Not only are their depictions of human persons inaccurate, their practices also entail a methodological elitism. Empirical knowledge is the knowledge that is power, and social science theorists and implementers of their theory are empowered over the sheep-like masses they objectify. This empowerment is further enhanced by the negative self-fulfilling prophecies engendered by convincing the people to view themselves as they are defined by those theories-- mechanistically passive, amoral, collectivized, and ruled by passions, sensations, and conditionings.

The social-science depiction of a human person is objectified, rendered stable, predictable, finite, and quantifiable. It is also a stereotype of a person. We have these quantum computers between our ears, yet in human behavior as in quantum physics, the spontaneity and indeterminacy of individual quantum phenomena cancel out in the aggregate. This is why the macroscopic material world is relatively stable, despite the wildness at the sub-atomic scale. This is also human populations are more predictable than human individuals. -- Yet the theorizing activity of the social scientists themselves violates their decapitated portraits of human persons, in the creativity and freedom they employ in the process.

The view that demography or biology is destiny is a part of late-modern conventional wisdom that informed the work of Karl Marx and behaviorist psychologists, among others, and is a cornerstone of collectivist, farm-animal ideologies. It stems from a misunderstanding of empirical method, which necessarily objectifies, aggregates, and averages what they observe. These methods are great for generating knowledge about rocks and molecules, and rocks and molecules aren't much diminished by being objectified and stereotyped. When applied to humans, though, the result is a decapitated depiction.

What the left has done to "toleration" is also appalling. Authentic toleration applies to what one finds repugnant, and depends, like forgiveness, on an emotional counter-intuitiveness. It makes no sense to talk about "tolerating" what one endorses, except collectively, when something tolerated is repugnant generally. The left is all about collectivizing moral concepts, but a side-effect is a lot of people preaching tolerance who are personally intolerant of those with differing views. The left is destroying authentic toleration.

Whatever word lefties use to describe homosexuals doesn't matter so much to me as when they monkey around with concepts that have strong moral content. "Marriage" is one of these, "Human rights" is another. Eleanor Roosevelt included "rights" to physical goods and services in the U.N. Declaration of Universal Human Rights, but this misunderstands the relationship between the material world and the expansiveness of human desire and effort. Among other consequences, the notion of material "rights" would make any poor government, no matter how honest, efficient, and transparent, a criminal government. It's untenable, even aside from the way that material "rights" compel people in some industries to supply the fruits of their labor to others.

-- Another problem with third party payment is that patients have no incentive to scrutinize their bills. All those motivated eyes go to waste. -- Prior to broad coverage insurance, medical care in the 70s cost half as much as now as a %-age of GDP, and our GDP is three times as large. -- Broad coverage medical insurance isn't the solution-- it's the problem.

requiring a huge parasitic bureaucratic diaspora at providers' offices to handle the local paperwork, buffering providers and secondary providers from market forces and encouraging fee increases, changing the medical culture from service-providers to corporations. The above is before insurance company profits, and applies to public programs as well as private.. -- It's a lot easier to justify huge fee increases when you're taking money from a deep-pocketed third-party payer than from your neighbors. Of course, it comes back to the neighbors eventually, as premiums or taxes. Face to face payment involves human contact. Third-party cost-control requires arbitrary, inflexible policies and adversarial relations with patients and providers.

Material rights would render any poor government, no matter how transparent or well-run, a violator of human rights, and thus criminal. -- Good government has a responsibility to promote the well-being of its people. This doesn't necessarily involve providing services, except for national security & police protection. It does involve things like reasonable regulations and laws to shape the setting in which relevant sectors of the economy provide goods and services. -- I believe we need a much freer market in medicine. Catastrophic insurance coverage is a good thing, but broad-coverage insurance that dominates the medical sector distorts the crap out of the market, inviting fraud, instituting huge parasitic bureaucracies,

Good article. Especially the distinction between right and responsibility. Human rights are theoretically inborn, unearned, and passive. Responsibilities are activities we are expected to perform. Physical goods and services require activity and labor-- the physical world doesn't yield its wealth without some work, and the idea that we have a right to that wealth without earning it is fundamentally flawed. It misunderstands the relation between human want and material reality. -- Traditional rights are negative, limiting government interference in private life. Material rights are a recent invention. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote them into the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but though "certified" they're still absurd.

When I first heard of the Employee Free Choice Act, I thought it was some kind of joke, and I never thought Obama would have the nerve to get it implemented through executive sleaze. Just think what political elections would be without the secret ballot. It would be worst that Chicago politics. And as Dr. Sowell points out, union elections are a one-time affair-- workers generally don't get any opportunities to vote them out again. This is an assault on one of the basic principles of democracy.

No to facebook. If TH begins to require it, then bye bye TH.