]

'Let me guess, you're one of the people above who said they had some sort of mental illness. That would explain Fred's comments section.'

That's pretty good, actually - it will be assimilated into my ongoing social darwinian programming foundation.

After all, the mentally ill are like you or me - you know, human beings, members of a community, bound to the wheel, etc. Well, it would be true for others, but I'm not sure if you have still managed to get beyond your dismissal of 'we the people' - I think of myself as being part of we the people, but you seem to have some problems with that. Let's try another liberal preamble - 'When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.'

Since I assume you too feel that Jefferson was writing for you, in your wretched state of unequal station to that which Nature and Nature's God seems to have placed you in the society you live, please do be so kind as to write your own pithy, non-liberal document, showing a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. Wait - did Jefferson actually say we have a responsiblity to others to declare why separation is desired? Because we are part of a larger whole?

****COOLANT LEAK**** ****PRESSURE OVERLOAD****

[Scott]

The state's role in all this is, foremost, to empower and enable all the other actors to meet their appropriate responsibilities as well. That involves both incentives and regulations, both tax deductions and funding that comes from tax revenue.

Ah, yes. Fred Clark, Evangelical Journalist, is much too sophisticated to believe in a "cramped, binary scheme" of people and govt. He supports other actors besides the cattle (excuse me, individuals) and his god, the state. Those other actors should, of course, be controlled (i.e. regulated) and dependent on (i.e. funded by) the govt - we can't have those other actors actually be independent of the state, now can we?

Fred is a literal fascist. Not a "stuff 6 million people into gas chambers" fascist, but an economic one. The communists wanted direct state control of everything (as the people in control were the enemy class by definition, they had to go). Fascists were willing to keep the appearance of private control, since the people in control weren't by definition community enemies and keeping them around sheltered the govt from blame for failures. "Il Duce" even sold fascism as a "third way" between communism and capitalism, much like Clinton and Blair did later.

See the 'moderate' company you keep, Fred?

[Scott]

Wait - did Jefferson actually say we have a responsiblity to others to declare why separation is desired? Because we are part of a larger whole?

But they were seceding from a larger political unit. That's evil. You can't leave your govt - how can it protect you if you do? Bad, bad Jefferson, you slave owning govt hater.

[Jesurgislac]

Thanks - it is a Darwinian jungle out there, especially when trying to parody a one trick pony.

Two-trick pony. Scott can also clone himself, it seems.

[hapax]

Honestly, I usually enjoy Scott, even if I totally disagree with him. But I'm stumped on this one. I hear a lot of fizzle and pop and venting steam, but I'm at a total loss as to where this engine thinks it's going, except sixteen different directions simultaneously.

Unless mebbe Scott really does have an insanely solipsistic worldview, that it's just Battling Scott vs Teh Many-Tentacled State, which through its Evil TMed Agent Fred lurks under his bed, to rifle his pockets as he sleeps.

Scott, you wanna go get a cup of joe, calm down, and try again?

[Geds]

I figure there are three options:

1. We're dealing with an imposter Scott who's just trying to milk the anarcho-Libertarian B.S. for all the comedic value it was worth back when the ScottBot concept first came up (y'know, months ago, before hearing the same, stupid, knee-jerk crap got really, really old).

2. Scott's some sort of delusional, paranoid narcissist who really thinks that anything that isn't, well, him, is out to get him and, somehow, Fred is the chosen agent of his destruction at the hands of the Liberal Shadow Government.

3. He's one of those auto-responder IM things that you can talk to if you're really, really bored, but he was programmed by a drunk satirist.

Because, seriously, this can't be a normal human response pattern. Do people really, seriously, think that way?

[MichaelR]

Jack Thompson is still allowed to practice law. I can believe that one troll with his head so far up his ass it forms a Klein bottle would persist on one little blog.

[McJulie]

re: Arguing with libertarians

Scott is an extreme example, obviously, since his "coherent English sentences" circuit is broken. But one thing I have noticed is that many of them claim to love the Constitution (that's where their precious second amendment is to be found, after all), but if you say "we, the people" to them, they hiss and cringe like vampires caught in sunlight.

