Knocking Some Sense Into the Federal Government About Its Policy on Domestic Violence

Tomorrow will be the 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), VAWA was created back in 1994 to address violent crime, particularly against women. Its method of addressing violence against women was twofold: (1) enhanced investigations and prosecutions of sex offenses, and (2) provided a number of grant programs to address the issue of violence of women (CRS, 2014, p. 2). With a name like the Violence Against Women Act, one would have to be sadistic to believe violence against women is a good thing. Sexual assault, rape, violence, and murder are all acts against humanity that are decidedly against libertarian principles, i.e., it violates the nonagression axiom. As the Center for Disease Control (CDC) points out, domestic violence even has long-term effects that surpass the period of the abuse. So how can anybody against VAWA and the noble cause of fighting domestic violence? Its goal is to reduce, or even eliminate, violent crimes against women. However, just because a piece of legislation has a name such as the Violence Against Women Act doesn't mean it's a form of "truth in advertisement." The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has the word "affordable" in it, but the ACA has hardly made health care more affordable. What about VAWA? Does it properly target violence against women, or is VAWA just another government initiative with good intentions, but lousy results?

Before delving in, I think it's always worth it to mention the price tag of any government initiative. VAWA is a program that costs the taxpayers $412.5M per annum (the CBO puts the estimated costs at a higher number). In comparison to the $3.45T (FY 2013) budget, the cost of this program is relatively minute (i.e., about a ten-thousandth of the federal budget). Ways to make more efficient programming and curb waste is constantly at the forefront of my mind, but it's not a huge cost driver of federal-level debt, so I'll leave that one alone for now. I'll spend more of my focus on how VAWA does or could affect violence against women.

How good of a job has VAWA done in terms of reducing violence against women? From 1993 to 2010, we see a 64 percent decrease in intimate partner violence, which is great. The issue here is that the rates that criminal acts were decreasing in the early 1990's. How much can we honestly attribute to VAWA and how much can we attribute to the overall decrease in criminal behavior? Correlation is not the same thing as causation, which is something the Government Accountability Office had a problem with VAWA back in 2002 because no one conducted rigorous, experimental evaluation of VAWA's effectiveness. Unsurprisingly, this evaluation still has not been conducted, which means there is no actual evidence that VAWA was responsible for the domestic violence decreases. If anything, it seems that VAWA has had no unique effect on domestic violence rates (Cho and Wilke, 2010).

Looking at the CRS report, VAWA puts too heavy of a focus on law enforcement, thereby diminishing the complexity of domestic violence. Considering that VAWA was created during the end of the "tough on crime" heyday, it should be no surprise that a majority of VAWA funds go to prosecuting and other expenditures related to law enforcement. At the very least, VAWA funds should de-emphasize law enforcement and focus more on prevention, job and vocational training, finding a way to leave the abuser, or addressing the underfunded shelters. Additionally, when discussing problem-solving in a public policy context, we have to ask ourselves what are the root causes [of domestic violence]. The CDC provides an extensive list of over thirty causes of intimate partner violence, ranging from unemployment to depression to belief in strict gender roles to anger issues to poverty to substance abuse. Since the issue of intimate partner violence is so complex and intertwined, we would have to look at a combination of mental health, poverty relief, health care, education, and economic policy to address the issues. And even in the improbability that we can craft a policy to address all those issues, we cannot succumb to Vice President Biden's recent naïveté of thinking the government can stop domestic violence with government policy.

I additionally worry about unintended consequences of VAWA, aside from less funding going to directly address the root causes. One is that of mandatory arrest laws. In addition to doing away with "innocent until proven guilty," mandatory arrest laws increase arrest rates. This might seem like a good idea but what happens is that the woman worries that her husband gets thrown in jail. Since she doesn't want her partner getting thrown in jail, it leads to either retracted accusations or the more common occurrence of reporting domestic abuse less. As a result, intimate partner homicide increases (Iyengar, 2007).

It is also unfortunate how these laws depict men and women as narrow, inaccurate gender stereotypes. "Men are sex-crazed abusers. Women are victims." This mentality is not good for either gender. While there are some general differences between the genders, assuming that men are always the assailant in a domestic abuse case is simply not true. For starters, let's realize that nearly one in four men are victims of sexual violence in their lifetime. While women are statistically more likely to be the victims of domestic abuse, it is not as if men never are victims. Women can victimize, as well, and there are numerous instances in which the domestic violence is reciprocal (e.g., Whitaker et al., 2006). Take a look at this 2010 report by the CDC (particularly Chapter 4), and I can tell you that the number of male victims (CDC, 2010, Table 4.2) in a domestic abuse case is more numerous that one would have thought. 31 million males: that is nothing to scoff at, especially when that is approximately 28.5 percent of the male population. These numbers are most probably underestimates because individuals underreport domestic violence. If women are prone to underreporting because of the shame, think of how much more men are going to underreport domestic violence when it has the potential to emasculate them in a culture of hypemasculinity.

I am not to here diminish what female victims endure. I can only imagine what a female victim who goes through when she is victimized. However, we also need to recognize that there are also a sizeable amount of male victims. Not only is VAWA a Title IX violation, but it an assault on the idea of equal treatment under the law. We should not have laws that say that violence against women is more heinous than violence against men. A victim of a crime is a victim, regardless of gender.

In summation, I would suggest the following reform for VAWA. De-emphasize the "tough on crime" aspect. Put more emphasis on domestic shelters, as well as addressing root causes. Mitigate some of the fraud issues. Conduct effective evaluation that can determine VAWA efficacy. Create a societal climate in which both male and female victims feel that they can talk about their abuse and prevent future violence. Finally, and most importantly, make the law gender-neutral. If we are going to live in a pluralistic society where we emphasize that our similarities are more important than our differences, we need to create laws that help both men and women.

"Free Palestine" Rhetoric Has Become a Free Pass to Justify Anti-Semitism and Attacking Jews

October 7, 2023 was a horrific day for Israel. Hamas militants crossed into Israel to carry out the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. They carried out unspeakable acts against humanity: rape, kidnapping 251 civilians, murdering over 1,200 civilians, torture, decapitation. In terms of per capita death rates, October 7 was the equivalent of September 11 about 15 times over. The bodies of the murdered were not even buried and yet the pro-Palestine "activists" were already out protesting against Israel. This first wave of post-October 7 Jew-hatred broke out before the Israeli Defense Forces even entered Gaza, which tells you how much the motives are about hating Israel and Jews. Since October 8, 2023, these protestors have been out in full force across the planet. 

Fast-forward to May/June 2025. In a two-week timespan, there were two violent and unfortunate anti-Semitic attacks that made international news. The first was the murder of two Israeli embassy staff members outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. The murderer was screaming "Free Palestine" as he was being arrested for this heinous act. 

