One of the powerful disciplines of science is the requirement that the validity of a theory is judged by how well it makes predictions. For example, the physical laws of motion are incredibly well validated by their ability to make very precise and accurate long-term predictions of the motion of the planets. The virtue of this discipline is that it allows theories to be both validated and refuted. This separates science from faith. Indeed, any well-constructed prediction ought to have clear measures of success or failure. Unfortunately, this discipline is difficult to apply to the social sciences. Nonetheless, difficulty in application does not render this approach useless.In January of 2009, a President Barack Obama economic team following predictions for unemployment both with and without the President’s stimulus package. The web site Innocent Bystanders has reproduced the Administration’s graph along with actual data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The graph is shown below:
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The key prediction was if the stimulus were not passed unemployment would peek at 9% while with the stimulus package the unemployment would not exceeded 8%. In actuality, the maximum unemployment peaked over 10% and has persisted much longer than predicted. According the the Administration, at this point we should have 7.5% unemployment rather than 9.9%. Most discouraging at this point, is that newest prediction of the Administration predicts unemployment lingering above 8% through 2012, falling at a slower rate than the Administration expected for unemployment with no stimulus package. One hopes that this prognostication will not be an under prediction.The facts above are not disputed, however their interpretation certainly is. Indeed, President Obama himself has said: “If the just say no crowd had won out..if we had done things the way they wanted to go, wed be in a deeper world of hurt than we are right now.”Consider the three possible outcomes of the stimulus package with respect to the unemployment predictions. If the unemployment rate dropped faster than predicted, then the President and his Administration would have justifiably crowed about their success. If the unemployment rate largely followed the original Obama Administration predictions, even with fairly broad margins of error, the Administration could have persuasively argued that their policies worked as expected. Now that the unemployment rate has soared past the original predictions, the Administration is arguing that the economy would have been worst had their been no stimulus package.The key thesis here is that regardless of the actual economic situation, the Administration supporters will argue that the stimulus package was beneficial. There is no possible outcome, (positive, neutral, or negative) that could, in their eyes, have demonstrated that the stimulus package has failed. The value of the stimulus has become a matter of faith separated from the facts. If you don’t agree with this conclusion, ask an Administration supporter, what set of economic facts would have been evidence that the stimulus did not work.
When Free Speech Degenerates to Threats
Sunday, May 30th, 2010There can sometimes be a fine difference between Constitutionally protected free speech and criminal threats. Criminal intimidation may involve speech, but such speech does not fall under the shield of the First Amendment. Cross burning provides a compelling example. While ugly speech expressing racial hatred is permitted, those same sentiments expressed by cross burning are not. The reason is that cross burning was widely practiced by groups like the Klu Klux Klan as a direct threat against black people and others who sympathized with the plight of blacks. Hence, historical practice has caused cross burning to be unequivocally associated with a clear and direct threat of physical harm.
Protests and marches can sometimes straddle the distinction between First Amendment rights and unlawful behavior. Marching around a government building, for example, to express displeasure with a government policy is protected by the First Amendment. If such marches are meant to physically prevent the free passage of others, or if members act in ways that a reasonable person would feel physically intimated, the right of “people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” degenerates into unlawful behavior. In many cases, we must rely on the judgment of local police officers to recognize the distinction. Rightly, the general rule has been to grant fairly large latitude to protestors.
We submit here that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) crossed the line in the protest at the home of Greg Baer, counsel the Bank of America. About 500 members of the SEIU and National Political Action another Progressive group (out of Chicago) assembled on the front lawn of Greg Baer. They were there ostensibly to protest foreclosures by the banks on delinquent mortgages. The group actually occupied the home’s porch with bullhorns blasting chants. The activities were sufficiently disconcerting that Baer’s teenage son, the only one home, took refuge in a locked bathroom in the house. The fact that the young man was afraid does not alone provide proof that the SEIU and its allies were a threatening crowd. However, other facts suggest that the purpose of the group was intimidation.
The ease with which SEIU was able to execute this threatening assembly and the fact that it has been essentially uncovered in the major press is frightening. Indeed, the ombudsman of the Washington Post was also concerned by the lack of coverage. One Washington Post reader suggested that if a group of Tea Party protestors assembled on the lawn of a Congressman and frightened his family, the story would have been above the fold on the front page.
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