They seem to have a hard time dealing with being Americans, because the notion of government by the people, of the people and for the people goes against their notion of government as some kind of alien oppressive force.

But we already fought that battle more than 200 years ago when we formed this country. There used to be this idea that governments were appointed by the gods or somesuch, there used to be things like the divine right of kings and the unquestioned inherent superiority of the hereditary nobility and all. But not here, not for 200 years. You're fighting a battle that your side already won.

And, I guess that's the problem -- you just can't believe that, left to their own devices, uncompelled and free to govern themselves, most people aren't extremo-libertarians. Like you, most people want to be left more or less alone to live their lives as they see fit. But unlike you, they kind of want to help their fellow humans and make life better for them.

(As long as it's not too expensive or inconvenient. These are people we're talking about.)

[twig]

Thank you MichaelR. I've never heard of a Klein bottle before.

[Joe Propinka]

Like you, most people want to be left more or less alone to live their lives as they see fit.

Well, until they need something, or are inconvenienced in some especial way, or suffer a mischance. Then, suddenly, most people decide they'd like some sort of community, if only as a safety net.

Of course, libertarianism essentially argues from abstractions about the free market -- there's never really been one, and likely never will be one, of course -- and an especially strecthy definition of "property" and "labor" that protects their financial resources while ignoring the benefits they've gained simply by being born into a set of circumstances -- a world of regulated and so thoroughly tested medical treatments and drugs, a world with police and military protection, a world with roads, and, in short, a world with a great many pieces of critical infrastructure that were the historical result that are a bit bigger then their little solipsistic worldviews.

Now, it's always possible to argue that those things woulda coulda shoulda happened in the absence of Teh State, but they didn't. States existed, as a matter of historical fact, and were involved in all of those things that shaped and created the world in which libertarians and the rest of us work and live.

Alternative and speculative history is not a basis for argument, because you can make the fictional premises anything you like. In the libertarian's speculative version of alternate history, the state is behind every evil and act of coercion, and we'd all be better off had it never existed. Of course, since we don't know what would have happened in the absence of state formation, we don't know whether all those evils or other coeval ones might have sprung forth frm other causes.

So the libertarian argument again received circumstances seems to be an argument from absence of evidence, as does the free market modeling, which relies on mathematical modeling within a social -- not a hard -- science. And frankly, I don't see why those should work any better for laissez-faire capitalists than they do for proponents of rigid central-planning ecnonomics

And so libertarians wind up complaining about nonconsensual taxation and the associated legal penalties -- though curiously, not about the ways in which they've benefited in permanent and lifelong ways from past arrangements that are nonconsensual by the same definition and that have resulted in current material, social, and visible circumstances. Libertarians complain about having to pay taxes for roads and schools; they demand an end to taxation; they do not, however, generally argue that they (in America, at least) ought to give back the stolen land which they've inherited from acts -- acts they admittedly comdemn -- to people from whom it was taken. Or have they bought it with their taxes? In which case they would, once the state's coercion was gone, still be keeping stolen goods and defending that by saying that the same crook robbed them, and gave them this after robbing them. But if Peter is forced from his home by Paul, and then Paul robs Luke of his money but gives Luke a deed to a part of Peter's land, how would that give Luke or his heirs and not Peter or his heirs the right to that land?

They do not propose that, when government is dissassembled, some of the money it took from them as tax ought be retroactively rerouted to . "Why should I suffer for government's crimes?", they ask. Because they have, even if you didn't want to, received a diluted share of the loot in the form of social infrastructure. You may hate and despise it and call it inefficiency and call taxation theft or tribute, but you use it, and it was built by money other people paid in decades past and on land taken from people centuries past.

They can complain that they had no choice in the matter, that they were forced to take what they could get from the great criminal, but then...well, a person who receives stolen property, even under the worst of circumstances, should surely make an effort to work out whose stolen proprty they have been using and restore it to them, however. Do Native Americans, when the state goes away, get to demand the restoration of their lands, even if it means the urban libertarian whose family immigrated much later are dispossessed in the process? Perhaps the crime of nonconsensual appropriation has a statute of limitations, so that all the rest of us must do is wait long enough that the libertarians' increasingly crankish and unrealistic demands become too old to worry about as well.