The second attack took place in Boulder, Colorado. There was a rally for the hostages who have been held captive in Gaza for over 600 days. The assailant threw Molotov cocktails at the participants. The savage seriously injured eight participants, including an 88-year Holocaust survivor. As he threw the Molotov cocktails, he was screaming "We need to end Zionists." These attacks got me thinking a lot about the rhetoric used by pro-Palestine protestors and how it influences anti-Semitism and violence against Jews in the Diaspora. Let us examine the most commonly used rhetoric.  

"Globalize the Intifada". The word intifada comes from the Arabic انتفاضة, which is derived from the Arabic verb that means "to shake off" or "to get rid of." Within the political context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there have been two intifadas. The First Intifada was in the late 1980s to early 1990s, whereas the Second Intifada took place in the early 2000s. In both intifadas, there was political violence against Jews that resulted in over 1,000 Jewish deaths. Suicide bombing was commonly used during the Second Intifada. Since intifada against Israel has historically meant indiscriminate violence against Jews, does it surprise anyone that globalizing the intifada would translate into violence against Jews, Israelis, and pro-Israel institutions across the world?   

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". It would behoove us to ask which river and which sea. Answer: the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. What country is between those two bodies of water? Israel. This is not a call for a two-state solution, but to extend the clout of this proto-state (if you can call it that) by eliminating the state of Israel. At a bare minimum, this translates into the ethnic cleansing of Jews. More likely, it is a call for the genocide of the Jewish people, especially after the pogrom of October 7 and the uptick of anti-Semitism afterwards. This phrase ends up being problematic in practice because it is ultimately not about a call for justice or equality; it crosses the line into bona fide anti-Semitism and the political extremism of eliminating the world's only Jewish nation-state. 

"Resistance by any means necessary." This little beaut is commonly used by anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine (WOL). Hopefully, this one should not require that much explanation. Any means necessary means the ends justify the means. This includes multiple acts of violence, whether that is slaughtering children and the elderly, suicide bombings, shootings, and setting synagogues on fire. If you have any doubts about that, October 7 and the subsequent rise in anti-Semitism across the global should have settled that "any means necessary" literally means "any means."

False accusations of genocide and settler colonialism. Genocide and settler colonialism are evils in the world. The problem in this instance is that Israel is guilty of neither. When you are under the delusion that Israel is committing genocide (see my three-part refutation of the false genocide accusation here, here, and here), this sort of accusation fuels the flames of Jew hate. Why? 

It does not matter that the Jews are indigenous to Israel (also known as Judea) or that Israel has legal rights to the land under international law, thereby refuting the "settler colonialism" argument. If your take is mistakenly that the "evil Jews" are the most heinous human rights violators out there (especially when you are ignoring actual violations of human rights), then you might be inspired to do something drastic about stopping these misperceived injustices, as was the case in the Washington DC and Boulder attacks. 

Postscript

As I pointed out last October, anti-Semitism has been on the rise and at significantly higher rates than anti-Muslim crimes. Anti-Semitism has only gotten worse since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023. Let there be no mistake. Words have power. When pro-Palestinian protestors chant "From the river to the sea" or "Globalize the intifada," what they are doing is endorse, glorify, and encourage the bloodshed of Jews and Israelis. It is the public celebration of mass murder.  

What is jarring is that this rhetoric has become normalized and covered up with the excuse of "We're not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist," a phenomenon I explored in 2016. It does not matter what your views about Israeli policy are. It is possible to criticize the Israeli government without calling for its eradication. Israeli citizens do so frequently. Far too many on the pro-Palestine side has gone beyond mere political disagreement about Israel's foreign policy and venturing into bona fide anti-Semitic territory. What makes this even more horrifying is that these slogan gain traction and become normalized, thereby making the speech seem like "mere rhetoric" or "protected dissent" (e.g., Farrand, 2023; Álvarez-Benjumea and Winter, 2020). Obviously not every chant of "Free Palestine" results in violence. However, using militant and existential slogans in mainstream protest culture blurs the line between protest and atrocity. 

To those skeptical of rhetorical causality: Yes, we cannot trace a single murderer's inner logic perfectly. But we can observe when violent actors adopt the same slogans, when media hesitate to condemn those slogans, and when protests precede violence like they did shortly after October 7, 2023 (even before the Gaza operation began), that ends up being the evidence of rhetorical facilitation, not mere correlation. If we are to live in a free, democratic society, support for violence against Jews needs to be deemed as abhorrent and unacceptable. Anything less is letting the terrorists win.  

Anti-Semitism across the world has become loud, brazen, unapologetic, and violent in a way that is giving me a taste of how Jews felt in 1930s Europe as the Nazi Party ascended to power. It is even worse when the "mainstream media" sanitizes the anti-Semitism in its reporting and parrots Hamas propaganda without doing a basic fact-check, which begs the question of how much the likes of BBC, Washington Post, and New York Times can be held accountable for spreading libel. It is even worse still because the pro-Palestine attempts to normalize violence against Jews as a form of being a freedom fighter or social justice warrior. What is scary about this framework is that it is working. The silent majority across the world has kept quiet as jihadism and anti-Semitism become palatable and trendy.

Yes, I am for the First Amendment right of peaceful protest, even that of pro-Palestinian protestors who I have come to view as the modern-day equivalent of Nazis. Where the present situation gets murky in practice is when the anti-Semitism of these chants are normalized and become weaponized as a justification to attack Jews. The line between acceptable free speech and incitement of violence has become blurred, which begs the question of what does a Jew who advocates for freedom of speech such as myself believe should be done. 

I both value freedom of speech and believe that Jews should be able to live without having to constantly worry about violence being carried out against them simply for being Jewish.  Granted, Jews have adapted to anti-Semitism over the centuries and are continuing to do so. At the same time, I have no easy answers in this muddled grey area. I am inclined to believe that charging those who commit illegal acts not covered under the First Amendment, such as violence, incitement of violence, threats, intimidation would be a good start, as would be dismantling radical groups calling for revolutionary violence. That way, violence can be targeted without degrading freedom of speech. 

You might be reading this and think this only affects the Jews, so you should probably be fine. Why does this affect everyone? The Jews have historically been the canary in the coal mine. What is befalling the Jewish people will eventually reach other groups of people, especially those who have been oppressed or disenfranchised. Plus, this global intifada will not stop with the Jewish people. As I pointed out in my critique of "Islamophobia" earlier this year, Islam is the one religion on the planet whose mainstream followers seek to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else. As we already see in Europe, this political violence will get worse if not confronted. Until this rhetoric is addressed and we can make political discourse civil once more, this sort of domestic violence will continue to be normalized and the pro-Palestine side will continue to wreak havoc on civil society. 

Should the Department of Housing & Urban Development Fight Homelessness?

