Libertarian Purists: Libertarian on Everything – Except Liberty

Libertarian Purists: Libertarian on Everything – Except Liberty

Lithium reduces risk of suicide in people with mood disorders, review finds

Lithium reduces risk of suicide in people with mood disorders, review finds

June 27, 2013 — The drug lithium is an effective treatment for reducing the risk of suicide and possibly deliberate self harm in people with mood disorders, finds an evidence review published today on bmj.com.

 

The authors say the drug "seems to reduce the risk of death and suicide by more than 60% compared with placebo" and suggest this review "reinforces lithium as an effective agent to reduce the risk of suicide in people with mood disorders."

Mood disorders are a leading cause of global disability. The two main types are unipolar disorder (often called clinical depression) and bipolar disorder (often called manic depression). Both are serious, long term conditions involving extreme mood swings, but people with bipolar depression also experience episodes of mania or hypomania.

People with a mood disorder have a 30 times greater risk of suicide than the general population. Treatment with mood stabilising drugs like lithium, anticonvulsants or antipsychotics can help keep mood within normal limits, but their role in suicide prevention is still uncertain.

So a team of researchers from the universities of Oxford, UK and Verona, Italy set out to assess whether lithium has a specific preventive effect for suicide and self harm in people with unipolar and bipolar mood disorders.

They reviewed and analysed the results of 48 randomised controlled trials involving 6,674 participants. The trials compared lithium with either placebo or active drugs in long term treatment for mood disorders.

Lithium was more effective than placebo in reducing the number of suicides and deaths from any cause, but no clear benefits were seen for lithium compared with placebo in preventing deliberate self harm.

When lithium was compared with each active individual treatment, a statistically significant difference was found only with carbamazepine for deliberate self harm. Overall, lithium tended to be generally better than the other active treatments, with small statistical variation between the results.
"This updated systematic review reinforces lithium as an effective agent to reduce the risk of suicide in people with mood disorders," say the authors.

They suggest that lithium may exert its anti-suicidal effects "by reducing relapse of mood disorder," but add "there is some evidence that lithium decreases aggression and possibly impulsivity, which might be another mechanism mediating the anti-suicidal effect."

They acknowledge that lithium has several side effects, but say clinicians "need to take a balanced view of the likely benefits and harm of lithium in the individual patient." And they conclude: "Understanding the mechanism by which lithium acts to decrease suicidal behaviour could lead to a better understanding of the neurobiology of suicide."

Snowden: Angel or Devil

The Libertarian perspective on Edward Snowden requires the kind of nuanced thinking most people seem to have a little trouble with.  He is a hero, because he raised the awareness of the American people about the overreach of the government in the name of protecting us from the boogeyman of terrorism.  He has also apparently broken the law, so he should be arrested, charged and tried by a jury of his peers.  Just like MLK, Snowden is not above the law, and the Rule of Law is a cornerstone of the Republic. 

Camelot

 

In July of 1999 on the CBS Evening News, the disingenuously "independent" Dan Rather broke down as he remembered the Kennedy administration ("Age of Celebrity" report by Richard Rodriguez on PBS.org).  You can hear a recording of that moment in the broadcast on Hark.com, complete with sobs.  He quotes a line from the Lerner and Loewe musical:  "Once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot."   

The American Camelot myth that endures so nostalgically is a fusion of a legend with the memory of a presidency that, given a chance to fulfill its promise, would probably have been one of the greatest in our brief history.  But in this, the memory of the Kennedy administration is not blended with the tales of Le Morte d'Artur, but rather with the 1960 play.   

The Arthur of the musical is a wise, all-powerful and benevolent ruler.  He is so powerful, in fact, he seems to have the ability to dictate the terms of the weather.  Here are the lyrics from the song, "Camelot:" 

ARTHUR:
It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear.
The climate must be perfect all the year.

A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.

The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

Camelot! Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot, Camelot
That's how conditions are.
The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.

Camelot! Camelot!
I know it gives a person pause,
But in Camelot, Camelot
Those are the legal laws.
The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot. 