[Geds]

Joe:

Well reasoned and probably more or less correct. Unfortunately, I get the distinct impression that you'll get the same reaction out of Libertarians with that line of reasoning as you would out of a PMDer faced with someone pointing out that the book of Revelation makes the most sense as an attempt to call out the downfall of Rome under Nero.

In short, you'll be ignored at best, but probably yelled at.

[Erick Oppeen]

I'd be a lot more sympathetic to all this stuff about "community" if it had ever applied to me. As it stands, I've had to sit still while people who'd robbed my eyes out blind were able to do so with utter impunity; the law in this state favors tenants so heavily that if I had had a choice, I'd never, ever had anything to do with this business...the only way I could be sure of collecting would be if my last name was Soprano, Gotti or Gambino.

And, on a related note, one reason I detest and resent the churches is because they've abused the tax exemptions and other legal privileges they were granted (which, IIRC, were originally granted them so they could help the very unfortunates that you are so concerned about) to build up businesses that have competed with my family's NON-privileged businesses all my life long. When my mother was running a nursery school, we got hassled endlessly by, forex, fire marshals, for stuff that we knew perfectly well they'd never dare go after a church-run nursery school for.

Once I acknowledge that someone else has a right to what's mine, I'm in the position of the woman in the joke---you know, the one about the man who asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a thousand dollars, and when she says yes, asks her if she'd do it for twenty, and when she goes nucking-futz, explains that they've already established what she is, and are now haggling about price. As I've said and said and said, I am willing to match my personal generosity with anybody on this board---but I want the right to say "no" at any time, with no appeal from that decision.

If y'all were at least willing to acknowledge that indiscriminate aid to the "needy" often ends up enabling asocial and self-destructive behavior (bankruptcy and poverty can serve as wonderful wake-up calls) I'd be a little more sympathetic to you.

[Bugmaster]

Once I acknowledge that someone else has a right to what's mine, I'm in the position of the woman in the joke...

Wouldn't this shut down all trade ? If no one has the right to what's yours, you can't trade it to them, because they will never have the rights to it.

Ok, that was an extreme interpretation of what you said, but, in theory, when you pay taxes to the government, you pay them to maintain the infrastructure that you need in order to live comfortably. In practice, the government wastes a lot of money on frivolous or downright harmful pursuits, but so does any major corporation; libertarianism doesn't win in this case, but can only tie.

I do agree with you about churches, though. They should not be tax-exempt. Charities could be tax-exempt, but only if there's tangible evidence to believe that they're actually doing some good deeds with all that money.

[Scott_MKIV]

This is Scotbot IV, with four on the floor and ready to roar.

We have been noticing a certain lack of consistency in the previous models, so we are not going to hobgoblin our little minds with the idea of Thoreau having mommy do the housework while hanging out at Emerson's place, describing the vaulting joy of living free of the encumbrances of unwanted social contact.

So let's rev it up -
'But they were seceding from a larger political unit. That's evil. You can't leave your govt - how can it protect you if you do? Bad, bad Jefferson, you slave owning govt hater.'

Scotbot - President Jefferson remains the ultimate anti-hero, since instead of finishing the fight against what he perceived to be injustice under a monarch, he actually had the temerity and gall to help found a republic, under which he himself served in several roles. Worse, he even donated his own personal library to that same evil government he himself helped establish. Forget the slaves - Jefferson actually helped establish the Library of Congress, undoubtedly the most evil collection of human knowledge ever assembled, since it was assembled by a government.

'Fred is a literal fascist.'

Scotbot - ooops, ever have one of those days? Yeah, our units do too. What we meant to say was that anyone that thinks helping the sick, the aged, or the dying through using any resources which are based on redistribution of my wealth is a communist, not a fascist. Sorry about that - but these days, it is hard to keep the details straight. After all, liberal = fascist just seems so logically appealing, that I couldn't resist shining up my jaunty leather gear to join in the fun. As a matter of fact, I just kept going, firing on all cylinders in a blinding display of my own ability to see things no one else can.

'See the 'moderate' company you keep, Fred?'