Having a roof over your head is so basic of a need that it is at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a physiological need. Shelter is a vital part of human survival, having such stability makes us more productive members of society, and not having it makes life all the more arduous, which is why one could argue that a society shouldn't have any homelessness. Forgetting for a moment that the Nirvana fallacy is being applied here, just how prevalent is homelessness in America? According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its latest report on homelessness, the number is at 578,424 individuals experiencing homelessness on a single night, which is a 11 percent decline from 2007 (HUD, p. 7). Part of the decline is attributable to the increase in permanent housing and decrease in temporary housing [see below]. And fortunately, we see a similar decline in those who are chronically homeless (HUD, Section 6), i.e., those who have been homeless for more than a year or have had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years. It's no surprise that HUD wants to take credit for the homelessness decline, especially with their budget cuts so they can better justify their budgetary spending. While reading this report, it made me think: "Is HUD doing a good job? Is it the federal government's place to fight homelessness, or should we think of other ways of approaching the issue?"

Before going into who should handle homelessness, I think we should try to delve into some of the common causes of homelessness because making the facile observation of "they don't have a home, and that's why they're homeless" does nothing to address the root causes. Some of the causes are personal crises, causes that are disproportionately an issue for the homeless in comparison to the general population. About a quarter of the homeless have a severe mental illness, which is well above the national average. For this segment of the population, we would need to have a discussion about providing mental health services so they can be treated. Correlated with mental illness is the idea of substance abuse, which is disproportionately high among the homeless. Veterans also make up 11 percent of homelessness, which suggests PSTD as a possible cause of homelessness. If the United States government is going to engage in unnecessary wars, the least it can do is make sure that soldiers can integrate back into civilian society before being released from active duty. It would certainly be cheaper than starting another war. Another cause has to do with throw-away teens, which are children who are kicked out or run away due to family issues. A particularly sad case of throw-away teens is with LGBT youth. When LGBT children come out to their families, not all families react kindly. There are parents who will kick out their own children, which is why 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT (Cunningham et al., 2013), which means up to 13 percent of homeless individuals nationwide are LGBT youth. Although LGBT rights and acceptance of LGBT individuals has been vastly improving in recent years, there still needs to be work done if they're this disproportionate of the homeless population. Then there's the issue of domestic violence (see my previous analysis on government policy and domestic violence). According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 63 percent of homeless women have experienced domestic violence.

Some of the aforementioned issues have some overlap, and the policy remedies for these more personal issues have nothing to do with housing affordability or access, which brings me to my next point: there are also some causes of homelessness that are economic in nature. Even in spite of the fact that homelessness has been on the decline since 2007, many took a great hit during the Great Recession when the housing bubble burst, especially when looking at the number of foreclosures. During the Great Recession, the unemployment rate and the quality of jobs took a hit. If we want to point to unemployment as a cause of homelessness, then we need to focus on job creation and creating an environment that encourages entrepreneurship.

Although the Great Recession is complicated and its causes are nuanced, the housing market issues were due in no small part to the federal government keeping interest rates on housing artificially low in attempts to make housing more affordable. The fact that most of subprime mortgages were either on government balance sheets or those of Fannie and Freddie, who were implicitly backed by the Department of Treasury, signals that we sure don't need the government to cause another housing fiasco. Back in 1992, Congress enacted Title XIII of the Housing and Community Development Act, which required lenders to lend out a certain percentage of loans to low-to-middle income individuals, and many of those loans ended up being subprime because the government loosened up the lending standards in the name of "housing affordability." If the government was so instrumental in causing the housing bubble, why trust the government in providing better housing access? None of the other countries' governments have this much interventionist involvement in the housing market. We don't need the government regulating the housing market. If anything, America could use some housing market de-regulation (Wallison, 2012).

If you want further proof that the government shouldn't be regulating the housing market, take a look at some of HUD's operations. A 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report showed that issues with reporting compliance on grant funds limits, not to mention this 2010 GAO report showing how HUD doesn't do a good job complying with the federal government's fair housing law. If you think that's great, consider the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which is a division of HUD. The GAO points out that the FHA insured $1.14B of home loans for 6,327 borrowers with a total of $77.6M in federal tax debt. This is the sort of oversight that makes me continue to wonder how the government has the clairvoyance or even capability to assess risk when HUD can't even identify borrowers who are a liability.

None of the other countries' governments have this much interventionist involvement in the housing market. We don't need the government regulating the housing market. As senior Cato Institute fellow Doug Bandow points out, there are so many lines of defense that don't even necessitate subsidizing housing. As individuals, we have the free will to act responsibly enough to "relearn how to resist substance abuse, curb wasteful expenditures and save money." If we can't handle it on our own, then we should suck it up and ask family, friends, and community to help. In the off chance that one's social network doesn't work, there are private organizations that can help. The private sector has been coming up with some innovative solutions, such as Housing First, or through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Conrad Hilton Foundation's funding of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Even if none of these private-sector remedies do the trick, then government help should be targeted to those who truly need help, and that help should be as localized as possible. Whether looking at rent control, zoning laws, HUD's housing subsidies, or how the government mismanaged the housing industry that resulted in the Great Recession, we don't need a government-backed housing finance system (Wallison, 2012) or have the government help with housing because honestly, hasn't the federal government done enough already?

India Pornography Ban Gets the Shaft: Should We Ban Internet Porn?

Disclaimer: This blog entry does not contain any pornographic images or links to pornographic websites. This blog entry is merely a discussion on the merits of the arguments surrounding Internet pornography.

Last week, the Indian government banned pornography in an effort to protect public morality, which is ironic considering that India invented the Kama Sutra. Only days later did the government receive enough pressure to reverse the ban. Child pornography is still banned in India, like it is throughout the world, which it should be because children are not at an age of consent. The same goes for why pornography with non-consenting adults should also be banned.

As for the rest of pornography, the Indian people were up in arms about pornography being banned in India. This brought me to an important question: Is it the government's business to ban pornography?

The Religious Right gets anal and prudish about these hot-button issues. They sure aren't beating around the bush when they say that pornography incites sexual violence, ruins marriages, messes with the brain, and is quite addictive.  I can find some studies to the contrary. For example, pornography does not increase sexual violence. If anything, it might decrease it (Diamond, 2009). A Dutch study (Hald et al., 2013) with an ample sample size at how sexually explicit material affects the brain on adolescents and young adults; it showed that only a small percentage are affected by pornography. Additionally, the Dutch study showed a correlation between high dissatisfaction with life and pornography usage. There is also the question of whether pornography desensitizes or whether pornography is the manifestation of a high libido (Kühn and Gallinat, 2014).

