Vulnerability

I got to thinking about physical vulnerability recently. None of us is comfortable with the idea of being vulnerable, and we like to think that our lives are structured in such a way that we have wisely limited or eliminated any real vulnerabilities from our comfortable lives.

Sleep is a problem, though. Having to sleep about eight hours a day makes us amazingly vulnerable. It’s startling in its significance, really. For eight hours a day (give or take), we willingly (and often blissfully) fall unconscious and lay prone and motionless, vulnerable to any bad thing that might befall us.

Sleep is a biological imperative and it is inescapable. In the wild, animals compensate for their need to sleep in very dangerous circumstances in a variety of ways. They sleep lightly, ready to react quickly. They sleep in dens, caves and holes to better conceal themselves and to limit the avenues from which they could be attacked. Some sleep in groups, using their peers as a means for widening their sensory nets, thereby increasing their odds of survival.

Humans do it differently. We don’t hide. It’s really no mystery to anyone where we will be when we are sleeping. And we don’t sleep in proximity to large groups of people as a means of safety; many humans sleep alone, and those who sleep in close proximity to many others likely wish that were not the case.

Every night, as predictably as clockwork, we go to the same rooms in our houses, turn off the lights, and go unconscious. To compensate for the conspicuous and isolated way in which most of us sleep, we put in place other protections.

• We build walls and doors with locks to make a surprise attack by predators a difficult and noisy proposition.


• We install lights and bars and alarm system stickers on our windows to discourage predators from picking us as their prey, hoping that they’ll attack someone who is less protected.


• We buy guns and strategically place baseball bats and golf clubs near our beds, convincing ourselves that those tools will be helpful if a predator decides to disregard our perimeter defenses.


• We pass laws that empower us to protect ourselves in our homes, and others that make attacking us in our sleep punishable by (hopefully) lengthy incarceration.

But fundamentally, despite our preparations, we still choose to collapse into unconsciousness every night, with no one standing guard. Our children are asleep in another room, equally vulnerable if not more so.

It is a tribute to the safety of our society that we as rational human beings feel justified in simply turning off like that, reasonably sure that we’ll be just fine. But this willingness to sleep relatively unprotected also represents a huge gamble and assumption on our part.

We simply assume that no one will make his way through our neighborhood slaughtering families in their sleep. We believe this because such a thing has not happened to us or our relatives. But we have no real guarantees.

We accept the risk. Or perhaps we choose to believe the risk does not exist.

Maybe Not So Sarkozy

To hear many in the US media tell it, France’s newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy is the anti-Chirac— fiscally conservative, more America-friendly, and not one to hold truck with much of the socialist nanny-state mentality of his predecessors. Conservatives are often giddy at the idea of a French president they don't have to hate, and liberals are openly cautious about a new French president who can't be assumed to hate his US counterpart.

In his latest article, George Will raises some intriguing points about how Sarkozy came to be elected and how (if at all) he is likely to differ from Chirac and other previous presidents with regard to his social and fiscal policies. Will has written about Sarkozy’s less-than-conservative realities in the past, and usual, Will says eloquently in this new article what I would butcher, were I try to attempt to convey something similar.

As Will states:

“Sarkozy has. . . said ‘I don't wake up every morning asking what Hayek or Adam Smith would have done.’ That is, unfortunately, obvious. A fountain of suspiciously opaque formulations (he advocates ‘regulated liberalism’ and ‘humane globalization), he is pleased that "the word 'protection' is no longer taboo.’ (When was it ever taboo in France?) He is committed to continuing protections of the most cosseted French faction, the farmers. When calling for a ‘genuine European industrial policy, he asks: ‘Competition as an ideology, as a dogma, what has it done for Europe?’ Worse, he wants to curtail the independence of — that is, politicize — the one institution that can save France from itself, the European Central Bank, which can restrain France's ruinous preferences for a loose monetary policy and inflation as slow-motion repudiation of debt.”