When I was an adolescent my parents took me to the play at a dinner theater in Norfolk, Virginia.  I loved it then, and I still do.  I have also always been an admirer of President Kennedy (see my blog "My Left from my Right," November 2010).  The blending of Kennedy with Arthur from the musical is a construct I find disturbing, however.   

The tearful yearning for the Camelot of the Kennedy administration is a window into the hearts of present-day Americans.  Not only do we long to be ruled by a benevolent king, but we wish to live in a realm where we can make laws to modify reality.  We don't like heat, we make a law against it.  We don't like snow, we make a law against that, too.  But if you just put down the bong for a moment, you can see that not only are these laws ridiculous, they are harmful.   

We have made laws against homosexuality, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and racism.  We have made laws against hate, cigarettes, poverty and wealth.  In no case, however, have we eliminated these behaviors and attitudes, and in most cases we make them worse.  In other cases we have engaged in wholesale oppression (homosexuality).  We have more of our citizens imprisoned, both by absolute numbers and by a percentage of our population, than any of the totalitarian nations we despise, including Iran and Venezuela.  When I was a kid it was often said, "well, it's a free country."  Now I never hear that expression anymore, as it is no longer true.   

The wistfulness of Americans like Dan Rather to be ruled by a benevolent king alarms me more than anything else.  To have a king, you must have a monarchy, and to have a monarchy, you must concentrate tremendous power into the office of one person.  That power can be used equally for good and for evil; for every Marcus Aurelius you will have at least one Nero.  It is the nature of power, we are taught by history, to call forth the darker character of the human will.   We would do well to remember that in the play, everything went to hell in the end, and in our desperation to recreate it politically, it will certainly go the same way. 

 

Copyright 2012, Robert Albanese

"Experts Say"

  

An article titled "Is the era of oil nearing its end?" appeared in the Idaho Statesman a week ago (8/12/2012). It was from McClatchy Newspapers (the Statesman is a McClatchy paper) and written by Greg Gordon. It concerned the fear that despite the assurances of the energy companies and the bland lack of alarm on the part of the current administration and the one just past, we are speeding into very frightening times from a petroleum perspective. Mr. Gordon employed a phrase in the article that always irks me: "Experts say...."

Our era exemplifies of one of the fundamental errors in the proper use of reasoning: argumentum ad hominem. This principle identifies the tendency we have to consider any opinion false if it is articulated by someone we don't like. If we are Republicans, anything Barrack Obama says is a lie. If we are Democrats, anything Mitt Romney says is a lie. If Mitt Romney says the sky is blue and we are Democrats, it is most assuredly green. And vice-versa of course.

And now we have also created an interesting corollary to argumentum ad hominem: The Cult of the Expert. If we bestow the title of "Expert" on individuals, whatever they say regarding the subject on which they are an expert is true. If a person is not an "Expert," his or her opinion on the topic in question is of no value. In contrast to argumentum ad hominem, which is employed by everyone in just about every context, Cult of the Expert is observed almost exclusively in political debates and in journalism. It is used like a hammer to try to silence opposing views, but it does not reflect objective reality to the extent hoped for by those who brandish it.

To journalists the "Expert" is virtually always a tweed-jacketed university professor who has written a book about the issue in question. It's not too unreasonable an assumption. Professors are always intelligent, often brilliant, and you can get an idea about how accomplished they are from their peers. There are less well known people in the private sector, however, who may have as much or more expertise on a subject than an academic. The academic environment requires the professor to publish papers, but industry requires tangible results. Even if measurable results do not rise to the level of publishing a paper in a peer-review journal, and that would be a difficult argument, industry experts should not be summarily dismissed by journalists. And yet they are.

In the article I referenced above, Gordon implies that whatever the industry people say is probably false because of their strong financial interest in the ongoing use of fossil fuels. The assumption is that an academic would be free of that kind of bias in the formulation of their opinions. It is a dangerous assumption.