This topic is so titillating for researchers that there are no shortage of studies on either side of the the argument. Pornography does not have strong enough causation for societal woes. Pornography can be a symptom of issues, whether those are symptoms of bad marital relations, culture, or personal issues. In a free society, personal responsibility is key.  While there might be a select few with legitimate addiction issues, compulsion is not the same as an addiction. Much like with marijuana, we should treat those who have legitimate addiction issues as a health one. Why compound the issue with criminal and legal issues, as well? In those cases, treat sex addiction like a health issue and move on. Also, if pornography were causing an increase in sexual violence, we would have seen the increase of sexual violence with the increased prevalence in Internet [pornography]. However, the rates of domestic violence and rape have been decreasing over the past two decades. I would postulate that much like with video games, pornography creates a substitution effect for those who would have acted upon their predilections otherwise.

As a libertarian, I believe it's none of the government's business whether someone is watching porn. If there are social costs, we treat sex addiction due to pornography as a health issue, not as a criminal one. If the social costs of pornography are overall negligible, then why impose costs on individuals who benefit from pornography? If there is a net benefit, all the more reason the government should not be cocksure in imposing its prudish, paternal sense of morality on those who want to enjoy pornography. As long as the actors in the pornography are acting on their own volition, and as long as the viewers of the pornography are of legal age, who cares what consenting adults do behind closed doors?

"Football Is a Man's Sport": The Social Costs of Hypermasculinity in America

Last Saturday, Michael Sam was the first openly gay individual drafted in the NFL or any major sport. After receiving the good news, Sam turned to his boyfriend and kissed him while they were on television. Needless to say, there were some that did not react too kindly. There are some who didn't like it because "homosexuality is being shoved in peoples' faces." I find that to be amusing, and as for the reason, I'll give it to you straight: it's "normal" or "acceptable" for straight people to hold hands, kiss, get married, talk about their children, or post pictures on Facebook as a couple, but when gay people do it, it suddenly becomes "flaunting sexuality in others' faces?" Really? At least double standards these days are blatantly obvious.

Setting aside my derisiveness for a moment, I honestly think there is something more profound going on here. In American society, part of the definition of a "real man" has to do with the gender of a man's partner. "Real men sleep with women. If you sleep with another guy, that's totally gay." The fact that the word "gay" is still synonymous with the word "stupid" says something right there. The aversion here goes beyond one's sexuality. Football is seen as a man's sport. There are those who think allowing an open homosexual to be drafted into the NFL feminizes football. 

But it's more than just football. We come across these sensationalized forms of masculinity and gender stereotypes all the time (Archer, 2010). Be a man. Man up. Real men don't cry. Boys will be boys. Men are taught that if they want to be "real men," they need to keep their emotions contained and not show them (Ben-Zeev, 2012). The problem with bottling up emotions is that they swell up and eventually erupt in a volcanic-like manner, which leads to nasty, and quite possibly violent, outbursts. It's going to be difficult to cover so much ground in such a short blog entry, but I would like to provide a brief overview on the problems of how America defines masculinity in such a constraining, counterproductive manner.

Before continuing, I would like to state I recognize that there are some fundamental differences between men and women. However, I'm not going to ignore the narrow, distorted definitions of masculinity that are nothing more than societal constructs. It can be as subtle as "wearing pink is not manly." It can be as something as noticeable and detrimental as "expressing emotions is what women do" or "having deep friendships with other guys is girly." You want to know why guys can't have healthy, emotional same-sex friendships that involve either emotional or physical intimacy? Part of it is because we have relegated emotions to being "feminine," but there's also the puritanical part of American society that has sexualized any physical intimacy between two guys. Forget something like two guys being comfortable enough with their sexuality to cuddle or spoon together and not have it be sexualized (Andreson and McCormack, 2014). In American society, when you see two guys holding hands, the default assumption is that they are a gay couple because people conflate affection with sexuality. Friends platonically hold hands to show the profundity of their friendship in places like Africa, Asia (e.g., India), and Arabic countries, of all places. You can't do that in this country without someone sneeringly labeling you as a homosexual. There was a time, even in American culture, when two guys could have a platonic relationship that included physical intimacy, and that relationship was so strong that it easily could surpass the profundity of their relationships with their spouses. Believe it or not, guys want to be really close to each other platonically, and it's exceptionally difficult to find that in this country because doing so is "too gay or womanly." If a man cannot develop emotionally healthy relations or have a healthy emotional outlet, how does that affect how men interact in society?

President Bush holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah (2005)

For one, men are much more likely to commit suicide than women. I admit that part of the uptick has to do with the economy, but since a man's self-worth has been societally defined in the stark gender role of "breadwinner," is it a surprise that an economic downturn combined with a narrow definition of what makes a man contributes to this? It also doesn't help that the women's right movement and increasing equality in the workplace did not help with the ego of any man who holds to these narrow definitions of manliness. Christina Hoff Sommers at the American Enterprise Institute brings up the fact that men have lower rates of depression, but higher rates of suicide. The issue is that the vast majority of suicides in this country stem from depression, which means that men are hiding their depression because doing so is a form of "manning up." If men were allowed to express their emotions in constructive manners, I'd make an educated guess that fewer men would feel the need to resort to suicide.

In addition to suicide, hypermasculinity does not help with scholastic achievement (Santos et al., 2013), nor does it help with levels of male violence (e.g., bullying), particularly towards women in the forms of domestic violence and sexual violence. Since there isn't a correlation between gun ownership rates and homicide rates, I'm starting to subscribe to the theory that Americans are more violent than their European counterparts because of hypermasculinity. While inherent gender differences will maintain some sort of gap, I think that at least by addressing it, we can minimize the gender-based gap of violence. In spite of the research that might already exist, I would really be excited to see a meta-study that directly deals with how American society's narrow definitions of masculinity affect the upbringing of boys, as well as how grown men handle their lives. The same goes for a cost-benefit analysis on the topic, especially since measuring social costs is much trickier than something like the costs and benefits in the economic transaction of tangible goods.

I'm not advocating to get rid of masculinity. That would be ridiculous. What I would ask for is that we exchange the toxic masculinity that is so prevalent in American society for a healthy view of masculinity (e.g., being a gentleman) because I want men to have healthy relationships, as well as stable emotional and mental health. Both boys and men should be comfortable with their masculinity, but at the same time, we should remove the violence and aggression, not to mention the aversion towards emotions, that come with the stereotypical form of masculinity.

History has taught us that there are many legitimate ways to express masculinity that go beyond the stereotypical "manly man" with bulging biceps, aggressive behavior, needs to be "a player," doesn't cook because "that's what women do," and has to love sports and activities, especially football, hunting, or fishing. We need to realize that much like femininity, masculinity also comes with its complexities and nuances, which means transcending a simplistic view of machismo. Men also have the ability to care, show compassion, as well as exude sympathy and the ability to put himself in someone else's shoes. Replace aggressiveness with assertiveness. Resilience is a good trait to have in life, but men are also human and sometimes need to cry. Accepting our limits is a part of maturity and having a clearer picture of life, which is preferable to acting out or taking it out on others because emotions have been bottled up for too long. These are just some examples of how we can modify and expand the definition of masculinity for the better.