Scotbot - see, our series still follow's Godwin's Law on the Net, since that Italian Blackshirt guy is a second stringer in the top trilogy of last century's evildoers, like Roosevelt, who actually created national parks from land that never belonged to anyone that mattered. Or like Roosevelt, who actually decided to be just like that old Prussian Bismarck, and thus instituted an actual government funded pension system (and remember, where there's Bismarck, just wait 50 years, and there is sure to be a brown shirt around). Or Clinton (50 years after Roosevelt, see what I mean?), a man who wanted to let Castro's cigars be imported, for his own unfathomable reasons involving government employees over the age of consent.

Just wait until you see the biggest criminals of this century in my mind - religious journalists practicing compassion, in even tiny amounts, are just the tip of the iceberg. Listen to this - "Don't become a Buddhist, the world doesn't need anymore Buddhists. Do practice compassion, the world needs more compassion." - Dalai Lama Spoken like a true fascist.

[twig]

Whoever made me argue with myself that the Dalai Llama was evil, Scott_MKIV has just given you your cue to respond.

[ako]

If y'all were at least willing to acknowledge that indiscriminate aid to the "needy" often ends up enabling asocial and self-destructive behavior (bankruptcy and poverty can serve as wonderful wake-up calls) I'd be a little more sympathetic to you.

Indiscriminate aid, yes. I'm all for pushing, as much as possible, for better and more carefully targeted aid. Certainly, if a program's doing more harm than good, it's time to stop it. And even if it's doing good, and there's a better alternative, it's wise to switch to that.

I'm not for making the best the enemy of the good, and scrapping any program that has flaws, failures or mistakes. Everything created by humans has flaws, failures and mistakes. So I'm not for scrapping welfare just because of some horror story about "welfare queens" living it up off free money and having babies they don't bother to look after just to increase their welfare allowance, but if solid statistical analysis shows that a program does more harm than good, get rid of it. And if the same solid analysis shows it can be improved with little or no downside by changing some aspect, go for it.

This has little to do with whether the government has a right to collect taxes or not, and I imagine we'd still disagree on what constitutes acceptable harm, but I'm not for inefficiency.

[Lucia]

@ako:
a lot of the language and assumptions about mental age and "real" age in people with developmental disabilities bother me.
I understand what you're saying, and what the blog post you linked to is saying. When I describe my severely disabled son as "like a really big two-year-old who can't walk," though, it's simply a quick way of giving people an idea of his abilities and of the challenges of caring for him (I've used this phrase most often in talking to people who answered my ad for a nanny/babysitter). In fact in many important ways he will never get past two. That doesn't mean we don't or won't do our best for him.

@the libertarian contingent:
Do you think that the parents of a severely disabled child should assume the entire burden themselves, 24/7, for the rest of their lives? What if they can't? What if the child outlives them?

[mmack]

This is Scotbot IV, with four on the floor and ready to roar.

Will Scotbot V be alive? :^)

[Jeff]

And, on a related note, one reason I detest and resent the churches is because they've abused the tax exemptions and other legal privileges they were granted (which, IIRC, were originally granted them so they could help the very unfortunates that you are so concerned about) to build up businesses that have competed with my family's NON-privileged businesses all my life long. When my mother was running a nursery school, we got hassled endlessly by, forex, fire marshals, for stuff that we knew perfectly well they'd never dare go after a church-run nursery school for.

1) Most of the Slacktivists are perfectly happy to have all churches tax exemption revoked, and for them to be treated exactly as a secular charity.

2) I've NEVER heard of a fire department treating a church facility better than a secular, or even a for-profit, one. Considering that libertarians consider OSHA to be a tyrannical enforcer of fascist regulations on poor widdle businesses, I'd say the burden of proof is on you.

In your response, account for the Triangle Shirt Factory fire.

If y'all were at least willing to acknowledge that indiscriminate aid to the "needy" often ends up enabling asocial and self-destructive behavior (bankruptcy and poverty can serve as wonderful wake-up calls) I'd be a little more sympathetic to you.

I will NOT acknowledge that it happens often. I will acknowledge that it happens occasionally. I once read that the average time on welfare was about three years. Since welfare "reform", that amount has probably gone up.

