Why So Unusual?

I'm sure we've all been following news about the recent events in Arizona. Saturday's shootings were especially personal for me because Gabrielle Giffords is my parents' representative in Congress, and my folks live a short distance from the Safeway where everything happened. My mother learned about the shooting when a concerned friend called, frantic, wanting to make sure she was okay. As it turned out, my mom had gone grocery shopping that very morning at a Safeway not far from the one in question.

In the days since, I've read a great deal of material about the shootings. I've been particularly moved by what's come out about the victims themselves (especially Judge John Roll), and by the heroism of those who stopped the perpetrator from firing more rounds. I've also been appalled by attempts to ascribe the attacks to some sort of "climate" generated by those on the Right, especially after details about the shooter became known. Even though his victim was an elected official, he was clearly not motivated by ideology or partisanship.

I've noticed, however, that one question has gone largely unanswered: why is it that ideologically-motivated attacks on American elected officials are so exceedingly rare? In a sense, this is the "dog that didn't bark" of American public life. That dog didn't even bark in the current instance.

It took an article-length article to organize my thoughts. The good folks at MercatorNet have published the piece here. It begins like this:

In the hours following the horrific shooting at Gabrielle Giffords’ “Congress on Your Corner” event in Arizona, the rush to explain the perpetrator’s motivations began. Giffords had recently survived a hotly-contested re-election challenge from a Tea Party-backed candidate who was her ideological mirror image. In the absence of hard information about the shooter, it might be natural to wonder if he had been discouraged at the election outcome or otherwise inspired by the Tea Party’s anti-Washington rhetoric. Indeed, many on the political left ─ including the local county sheriff ─ speculated aloud in just that manner.

Although the investigation is ongoing, the principal suspect is actually a registered independent who was so disconnected from politics that he didn’t bother to vote in the 2010 congressional election. By all accounts, Jared Lee Loughner appears to be an isolated, deeply mentally ill young man suffering from multiple psychoses.

As analysts continue to debate the reasons for the Arizona events, a potentially far more interesting question has remained largely unasked: Why are violent attacks on American elected officials so exceedingly rare?

But please do read the whole thing. And comment if you feel so inclined.

Stop the NAIS!

Many of you may already be familiar with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) that the federal Department of Agriculture has been trying to set up. Under this system, every location which raises pretty much any species of livestock must obtain a "premises id number," and then get a separate fifteen-character number for every individual animal. Then, every animal will be tracked every time it leaves the premises. The idea is that if a diseased animal shows up at a slaughterhouse, it can be tracked back to its farm of origin in 48 hours. The system is currently "voluntary," but everyone knows it's only a matter of time before before it becomes "mandatory." It already is mandatory in some states, including Indiana. We have turned down the trade/purchase of a couple of Icelandic rams from Indiana, because we would have had to be registered with the NAIS for the seller to have transferred them to us.

As you might suppose, this is a program we strongly object to and refuse to join. Other organizations, like this one and this one, have done an excellent job compiling and documenting various problems with it, and I'd encourage you to browse these if you want to know more. What's particularly heartening to me is that the ACLU has also gone to bat for some farmers against the NAIS --- concerns about this system seem to bridge the political spectrum.

Our most fundamental objection to NAIS is the invasion of privacy. Quite simply, it isn't any of the government's dang business what kind of animals we have, or how many. We moved to the country precisely because we wanted to be left alone, and to raise some livestock for our family's own consumption. We do not want to implant our animals with RFID tags, or microchips --- and we certainly do not want to send reports to the federal government every time we take a goat kid to the vet.

Apart from privacy concerns, compliance cost is one of the big issues for small producers. The NAIS is being pushed by big agribusiness lobbies; most of the enormous livestock producers already have sophisticated computer systems to track their animals, already have the RFID hardware in place, and in any event have a large herd over which they can spread fixed costs. The NAIS represents a much larger relative cost for the small producers. Small ranchers, like the neighbor from whom we buy beef, are already operating on a very narrow profit margin; adding these additional costs would make his beef significantly more expensive --- just as consumers are becoming more cost-conscious. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the NAIS is being pushed by large agribusiness concerns precisely because it makes it more difficult for smaller producers to compete.