There isn't a government policy that is going to fix this problem, which I fittingly label as a negative externality. Much like with any civil rights movement, these types of societal changes require a bottom-up approach. The first step is to recognize the problem. After that, we need to find ways for communities to encourage positive male role models for children. We need to let boys and men know that it's okay to express emotions and that it's acceptable to have profound and intimate friendships with other males. We also need to recognize that much like with the federal government, there is not a "one-size-fits-all" approach to masculinity. Some men will be more attracted to more traditional definitions of masculinity. Others will be more comfortable with a non-traditional form of masculinity. Since people are diverse, we should encourage both forms of masculinity so that men can be both comfortable with their sense of masculinity while being able to live as enjoyable of lives as possible.

Nowhere Near 1 in 5 Women Were Raped In College: Is "Rape Culture" on Campus Really a Thing?

One in five women will be raped while attending college. It's one of those statistics that illustrates that if you repeat something enough times, people will believe it. This oft-cited statistic comes from the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study. It might sound fancy, but it comes with some major flaws: 1) only two colleges were surveyed, 2) there was a large non-response rate, thereby inflating the figures, 3) the definition of "sexual assault" was very vague, and included such actions as forced kissing, and 4) the survey questions were also vague, thereby leading them open to interpretation where one could assume the worst.

Aside from shoddy statistical analysis, I bring this up because the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a much more thorough study earlier this month entitled "Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013." The BJS uses both longitudinal and cross-sectional data to determine rates of sexual assault. What did they end up finding? Looking from 1995-2013, the number of women raped is not 1 out of 5, but rather 6.1 out of 1,000 women, which is 0.03 out of 5 women. That's an exaggeration of thirty-three fold! And it's more egregious when you figure that the rate of sexual assault on campus has had an overall decline since 1995 (Figure 2).

Is this to say that we should condone this piggish behavior? Of course not! Sexual assault is inexcusable, as are the times when campus tribunals sweep sexual assault under the rug to artificially bolster their campus safety statistics. Forcing someone else to have sexual contact against their own will is a blatant violation of the nonaggression axiom. "No" means "no," and that's no less relevant when we're talking about college students getting drunk at a frat party or if the woman is scantily clad. Alcohol only fuels a man's propensity towards randiness, and it doesn't excuse deplorable behavior. The underreporting that the BJS points out (p. 1) makes a sad statement of the stigma attached to sexual assault, and that should be addressed so more women report when they are sexually assaulted. Nevertheless, 0.03 out of 5 women being sexually assaulted is a far cry from 1 in 5 women.

If the premise behind feminism is gender equality, then colleges should be promoting responsible behavior for both sexes instead of encouraging segmented gender roles that exacerbate the issue. We should help women without knocking men down. There's a fine line between holding men responsible for their misdeeds and demonizing men in a "guilty before proven innocent" mob mentality because believing that women would never lie about something lie this is "politically correct" (FYI: Although it's rare, there are moments when women report false accusations, as was infamously illustrated with the Duke University case back in 2006). Not only is sexual assault lower on campuses, but it has experienced quite the drop since the 1980's. It would be nice to live in a world without sexual assault, but it should still be noteworthy that the problem is nowhere prevalent as we thought, and that it has been on the decline, much like we see with rates of domestic violence and rates of other violent crimes in general. This is something that we should all celebrate, but I anticipate that the hardcore feminists will still advance the idea of a "rape culture," regardless of what statistics or even the people over at the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), the largest anti-sexual-assault organization, have to say about there not being a "rape culture." As RAINN points out, "Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community to commit a violent crime...[Blaming it on 'rape culture'] has the paradoxical effect of making it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions."

We should take rape and sexual assault seriously, but bemoaning "rape culture" is not the way to go. Whatever colleges decide to do, what we should stop doing is giving credence to the "rape culture" myth because as Cathy Young over at the libertarian Reason Magazine point out, the anti-"rape culture" movement is one that has "capitalized on laudable sympathy for victims of sexual assault to promote gender warfare, misinformation, and moral panic. It's time for a reassessment."

Believe It or Not, I Found Nine Features I Like About Islam

In the Western world, Islam takes a lot of flak. Some of it stems from ignorance, anti-immigrant sentiments, Islam's history with Christianity, fear of the unknown, post-9/11 moral indignation, or downright racism. Conversely, as I have pointed out before, it is not as if Islam were blameless. For one, Islamic law (شريعة) subjugates women and monotheistic non-Muslims (particularly Jews) to second-class status. Homosexuality and apostasy are punishable by death. There are also other perturbing aspects of Islam and how it is practiced, including domestic violence, slavery in certain parts of Africa, a Golden Rule that only seems to apply to Muslims (Sura 2:104, 3:131, 4:13-14, 136, 45:32-35), the modern-day manifestation of terroristic jihad (جهاد) that goes well beyond an internal struggle, not to mention the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in places such as Europe. Whatever attempts that more religiously liberal Muslims make to harmonize their religion with the Western world are met with great opposition, delegitimization, Wahabi petrodollars, and coercive threats of violence and death. Until reforms can be made in the Islamic world, the fundamentalists who read the Qu'ran (القرآن) in the literal, fundamental sense are the mainstream. For anyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who is interested in having interfaith dialogue or an intellectually honest debate, one cannot simply brush these aforementioned facts under the rug or lob the pejorative term "Islamophobe" at someone simply for mentioning these facts. They would need to be addressed while having a holistic discussion on Islam because much like any other religion, the way Islam is practiced is not without its negative features.

Furthermore, as a Jew, it can be more difficult to appreciate the positive aspects of Islam that exist because the primary form of anti-Semitism that globally exists right now is Islamic in nature. Even so, let's use the great Jewish Torah scholar and philosopher, Maimonides, as an example of how to approach the topic. Maimonides was born in twelfth century Spain, during which he lived with a second-class dhimmi (ذمي) status. Once the Almohads conquered the area, Maimonides was forced to flee Spain. He was subsequently forced into conversion to Islam, but that conversion was later ruled as invalid because it was in violation of the precept in شريعة that prohibits forced conversions. In spite of all the Islamic oppression he faced, Maimonides was still able to say nice things about Islam, such as Islam is not idolatry and that Muslims will play an important role in engendering the Messianic era. It is in that spirit in which I have created this list of things I like about Islam:

1. Islam has a belief in one, Infinite G-d. The first of the Five Pillars of Islam contains the idea that G-d is Infinite Oneness. That means that unlike with my Christian friends, I don't have to refute the idea of a triune deity and explain why 1+1+1≠1. This belief would explain why Jewish law does not view Islam as idolatry.  
2. Giving alms. Much like with צדקה in Judaism, Zakat (زكاة), another one of the Pillars of Islam, is built around the idea of helping the less fortunate with their economic hardships. With צדקה, one gives ten percent of their income. What is interesting about زكاة is that although one is obligated to give 2.5 percent, that 2.5 percent comes from one's assets, not just one's income.     
3. Hospitality. Much like other Middle Eastern cultures (including that in Judaism), Islam has high regard for hospitality and taking care of guests. 
4. Muharram (المهرّم). This is the first month on the Islamic calendar. During the tenth day of this month, Muslims are supposed to fast to commemorate the victory of Moses and the Jewish people over the Pharaoh. Even though some religions view fasting in a negative light, Islam views it as a positive spiritual practice. 
5. Personal responsibility. Islam does not believe in vicarious atonement or being absolved from the consequences of one's actions. Much like in Judaism, Islam holds the belief that one is held accountable for one's thoughts, words, and deeds (Sura 99:6-8).
6. Lack of racism. Whether there are certain practitioners of Islam that are racist is one thing. The religion itself, however, is a different story. Say what you want about other forms of discrimination that exist in Islam; the Islamic religion is against racism (Sura 49:13).
7. Islamic Golden Age. While Christians were in cultural and civil stagnation during the Dark Ages (they did call them the Dark Ages for a reason), the Muslims were the pinnacle of civilization. Amongst the Islamic achievements during this time period were the creation of algebra and trigonometry, significant advances in astronomy and optics, and the preservation of the works of Greek philosophers that would have otherwise vanished.
8. Conversion process. In Judaism, you're turned away three times before you even begin with the conversion process. Even after that, the stringency that has been applied to the Jewish conversion process has taken a life of its own, and is well beyond the halachic minimum. This is not a problem in Islam, probably because it is a proselytizing religion. Once a prospective convert recites the declaration of faith (الشهادة), that individual is considered to be a Muslim.  
9. Arabic is its liturgical language. This feature is not directly related to the religion, but is rather a part of Islamic culture. I took some Arabic courses during my graduate school studies. The variety of phonemes, the three-letter roots in Arabic words, the writing style and calligraphy all make Arabic an aesthetically pleasing and linguistically intriguing language. 

Postscript: To be honest, I found writing this blog entry to be a challenge. Islam is a religion that can be and has been interpreted as hostile towards Jews and Judaism, which is all the more disconcerting considering how that has been put into practice throughout Islam's existence. When that level of animus is launched at you simply for existing, it's difficult to appreciate any of the positive aspects of Islam. However, a previous classmate of mine inspired me to transcend it, hence the impetus of this blog entry. Even though I'm not exactly going to hold my breath on this, I would hope that as time progresses, the Islamic community can tackle its internal challenges so that I can make this list longer in the future.

How to Respond to the Charlottesville Attack and White Supremacists

All hell broke loose in Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend with the Unite the Right rally. The Unite the Right rally was a Far-Right gathering of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, KKK members, and neo-Confederates. Their reason to rally? To protest the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. The weekend started when some protestors walked around the University of Virginia campus screaming such racist epitaphs as "Jews will not replace us." The tension continued on Saturday with hundreds of protestors at Emancipation Park, as well as hundreds of counter-protestors. Violent clashes ensued. One of the protestors even plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, thereby causing the death of one and injuring 19 others. As a result of the violence in Charlottesville, many people have used it to illustrate the rise of the Far Right (or "alt Right") in the United States. One of the running theories is that the Trump campaign and subsequent presidency energized white supremacists and other hate groups. I want to first see how bad the hate is in the country, ask whether or not we should stifle the haters' freedoms, and finally ask how to proceed from here.

How Bad Is The Hate? 

I ask how prevalent crimes against minorities has been because I want to see if media sensationalism blows it out of proportion, if the voice of racists (who are a small minority) is being amplified in ways that it was not previously, or if there is legitimate and significant increase in racism and bigotry. Measuring how much hate is out there is difficult because it's not like we have a unit of measurement for it like we do with gallons, miles, minutes...you get the idea. We can ask how much this hate is causing people to murder. There's a good start, and the Cato Institute illustriously did that in response to the Charlottesville attack (see here and here). How many people have died as a result of right-winged terrorist attacks similar to Charlottesville since 1992? 292 people, according to the Cato Institute (see below). An additional 992 were injured. The odds of getting killed in a terrorist attack perpetrated by a right-wing extremist is about 1 in 33 million. Injury in such an attack was 1 in 7.6 million. The odds of getting struck by lightning? Only 1 in 161,856. The odds of getting killed in such a terrorist attack perpetrated by someone on the Far Right is very low.   

Source: Cato Institute 

Even with these terrorist attacks being rare, the government is nevertheless worried about these Far Right elements. In a 2014 survey of law enforcement officers commissioned for the Department of Justice and conducted by Duke University, it was found that nearly three-quarters of law enforcement believe that "anti-government violent extremists" present the greatest domestic threat. An April 2017 report from the Government Accountability Office concluded that far-right extremists pose the greatest domestic threat. For both of these reports, the main domestic threat post-9-11 was not radical Islamists, but far-Right extremists.

Another metric to look at would be the rate of hate crimes. As of date, the FBI has reported its Hate Crime Statistics through the year 2015. Since the federal government is not set up to both collect and distribute hate crime data on a weekly basis, 2015 data is the most recent nationwide data we have. Below is the number of incidents by religion (graphs courtesy of CNN). 

And here it is by race....

Nationwide data is not collected and reported as frequently as it should, and most cities do not release as good of data. However, there are some cities that gives us an idea. Take New York City as an example, and you'll see that the two main targets of hate crimes in recent years are the Jews, followed by gay people. New York City has seen hate crimes against Jews double in 2017 when compared to the previous year. In Chicago, the three main victims for 2016 were LGBT, black, and Jews. Hate crimes in Chicago were higher in 2016 than in previous years this decade. In Washington, DC and Los Angeles, crimes against LGBT individuals has caused much of the uptick in hate crimes from 2015 to 2016.

When looking at numbers grow, we also have to keep population growth in mind. In order to account for population growth, and thus measure the likelihood of a hate crime, we need to look at the rate of hate crimes. Nationwide, the rate of hate crimes has not particularly risen between 2004 and 2015 (Bureau of Justice Statistics). Rates are important when looking at hate crimes when comparing certain demographics because certain groups (e.g., Jews, LGBT) are smaller than others (e.g., African-American community). That explains how the African-American community has more hate crimes perpetrated against it, but Jews are 3.5 times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime than an African-American (or 1.5 times more likely than a Muslim).

We could also use survey results to approximate. Let's take anti-Semitism as an example. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), only 9 percent of Americans in 2014 held anti-Semitic views. In 2015, that went up to 10 percent, and by 2016, that increased to 14 percent. The problem with such survey results is that either there is subjectivity behind developing survey questions to measure it or there are at least some who wouldn't admit it publicly.