Academics, just like everyone else, have interests they have a need to protect. Among them are career, income and funding for their research. Biases they are not fully aware of can insinuate themselves into their theories and influence elements of their research. We once had a spirited discussion at Journal Club at the Medical University of South Carolina. The resident physicians and medical students were discussing an article written by a VA physician comparing new, expensive antipsychotics to the older, cheaper ones. The author of the paper described data demonstrating that the older antipsychotics were tolerated as well as the more expensive ones but they did not cause nearly as much weight gain, a serious problem for patients with mental illness. The resident physicians and medical students eagerly embraced the results of this article because the academic VA researcher would have less bias than researchers who worked for the pharmaceutical companies. "If this researcher can show that cheaper medications work as well as the newer ones with less side effects," I pointed out, "his career and reputation will skyrocket." Career is a powerful motivator in the world of academics, and every researcher seeks in his or her work to identify the need for yet more funding.

A Special Report in the September 2012 edition of Consumer Reports "On Health" provides advice to lay people on how to read news stories about medical science ("Should you trust that medical news?"). Among questions we are urged to ask include whether or not other sources are queried and who exactly is quoted and what are their credentials. These kinds of questions are ways to discern whether or not there is an undetermined bias in the opinion at the center of the reporting.

It is not reasonable to say that because a researcher works for a pharmaceutical company, his or her research demonstrating the value of the company's new drug is not useful. That would be argumentum ad hominem, would it not? We recognize however the possibility of bias and anticipate other studies confirming the findings. It would also be argumentum ad hominem to assume that the work of university professors is so influenced by their need to be promoted and tenured that their work is worthless as well. But to assume that because an academic is not directly supported by industry (a huge percentage of them in fact are) that there is no bias in their work is misinformed.

The use of the phrase "Experts say" is based on the assumption that virtually all of the Experts in a particular field agree. This assumption ignores one of the great truths of academic life: You don't get a Nobel Prize by agreeing with what everyone else in your field says. While university professors tend to speak with one voice on scientific issues that are heavily politicized, the laboratory and conference room witness constant argument and debate. When journalists cite the opinions of experts, they generally do not do a good job of telling us how much confidence we should have in an Expert's opinion and why. We do not get a sense of how much dissent there is among colleagues on the topic in question and what the stakes are for each camp. If you read science journalism critically, the phrase "Experts say" seems to have essentially one meaning: "In my opinion."

(c) Copyright 2012 Robert Albanese

The End of the Civic Society

There was an article in the Idaho Statesman today about a school in Idaho's rural dairy country.  It is a charter school with an educational emphasis on patriotism, capitalism, and individual freedoms.  It was a newsworthy story precisely because of how unusual the school is in its philosophical character.  Even in very red-state Idaho.  There was a subliminal implication in the reporting that state education officials harbor concerns about so radical an approach to teaching young people.    

Of course when I was a kid in Virginia and later North Carolina, our schools were just like North Valley Academy.  We said the Pledge of Allegiance, we sang "Our Country 'tis of Thee" and we studied Civics.   

In Civics class we examined the philosophies of the Founding Fathers, the Structure of Government, and most important, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The concept underlying education in Civics seems to have been that in order for America to maintain her dominant world economic, political and cultural position, her young students had to be educated in the doctrines that made America the giant that she had become.  Our minds were to be shaped, to some extent, according to the image of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.  We were taught that liberty was the most important value, the keystone concept of our ethical world view.   

Now, however, Civics has been replaced by Social Studies. The National Council for the Social Studies (socialstudies.org) is an educational clearing house for teachers at every level, elementary through college/university.  The Council, composed of educators, views itself as responsible for formulating the educational objectives of Social Studies education, and they have published a Position Paper called "Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies Teaching and Learning." It can be found at:

 http://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/Curriculum_Guidelines_SocialStudies_Teaching_and_Learning.pdf 

It is interesting to read the document, and everyone should.  I would draw my readers' attention to Section 3, where education in Social Studies is required to be Value-Based.  It reads as follows:   

The social studies program should consider the ethical dimensions of topics and address controversial issues while providing an arena for reflective development of concern for the common good* and the application of democratic**  values.