Backruptcy and poverty are not a "wake-up call" but a horrid condition that most (I'd bet at least 90%) have thrust upon them (via job loss, overwhelming medical bills, dealing with catastrophe or disaster, or any combination of the above). The fact that you consider bankruptcy and poverty as a "wake-up call" tells me all I need to know about you.

[Shun]

[Fishbone McGonigle]

Wow. This Scott guy is quite an obnoxious piece of work, isn't he?

[hagsrus]

Wow. This Scott guy is quite an obnoxious piece of work, isn't he?

Yes, but he's our obnoxious piece of work
;-)

[anon]

And, frankly, I felt like that blog entry really denigrated the work that she and her family did because, hey, mental age means nothing and she was completely able to make rational decisions at all times if only we hadn't been holding her back with our insistence on things like having her learn how to use the stove safely so she didn't set the kitchen on fire a second time.

You did read the same blog entry I did, right? Cause I didn't see all the stuff you are writing up there in it, nowhere. Try this one from the same blog and come back and say that saying mental age is false is the same thing as saying everything's easy for everyone.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

Will Scotbot V be alive? :^)

If so, I just hope to heck he doesn't start calling himself "Johnny."

Wellll, it's OK if his inspiration is Poe and not *shudder* El Debarge.

[Jeff]

Anyone else find it depressing (but VERY telling) that the libertarians came out in force in the thread on a ghastly mental hospital getting closed based on the actions of citizens (not individuals or the Gummint)? The fact that none of them have had ANYTHING to say about Pennhurst itself speaks loads for the moral bankruptcy of libertarianism.

[Steve]

Timely Article from CNN

[MichaelR]

Of course they wouldn't say anything about Pennhurst. The almighty FREE MARKET decided that those were the conditions those people deserved. After all, if they didn't like living in a glorified warehouse, then it's their fault for having a mental illness without being rich.

[Mabus]

Jeff, MichaelR...I don't know that I'm (quite) a libertarian, but I took alarm at Fred's tone and was reluctant to visit the thread at all.

I don't have any problem with subsidiarity; in fact I believe in it quite firmly. Instead, it often seems to me as if liberals have a problem with it, wanting to assign more and more functions to the highest levels of the federal government. I will admit that there is a great deal of room for discussion about how subsidiarity works in practice regarding particular organizations, and clearly Pennhurst was a terrible place that needed shutting down (or extreme reconstruction, at the least).

I believe these things precisely because of what I've learned about centralized control, and most especially centralized control of money--that it tends to accumulate more and more power over time, and that that power corrupts. When government closes down a place like Pennhurst, I applaud, but I can't help but worry that it will eventually create more Pennhursts on its own.

As for churches and tax-exemption...the church is not subordinate to the state in principle and shouldn't be in practice. Therefore the state has no business taxing it, any more than churches have demanding tithes from the state. First Amendment, remember? Or does that only apply the other way to some of you? (If that's an exception to subsidiarity--so be it.)

[Jeff]

I don't have any problem with subsidiarity; in fact I believe in it quite firmly. Instead, it often seems to me as if liberals have a problem with it, wanting to assign more and more functions to the highest levels of the federal government.

I believe in the "umbrella" theory of government, with the funds being collected at the center (of power), then spread to the local level, with some "ribs" to ensure that localities don't go totally off the rails. This, if done right (the problem with all theories, right?), would see that the places that need the most aid would get it, where they could spend it on programs that make sense to that locality.

the church is not subordinate to the state in principle

Churches are, at root, a place where like-minded people come to celebrate their beliefs and act upon those beliefs. As such, they are no more sacrosanct (pun intended? I'll let you guess.) than, say, the local chapter of "Drinking Liberally" or a similar conservative gathering, neither of which can shield profit from taxation and neither of which demands fees from the government. The First Amendment refers to "freedom of religion", not "freedom of churches". The Disestablishmentarians won, right?

[Jeff]

Further
If that's an exception to subsidiarity--so be it

It's not, because charitable activities of churches are regarded exactly as their secular counterparts. No better, no worse, and taxed exactly the same. (That's why we don't need an office of "Faith-Based Initiatives" -- because we should be funding the intiatives that work best, regardless if they are Protestant, Methodist, Morman, Catholic, Muslim, Wiccan or secular.)