Then there is the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups. The SPLC tracked the number of bias incidents post-election. Even by the SPLC's numbers, the commotion calmed down shortly after the election, thereby somewhat refuting the notion that Trump's election caused such an upsurge in hate crimes.

To summarize this sub-section, overt terrorist attacks are extremely rare. As for hate crime data, we only have nationwide data up until 2015. Given when the FBI releases its data, we'll have to wait until the end of 2018 to even begin to know the sort of effects Trump's election has had on crime levels.

Should We Cut Off These Fascists' Free Speech?
It is tempting to stifle or censor the fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic scum. Their speech is offensive on more levels than one. So why do I stick up for their general freedom to speech? It sure isn't because I agree with what they say. Quite the opposite! The reason is because free speech is very important. Free speech helps bring about change. It is necessary for a pluralistic democracy and a well-functioning intellectual marketplace that allows for people to be better informed.

A defense of the protestors' free speech assumes that this was a peaceful protest, which it was not. They were screaming such epithet as "the Jews will not replace us." Even the racist chants got personal when individuals were calling black people "n*ggers" or gay people "f*ggots." Not only is this behavior 100 percent despicable, it is arguably unconstitutional. As much as free speech is generally protected in the United States, speech under the "fighting words" doctrine is not. Fighting words covers written or spoken speech intended to incite hatred or violence from the target. In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court decided that "fighting words" are not protected under the Constitution (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942) because they add nothing to public discourse and "incite an immediate breach of the peace." The "fighting words" doctrine continued to be upheld, but was narrowed. For instance, burning a flag while verbally abusing the flag is not against the "fighting words" doctrine because offensiveness is not enough (Street v. New York). Wearing a jacket that said "fuck the draft" was not a violation of the "fighting words" doctrine because it did not include a personal epithet (Cohen v. California). Based on Supreme Court precedent, it is considered "fighting words if 1) it is an insulting epithet, 2) it is uttered to an individual, and 3) it is likely to provoke someone to retaliate. The speech of the protestors qualify under the "fighting words" doctrine, which would mean their racists epithets are not protected.

Even if you go after these racists and their free speech, it is still problematic. You can only arrest someone after they have uttered the "fighting words" or incited the violence. Arresting beforehand solely on the basis of their beliefs is downright Orwellian. Also, let's remember that free speech is indivisible. If you go after their free speech, the mechanisms are set in place to censor any dissident of the government. For those who are Left-of-center or are simply anti-Trump, let me ask you this: given how Trump has responded to the Charlottesville attack and given that you view his presence in the White House as an emboldenment of these racists, why in the world would you give him that power? Wouldn't Trump be more likely to censor the likes of CNN and the New York Times than he would the KKK or neo-Nazis? Even if carried out on the state level, most states are Republican, which means they would be more likely to silence Democrats and other dissidents. But this illustrates why we should not be for silencing free speech: because it stifles progress.

One other point: having the freedom to do something means taking responsibility for your actions. If you say something, you have to live with the consequences. If you are at a neo-Nazi rally spewing racist BS and your incitement causes someone to punch you in the mouth, don't be surprised. If you come into work on Monday and lose your job because your boss saw on social media that you attended that rally the previously weekend (like this schmuck did), you have to live with those foreseeable consequences. Our actions come with consequences, both good and bad, and the Constitution doesn't protect us from bad consequences.

How Should We Respond?
If quashing First Amendment rights isn't the way to go, what is? This one is much trickier to answer because it depends, at least in part, on your political views and worldview. For example, as a libertarian, I could argue that freer markets help solve the problem of racism (see here and here for articles on the topic).

One idea outside of political ideology is to call out their stupid and baseless arguments by presenting better, more intelligent arguments (not a difficult task, but the fact we're even having this conversation tells me that it might be difficult for some). And I'm not just talking about neo-Confederates. The fact that the Confederacy lost over 150 years ago is something the neo-Confederates really need to accept. Other countries have. Germany doesn't pay homage to the Nazis. Statues of Lenin and Stalin have been knocked down. The Chinese don't honor the Guomindang (国民党) anymore. The South isn't going to rise again. Get over it!

But it's not just that or that these people account for a very small percentage of the population and have little power, which is something we should keep in mind. It's the whole bigotry thing. Racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, these prejudices are based on ignorance and fearing that which one does not understand. When you get to know people who are different than you, you realize that they have dreams, hopes, fears, desires, and problems, just like you have. They are human, just like you. Yes, people are different and have unique experiences, but we all have that essential humanity. Let's not forget that moving forward.

We should fight hate when it comes in our lives. The Southern Poverty Law Center provides a good guide on how to do that, but the point here is that we should not tolerate evil in our midst. I brought this up seven years ago, but if we are going to love love, we have to hate hate. Paradoxical, I know, but allowing evil (and I mean actual evil, and not "I think you're evil simply because you disagree with me") in our midst is unacceptable if we're going to uphold the values our Founding Fathers held dear.

While we should hate hate because how evil hate is, our general approach should be that of unity. We should reach across the aisle, understand where other individuals are coming from. In a country of extreme polarization, that has become a lost art. We need to be willing to have a dialogue with others instead of a screaming match. Even when we're done with the dialogue, we need to remember that there is another individual on the other end, whether that conversation is in person or online. Being able to treat others with dignity and respect is what makes us human, and by doing so, we can work on building a better tomorrow. 

Lessons Public Health Officials Should Learn from the COVID Pandemic But Probably Won't

Last week was the four-year anniversary of when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. For those who have been reading this blog, you will know that I have been highly critical of the government's response to the pandemic. That is why it was nice to read this report from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity that is entitled "COVID Lessons Learned: A Retrospective After Four Years." The co-authors of this report include Steve Hanke from Johns Hopkins, Casey Mulligan from the University of Chicago, and former Trump advisor/current health policy fellow at Stanford University Scott Atlas. Here is a list of the lessons that they thought to be most important. 