Given these, Sarkozy’s own words about what he believes and proposes, are we still to believe his billing as a regular neo-conservative capitalist who actually understands Western market economics and is willing to let his people know that he believes in what he knows.

Perhaps the best of Will’s observations about Sarkozy and his ascension to the French presidency is this: “Sarkozy's socialist opponent, Segolene Royal, a princess of vagueness, won 47 percent of the vote for, essentially, "resistance." Remarkably, she defeated Sarkozy among voters ages 18 to 59 — the working population. It does not bode well for reform that he won by winning huge majorities among those most dependent on the welfare state — 61 percent among those 60 to 69, and 68 percent among those over 70.”

Elected by his overwhelming popularity among those dependent upon France’s welfare policies, a proponent of “regulated liberalism,” and one clearly disdains the uncertainties of competition, Sarkozy is certainly less easily labeled “conservative” and “America-friendly” as the press might have us believe.

Unintended Consequences

The best argument a libertarian can ever make for abolishing the institutions that inflict policies on the citizenry at the local, state and federal level is this: policy makers are routinely surprised by the unforeseen consequences of their bright ideas, and if they don’t know for sure what the result of their policy decisions will be, then they should just lay off.

I can’t really refute that argument. History is replete with examples of such unforeseen outcomes to seemingly straight-forward policy interventions. The New Deal. Relief, Recovery and Reform. Create jobs and change US economic policies to help and protect folks. It’s a slam dunk, right? Wrong.

There are certainly many who are quite fond of the programs that came out of that deal (Social Security, Public Works Programs, Fair Labor Standards Act, etc.). But depending on whom you choose to believe, the New Deal may very well have also deepened the very depression it was trying to resolve and postponed the recovery it was designed to bring about.

Ideas about policy changes are thrown around with abandon, with few experts willing to acknowledge the possibility that the effects of their proposed policies might not be limited to the ones they’ve enumerated.

Some examples. Mandatory life in prison without parole for thrice-convicted drug dealers or child molesters. Outstanding, one might think. Who could argue against such a thing? We all want to protect the kids, right? Lock up the bad guys forever.

But maybe it’s not so clear cut. Maybe. . . just maybe. . . if a third conviction for selling drugs or molesting a child brings with it a mandatory life sentence, the following might be the result:

• A sister who sees her brother molesting their little cousin might decide not to report the crime because, while she wants to stop the abuse, she can’t bring herself to be the one responsible for putting her brother away for life.

• A district attorney might be reluctant to indict a twice-convicted individual on new drug charges if the individual is found in possession of a relatively small amount of contraband; the DA might be unwilling to send a guy away for life for what seems to be a relatively minor offense.

• A jury might be more likely to become deadlocked on a seemingly clear-cut molestation or drug possession case not because the defendant’s guilt is in question, but because some jury members might be unwilling to put a man away forever for molestation or drug possession.

And perhaps the most frightening unintended consequence of mandatory life sentences for child molesters (or anyone but murderers).

• A child molester sits back and considers what he has done, trying to decide how or even if he should release his victim. If he knows that what he has just done will guarantee him life in prison without parole if he’s caught, and if he knows that the punishment would be the same even if he’s convicted of murder. . . he may decide it best not to leave any witnesses alive at all.

So mandatory sentencing might just result in fewer crimes being reported, fewer indictments, fewer convictions and (God forbid) the murder of some victims that might otherwise have been left alive.

As for mandatory sentencing. . . we have to maintain a reasonable sentencing continuum ranging from traffic tickets to life in prison without parole or capital punishment (depending on your preference). Taking a life must bring with it the maximum penalty, and lesser crimes, no matter how heinous, must bring with them lesser punishments. To break this continuum means. . . well I'm not sure what it means.

And as for unintended consequences. . . they’re here to stay. Policy makers must tread carefully and drop their unjustified certainty in the outcome of their proposed policies.