3.1 The program should help students understand the role that values play in decision making.

3.2 The program should give students the opportunity to think critically and make value-based decisions.

3.3 The program should support different points of view, respect for well-supported positions***, and sensitivity to cultural similarities and differences.

3.4 The program should encourage students to develop a commitment to social responsibility, justice****, and action.

3.5 The program should encourage students to examine and evaluate policy and its implications.

3.6 The program should give students the opportunity to think critically and make value-based decisions about related social issues. 

*As defined by whom?

**Please see my blog:  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Choice.

***Supported by whom?

**** Please see my blog:  Liberty and Justice. 

The italics are mine.  As you can see, the philosophical orientation of Social Studies teaching is very different from that of Civics, and its goal is to shape minds very differently to those of Washington, Jefferson and Adams.  The emphasis is not on liberty, it is on justice; the word liberty does not appear in the document at all and the word freedom appears only once, as academic freedom for the teachers.  It occurred to me even as a youngster, when Social Studies replaced Civics, that perhaps my teachers do not want to teach us The Constitution because they do not agree with it.  They view it as an obstacle to the world they are trying to build, they blame it for the injustices of the past.   

I do not believe that American educators have nefarious intent the way many conservatives do.  Teachers vote according to self-interest, just like everyone else, and since their salaries and the conditions under which they work are determined by The State, it would be disingenuous to be shocked that the vast majority of them are Statists.  I do not blame them for the steady decline in the intellectual levels of American youth; that falls squarely on the parents and our increasingly doofus culture.  Teachers are lion-hearted professionals who endure disrespect and even sometimes aggression in the ordinary pursuit of their duties.  It is beyond doubt an honorable calling.   

I think the change in philosophical direction marked by the shift from Civics to Social Studies has to do with the fact that teachers believe it is theirs as a profession to determine what must be taught, and they should be free from external influence (see the last sentence in the aforementioned Position Paper).  One could argue though is that it is precisely external influence that created Social(ist) Studies.  It is a derivation of a euro-globalist formula that derides patriotism and replaces it with a kind of world consciousness, one that conforms well to environmentalism, justice through the redistribution of poverty to the Middle Class, and the redistribution of political power from the individual to The State.   As a snobby europhile myself, I see in the American educator class a contempt for individual liberty that reminds me of my own disdain for certain American culinary traditions, like the abominable Bartlett pear half from a can, positioned on a leaf of iceberg lettuce, with a dollop of mayonnaise in the hollow center.   

Although I strenuously disagree with Social Statism, it is a well-reasoned school with many intelligent, thoughtful adherents.  The same can be said for the libertarianism of our Founding Fathers, however, and it would be a great example of respect for well-supported positions were American educators to give young minds similar access to those ideas as well.  Our political ancestors certainly had areas of shocking moral blindness; they did not see in The Constitution protection for the rights of women and black slaves, for example.  But Social Statism, logically extrapolated, has surpassed religion as the source of the greatest slaughters in world history (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot, etc.).   

Finally, a disclaimer.  I hate making disclaimers, but I feel like I have to do it because, and I know this makes me sound like a euro-snob, Americans seem to have trouble with nuanced thinking.  I am not on the Left-Right spectrum; I am not arguing for the Right Wing.  I am not a Capitalist.  Like G.K. Chesterton, I believe that the problem with Capitalism is that it creates too few capitalists, not too many.  I agree with Chesterton that the best economic system ("distributionism") is one where the owners of the means of production are as small in scale and as many as possible, in other words, small business over big business.  Under the current state of affairs, the politicians of the Left and the Right facilitate the condensation of megacorporations, largely by eliminating competition and regulating small companies out of business.  Wealth is thus concentrated to a fantastic extent, and that wealth is in turn employed to support politicians friendly to General Electric, General Motors, Walmart, etc.  How else can you explain the relationship of left-of-center President Obama to GE, GM, and Wall Street?  It is what has been called "Crony Capitalism," and both sides of the aisle are equally contaminated.  It is the greatest example of the hypocrisy of Republicans, who preach the virtues of competition and then seek to destroy it, and of the Democrats, rich people who somehow acquire political power through public condemnation of their own class.  In an economy unadulterated by political power, corporations would not grow so large; they can only do so by the influence of government.   