Cost aside, I'm generally quite suspicious of governmental "national databases" of any kind (apart from those related to criminal offenders), because the opportunities for abuse are legion. Should a disease break out on a farm a mile down the road, the government may decide (as happened in some places with Mad Cow disease) to exterminate every piece of livestock within any radius it decrees --- regardless of the health of our individual animals. A national database would only make it easier for the feds to find and kill our healthy animals.

And remember the Depression-era programs which slaughtered millions of young pigs, in an effort to increase commodity prices? And the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation which directed these "excess" agricultural commodities to the poor? Just imagine the opportunities for mischief if the federal government determined that, based on the NAIS records, our family had "too many" sheep and goats...and that a "fair share" of these needed to be "redistributed" to those who had not made adequate provisions.

What can you do? The Department of Agriculture is currently pushing for a set of new rules that will further advance the NAIS. However, there is a public comment period open until March 16th --- so, by all means, please weigh in and let them know what you think. If you follow this link, it will take you to a page with all the comments that others have posted thus far; they're currently up to over 196 pages, which translates into more than 4,900 individual comments. The very first line on the very first page says "Proposed Rules." Click on the bubble in the far right ("Add Comments") column of that line. That will open up a form, where you can give the Department of Agriculture your own two cents about the NAIS. It will take awhile for your comment to post to the site, but it should show up within a few hours.

You can also click on individual comments, to see what others have written. I browsed through a random selection of several of these, and every single one was negative. Generally speaking, I think the more effective comments --- like good letters to the editor --- are more brief, and do not try to make too many individual points.

I'm honestly not sure how much of a difference folks like us can make in slowing down this regulatory leviathan. But let's not allow that uncertainty to stop us from trying.

Tax Time

Most folks only think about their taxes in April. Those of us who are self-employed have to think about their taxes at least every quarter, when we send in our estimated tax payments to the IRS and (for those living in states like Illinois) the state department of revenue. Today happens to be the day that third quarter checks must be postmarked.

I must admit that when I was employed and bringing home a regular paycheck, and taxes were being withheld by my employer, I rarely thought about how much I was paying. In fact, I rarely thought about taxes until I filed my return in the spring and received a tax refund check. Like most people, my first (and emotional) response to that refund check was to think of it as a bonus. It filled me with good feelings about the special treat I might now be able to afford. My thoughts rarely, if ever, took the next logical step: indignation that the Government had had control of my money for the last year and wasn't paying me a dime of interest for the privilege.

As I said, I rarely thought about taxes. Sure, when my paycheck came, I "saw" the amounts being withheld for FICA and for Federal/State income taxes...but they weren't real to me. In putting together our family budget, my "income" was the take-home amount on the check. To use round numbers, I didn't think of my "income" as $2,000 every two weeks, or whatever I was making back then. I thought of it as $1,574.27, or whatever the take-home amount was.

Once I became self-employed, and began writing out checks for my taxes every three months, my mindset changed entirely. Every dime that I earned from every project went into my bank account, and I saw it there in my account. And then I had to pull it out of that account and send it off to the government myself, just like any other bill or expense. I began planning ahead, establishing a separate savings account into which I held at least two quarters worth of tax payments. When I check my accounts, I see those amounts generating interest income for our family. And then, every quarter, I must slash those numbers and watch the interest income plummet along with our family's liquidity.

In short order, I found myself thinking a lot more about government. After all, when you're writing a check and paying a bill, you think about what you are receiving in exchange for that payment. When I write a check to the feed store, or my transcriptionist, or a focus group facility, or my survey data collection fieldhouse, I think about the quality of the product or service they provided. When I write a contribution check to our church or a charity, I think about the good works I am helping them provide.

So...when I write out those checks to "United States Treasury" and "Illinois Department of Revenue," what am I getting?

The late Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is said to have explained that "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization." Fair enough. But if that's true, it would be a healthy thing for Americans to reflect a bit more on the nature and quality of civilization that their taxes are purchasing. Why not require each and every one of us to sit down once per quarter, open up his checkbook, and transfer money from his own account to the United States Treasury? If the government is secure and confident about the quality of civilization it provides with those tax dollars, wouldn't it be a good thing for her citizens to take a few moments each quarter to reflect upon that quality civilization?