1. Leaders should calm public fears, not stoke them. This is good advice even when it is not a pandemic. If we exaggerate fears without considering the costs, we get the catastrophic impacts that fear-obsessed decisions wreak, as we will see in subsequent points. 
2. Lockdowns do not work to substantially reduce deaths or stop viral circulation. This was established epidemiological knowledge and was part of pandemic guidance provided prior to the pandemic. Leaders and decision-makers across the world ignored the advice and gave into panic. Unsurprisingly, lockdowns did little to reduce COVID deaths. If anything, lockdowns increased excess deaths.  
3. Lockdowns and social isolation had negative consequences that far outweighed benefits. Sadly, I called this one in May 2020, as well as pointing out in April 2020 how the lockdowns would adversely affect the economy. Lockdowns ended up causing or exacerbating multiple negative consequences, including deteriorating mental health, increased child and domestic violence, greater food insecurity, widened economic inequality, social polarization, unhealthy lifestyle choices, and erosion of liberal democracy. 
4. Government should not pay people more not to work. Here is another one I called in early 2020.  The more the government pays to stay at home, the less likely they will want to work. As I wrote in 2023, that ended up being the case, much like it was during the Great Recession. 
5. Shutting down schools was a major policy mistake with tragic effects on children, especially the poor. I expressed my issues with school closures in July 2020. It turns out that school closures ended up doing considerable harm to children. Even the Left-leaning New York Times got around to admitting as much this week. 
6. Masks were of little or no value and possibly harmful. I was mildly for a temporary face mask mandate at the beginning of the pandemic, even in spite of conflicting information. That is because there was at least mechanistic plausibility that they could work, which is better than the lockdowns (See Point #2) or school closures (See Point #5). But my support waned to the point of being against the mandates. Then I was against using face masks to fight COVID because it became clear that face masks were ineffective in slowing the spread of COVID.  
7. Government should not suppress dissent or police the boundaries of science. Attempts to shut down discussions under the guise of "fighting information" not only led to the erosion of scientific inquiry, but also democratic norms. 
8. The real hospital story was underutilization. As the authors bring up, the real issue was that hospitals were underused because hospitals were doing as little as possible to treat non-COVID disease. Postponing preventative healthcare in 2020 has created problems to this day. A whole slew of preventible diseases went undiagnosed, which has resulted in a backlog that still affects our public health systems.
9. Protect the most vulnerable. It was clear as early as March 2020 that COVID had a profound differential in risk between the elderly and the immunocompromised versus everyone else. We should have had different protection for the vulnerable while allowing everyone else make their own choices based on their own risk tolerance so we can avoid the societal disruptions and havoc that the blanket mandates caused. 
10. Warp Speed: Deregulate but don't mandate. There were considerable regulations that existed prior to the pandemic that made our response to COVID worse. That is why it was nice to see the government cut red tape to make the vaccines happen. As the authors bring up, "the original vaccine was well-matched to then-circulating variants, and there was a sharp drop-off in hospitalizations and deaths." In spite of the earlier vaccines' success, the government had no business mandating vaccines, especially since the vaccines did nothing statistically significant to stop COVID transmission. 

As you can tell from this list, public health mandates in response to the pandemic were one fiasco after another. Former NIH Director Francis Collins eventually issued a mea culpa in which he realized he was too close-minded when it came to COVID restrictions. Fauci recently admitted that social distancing at six feet was bunk and that vaccine mandates increased vaccine hesitancy. Even so, I have not seen anything to suggest that public officials have asked the tough questions to the point of making significant change. I think in part, ego will play a role because it is difficult for a politician to admit they contributed to one of the worst peacetime public policy decisions in human history. Another factor is that it is election year and there are many other topics to focus on now that the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. As much as I wish they would learn from past mistakes, I would not be surprised if a similar level of stupidity took over during the next pandemic. 

Two More Systematic Reviews Confirm That the Cost of COVID Lockdowns Was Too Dear

The COVID pandemic saw lots of fear and panic, but no more so than it did with lockdowns. Millions were ordered to stay home with the idea of slowing the spread of COVID and saving lives. As more data come in and more studies are conducted, it becomes clearer over time that lockdown proponents were severely mistaken in their so-called logic. 

The latest in research shows the painful reality that lockdowns were even less effective than previously believed. A new systematic review and meta-analysis from the Institute of Economic Affairs published by professors from Johns Hopkins University and Lund University looked through nearly 20,000 studies (Herby et al., 2023). Their three levels of screening narrowed it down to 32 relevant studies. Out of the 32 studies, 22 were used to create a meta-analysis. 

Similar to the 2022 Johns Hopkins meta-analysis, the authors separated the studies into three groups: stringency index studies, shelter-in-place-order (SIPO) studies, and non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) study. Depending on which type of study one uses gives a different estimate. Since I live in the United States, I will give the estimates for the United States. The authors calculated that stringency index studies put the lives saved at 4,000 deaths. The SIPO studies put it at 3,000 in the United States, whereas the NPI studies put the lives saved at 16,000 deaths. This means we have a range from 3,000 to 16,000 deaths. 

Let's forget for a moment how lockdowns were supposed to save up to 2 million lives if we were to believe the Imperial College modeling that scared the United Kingdom into lockdowns. How much did that save in economic cost? It might sound callous to some to put a monetary value on human life, but it is standard practice in the actuarial industry, as well as the field of public policy. Insurance companies put the value on the low end because they want to pay out less. Government agencies put a higher value on it because it helps justify government programs. For argument's sake, let's go with the higher amounts. FEMA puts the value of a human life at $7.5 million in 2020 dollars, whereas the EPA puts it at $10.05 million in 2020 dollars. With inflation-adjusted dollars, let's change that $10.05 million to $11.82 million. Multiply that by 16,000 individuals, that puts the price of lives saved from lockdown at $189.12 billion. 

Nearly $200 billion sounds like a lot of money. At the same time, we have to remember that there is no such thing as a silver bullet policy that will solve our woes without any costs. Like with any other form of public policy, there are tradeoffs. Lockdowns were de facto bans on labor performing work across large swathes in the economy. According to a study from University of California-Riverside (Tellis et al., 2022), consumer spending decreased by 7.5 percent and GDP decreased by 5.4 percent. This translated in $28,000 less in GDP per capita. Multiply that $28,000 by an estimated 331.45 million Americans in April 2020 (Census). What did the lockdowns end up costing? An estimated economic cost of $9.28 trillion.  

If we only look at it from that strict cost-benefit lens, it would come out to a cost-benefit ratio of about $49. That means for every dollar in benefit, we had to pay $49 dollars. However, it is all but certain that my back-of-the-envelope cost-benefit ratio is an underestimate of what lockdowns actually cost. 

A professor of the Universities of Washington and Edinburgh conducted his own systematic review of 600 studies (Bardosh, 2023) that was released late last month. He showed that the costs were "substantial, wide-ranging, and will leave behind a legacy of harm for hundreds of millions in the years ahead." Some of those costs are ones I have covered before, including non-COVID excess mortality, mental health deterioration, child abuse and domestic violence, widening global inequality, food insecurity, lost educational opportunities, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, social polarization, soaring debt, democratic backsliding, and declining human rights. 

I first took issue with lockdowns in March 2020 one week before they began and I was right to do so. In practice, lockdowns showed us that multiple sectors of the economy cannot be shut down for months on end without long-term consequences. Not only were lockdowns cost-ineffective (see Harvard analysis here). As we see in the previous paragraph, they have come with considerable costs that have yet to fully materialize. Ignorance was no excuse to implement such harm on millions of people. It is not a stretch to say that lockdowns were the worst peacetime public policy decision in human history.