If we wish to bring on the extinction of the United States in its current form and fuse our nation into some kind of a World Government community, I think the Social Studies curriculum is an excellent pathway.  It realigns the thinking of the young in precisely that direction.  I would favor building on our spectacular achievements, however, by restoring Civics.  Civics has Liberty as its core value, and Liberty is much easier to define than Justice, the core value of Social Studies.  It is not Justice or Fairness or Social Consciousness that has made America the greatest nation in history; it is our historical willingness to tolerate the freedom of the individual to a degree never known in human history.  The Civics curriculum I would design would not only concern itself with our successes, but also our failures, including why women and blacks did not have the status of full citizens, and why we permitted Civics to be replaced by Social Studies. 

Copyright 2012 Robert Albanese

The Federal Reserve

When I was seventeen I went with our high school Beta Club on a trip to Washington, D.C.  We toured the city and saw many of the edifices and institutions that are essential to the experience of going to the Nation's Capital:  The Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the White House and so on.  And of course we saw the Federal Reserve Building.  I remember thinking that the Federal Reserve Building looked like what I had imagined to be the appearance of the Temple of Solomon.

At that time and for many years thereafter I thought, like most Americans, that the Federal Reserve was a branch of the U.S. government.  I believed that it printed our currency and protected large quantities of gold and silver and huge stacks of paper money in readiness in case they should be needed by the American people.  After all, this is what is implied by "Federal" and "Reserve," is it not?

What I was not taught in school, however, is that the Federal Reserve is a Central Bank, a group of private bankers.  I was also not taught that the Federal Reserve does not print our currency; that is a function of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.  And I was not taught that the Federal Reserve does not store anything tangible for the American people. 

I was well into adulthood before I learned that the Federal Reserve is private.  Well good, I thought; as a Libertarian, I was happy to have relegated to some private concern any function that might normally go to the government.  After all, the private sector is more efficient than the federal government and perhaps also less susceptible to corruption and political influence.  It was not until many years later, however, after I was deep into middle age, that I discovered the true nature of our Central Bank. 

If the Federal Reserve does not print our money, and if it does not keep anything of value in reserve, what exactly does it do? 

1. It lends our own currency to us at interest. 

2. It controls the supply, or quantity, of money and therefore also its value. 

Before 1913, the U.S. government printed our money and it was backed by gold.  Therefore the value of our currency was relatively stable as the supply of gold was relatively stable.  If you did a days' worth of work and got a dollar, that dollar was yours as the product of your labor.  You could redeem that dollar for a quantity of gold, but no one really bothered doing it because, by virtue of being backed by gold, the dollar was sound.  "Sound as the dollar" was a common phrase once upon a time. 

Fast forward to today.  You do a day's work, and someone gives you five twenty dollar bills.  Take a look at one of those twenty dollar bills.  At the top it says "Federal Reserve Note."  A note is a debt, is it not?  That twenty dollar bill represents what the U.S. Government owes to the Federal Reserve, and therefore what you owe to the U.S. Government.  So in exchange for your work, instead of getting something of value free and clear, you get an obligation.  Two other interesting points come out of this comparison.  The first is that since the Federal Reserve can control the value of our money, it has caused our money to be worth less and less over time.  The value of a dollar in 1913 was a lot higher than the value of a dollar today, for you could buy a day of work from a man with a dollar back then and it takes a hundred or so of them to purchase the same amount of work today.  The second point has to do with the image on the twenty dollar bill:  Andrew Jackson. 

Andrew Jackson, like Thomas Jefferson before him, believed that a Central Bank existed primarily for the rich to steal from the poor and the middle class.  After terrible struggles with very powerful bankers, he ultimately did away with the institution and restored the function to the government.  His administration went from being in debt to having a surplus, as it was no longer necessary to pay huge sums of money to the bankers for lending us our own currency.  His successor, Martin Van Buren, actually redistributed funds back to the states. 

