Ideological Camps: News Miner 33
Colorado's main political camps, free-range chickens, state education standards, 303 Creative, the two-can stove, and more.
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Colorado’s Three Main Ideological Camps
Complete Colorado published my new column, “Finding some ideological common ground in Colorado,” in which I briefly describe religious conservatism, progressivism, and libertarianism. Following are a few selections:
The source of the social good [for religious conservatives], then, is something like adherence to traditional religious beliefs. The source of disorder and social chaos is “secularism,” with its acceptance of things like gay marriage, transgenderism, and the separation of church and state. . . .
Progressives, coming out of a loosely Marxist tradition, see the main source of oppression as economic dominance in the marketplace. . . . The solution, the source of order, justice, and freedom, is “democratic” control of the economy. . . .
Libertarians see voluntary consent as the basis of a just society. . . . Far from seeing consensual economic interactions as the source of oppression and exploitation, as progressives do, libertarians see such interactions as a major way in which people pursue their values to flourish as part of a harmonious society.
Free-Range Chickens by Law
Danielle Kreutter writes for Denver7:
Starting Jan. 1, 2023, the state of Colorado will prohibit the sale of eggs that are not cage-free. House Bill 20-1343 requires all eggs sold at grocery stores to come from cage-free hens. . . .
Penalties could cost a store or producer up to $1,000 per violation, but state officials are allowing the next two years to serve as a transitional period to allow the required changes to be made.
Starting in 2023, enclosures can be no smaller than 1 square foot per hen. By Jan. 1, 2025, Colorado farms must allow their chickens to be free roaming with the exception of exterior walls on the housing structure and some interior fencing.
Even some conservatives see this as good news; Krista Kafer reacts, “Good news for hens—humane treatment.”
When I interviewed Michael Huemer about animal welfare in 2019, he suggested that perhaps people don’t have a right to mistreat conscious animals.
The standard libertarian take is that non-human animals do not have rights and therefore government should not protect animals (except as people’s property). Instead, people looking for humane treatment of animals should treat their own animals humanely, encourage others to do likewise, and use market pressure against firms that mistreat animals. Libertarians tend to worry about bringing to bear the force of government in such cases.
At the same time, most people will reach a point where they think laws protecting animals are okay. Should it be legal for a person to grotesquely torture his own dogs to death just for the hell of it? I’m okay with laws against that sort of thing. But it’s not obvious that raising chickens in tight quarters to produce eggs falls in the same category. The question largely is an empirical matter: How much do chickens so raised actually suffer, relative to how “free range” chickens fare?
Obviously the new law will increase the price of eggs. So what about poor families trying to make ends meet?
The law will not much affect my own habits, as I buy not just “free range” but Certified Humane eggs.
A political observation: This is yet another example of the Democratic legislature pushing the effects of a controversial bill beyond the recent 2022 election season.
School Standards and LGBTQ Issues
Pamela Benigno says parents should know what public schools are teaching their children. Fair enough. See also Benigno’s related discussion with Jon Caldara.
But I am not specifically worried about standards that introduce LGBTQ issues to students below fourth grade, something Benigno worries about. You can introduce such issues without getting into sex per se. Children can understand things like men marrying other men.
The broader issue, for me, is that it’s bizarre that most people think it’s perfectly okay for the legislature to decide what kids learn. Instead of anyone questioning that fundamental premise, we have left and right fighting over what the legislature dictates. As I constantly remark, it’s so weird how government-run schools become so political.
That said, as I’ve written, I think the state standards make almost no practical difference to what’s taught in the classroom.
Volokh and Matz on the 303 Creative Case
Recently the Supreme Court listened to arguments concerning the 303 Creative case, concerning a web page designer who does not wish to create pages for gay weddings. I don’t think government should force the issue.
The National Constitution Center hosted a conversation about the case. Eugene Volokh takes the side of 303 Creative; Joshua Matz takes the side of applying the antidiscrimination laws in such cases.
Volokh defends “the right to refrain from speaking.” Interestingly, though, Volokh doesn’t think that baking a cake is speech; I think selling a cake obviously can entail ideological content (especially when the cake carries an explicit message).
Volokh observes that a severe application of the antidiscrimination laws would even require a freelance writer who writes press releases for pay to write releases conveying some messages that he vehemently disagrees with, as a condition of staying in business. If that’s allowed by First Amendment legal interpretation, then the First Amendment is dead.
Matz casts the case as involving “discrimiat[ion] against potential customers in the provision of goods and services.” I disagree, obviously. At issue is not who orders the cake or web page; at issue is the message that the cake or web page conveys. As I’ve noted, this is not at all the same thing as declining to sell an on-the-shelf cake, as-is, to someone who comes in the door and happens to be gay (or whatever).
However—and I haven’t researched the details—Matz suggests that the person behind the 303 Creative case also might want to refuse to sell an as-is web site to a gay couple. But it should be pretty easy just to say that the person cannot be required to modify a product to fit a particular event.
Matz concedes that there may be some cases in which compelled speech might raise serious First Amendment concerns, but I don’t think he draws out any principled way to decide. Matz does say that no one expects a web site designer to endorse the message of a web site, and there’s (usually) something to that. At the same time, all the time leftists are urging boycotts. For example, many leftists have urged advertisers not to buy advertisements on Twitter, on the grounds that advertisers should not enmesh themselves with others’ nasty messages there. So it is often the case that doing business with or for someone is, and is widely seen as, a sanction or endorsement. Anyway, what matters is whether the producer thinks that creating a product for a specific events endorses a message with which the producer disagrees.
Quick Takes
Club Q: Remembering Daniel Aston and Kelly Loving.
Twitter: Ian Silverii says, “I want Twitter to die.” In other news, Ken White (Popehat) explains why he left Twitter.
Abortion: “Pueblo rejects abortion ban,” Elliott Wenzler reviews.
Immigrants: The Gazette blames Denver’s sanctuary status for the arrival of some 150 immigrants.
Homelessness: Mike Rosen has an interesting column on the topic. Some cities focus on treatment, others on housing. What’s key in formulating a response, Rosen argues, is to recognize that homelessness has different causes. There’s a big difference between someone who, due to a financial shock, ends up temporarily living in shelters or the like, and someone who suffers from severe mental illness. Anyway, cities do not help themselves by “creating a homeless oasis.” I think the key issue is that government artificially restricts housing.
Energy: Xcel Energy wants to increase rates again. Shocker.
Budget: The Common Sense Institute has out a historical review of the Colorado budget. Here’s a bit that stood out to me: “In the last 20 years, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) budget has increased by 459% from $2.5 billion to $14.2 billion while increasing its share of the total budget from 19% to 36%. In comparison, the Department of Education budget has grown by 130% over this same period from $3.1 billion to $7.2 billion.”
Payroll Tax: Sherrie Peif reminds us, “Many [Coloradans] will soon experience an additional financial squeeze with a new .45 percent deduction from their paychecks beginning in January. The ‘Family and Medical Leave Insurance’ (FAMLI) program, which was passed by voters in 2020, will begin collecting payments through employers’ payroll in January.”
Stove: Robert Zubrin explains how to make a two-can stove. My kid and I made one and it worked quite well. We got about seven minutes of flame, more than enough to cook two eggs in oil, from pine needles packed into the lower can.