So now we know that:

1. The Federal Reserve is a Central Bank, in other words, it is private. 

2. The Federal Reserve makes huge sums of money in interest payments for wealthy and powerful people to do little or nothing. 

3. The Federal Reserve controls the value of our money, decreasing its value to us and thereby also increasing its value to them.  This is called inflation. 

Now if the Federal Reserve only does bad things, why do we have it?  Well one answer is that it is not bad to everyone, just ordinary people.  For the politically powerful and the ultra-rich, the Federal Reserve system is a fantastic source of a continuous stream of wealth.  These are the people, after all, who establish law and policy; why should they not do so in a manner that benefits them directly?  But that is admittedly somewhat cynical.  Why would more or less reasonable people love the Central Bank?

Politicians love the Federal Reserve because it allows them to obtain funds that they do not have to raise in taxes, at least not during their terms of office.  Let's say the liberals in government want to create a new social program whereby everyone who is somewhat ugly gets plastic surgery so they will be better-looking, and the conservatives want to create a fleet of battle ships that can fly as well as float.  The conservatives won't vote for the surgery without getting the battleships, and the liberals will not vote for the battleships without getting the plastic surgery funded.  Both groups want to give these to the American people because the people will love them for these benefits and will reelect them continuously to their narcotic positions of power (mysteriously always accompanied by increasing wealth).  The problem is the politicians cannot raise the revenue by taxation; if they try that the people will realize how these programs are not "free" and they will be crushed by the weight of the taxes.  So the politicians borrow the money from the Federal Reserve at interest, to be repaid by the children and the grandchildren of those who benefit from the programs, and if they can't raise the revenue by normal taxation they use the other form of taxation:  inflation.  We see this happening now.  The debt is so high that our taxes are barely enough to cover the interest on the debt; the government then urges the Federal Reserve to decrease the value of our currency through inflation so it can raise revenue for other operating costs.  People are working harder and harder for less and less wealth. 

Some people might say we need the Federal Reserve because it makes the money supply flexible; who knows when you might need more or less money?  What if there was a run on the banks?  Wouldn't it be good then for the Federal Reserve to print more money?  Well that potential did not prevent the Great Depression!  Remember that the Federal Reserve was created before the Great Depression.  There are serious individuals who believe that the Central Bank did not prevent the Depression because it was not in the interest of these bankers to do so!  They believe, as did Thomas Jefferson, that the Central Bank creates booms during which common people create huge quantities of goods and services of great value and then the bankers create busts during which they can purchase those goods and services at a fraction of their worth.  You don't need a Federal Reserve, however, to change the money supply.  The government should be very capable of that by itself.  You can argue that such a process should not be politicized, and that makes sense, but we have agencies of the government that operate more or less outside of the usual kinds of political influence.  We do not know, for example, whether the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a Republican or a Democrat and it is hard to imagine it being of any particular concern. 

I may have been inaccurate in one of my contentions above, that the Central Bank does not store anything of value.  Some believe that the Federal Reserve holds massive quantities of gold.  Many people believe that the gold that was once in Fort Knox is now in the Federal Reserve, not held in safe keeping for the American people, but held in collateral for our massive government debt.  Because some Americans are suspicious that this is indeed the case, they have called for adherence to the law by having an audit of Fort Knox.  The government and the Federal Reserve have both ignored this demand. 

I am a physician, not an economist or a politician, so I bring little more than a layman's appreciation for the issues discussed above.  What shocks me, however, is how ignorant I was of the truth of the Central Bank, even at a high level of education.  How, after so many years at the university, do I know so little?  Now I see the same stupefied expression on my family, friends and colleagues when I urge them to consider the implications of the existence of the Federal Reserve.  Whether the Central Bank is a good thing or a bad thing, and I fear it is the latter by a huge degree, the stakes are too high for us to languish in the dark.