There is great value, when considering a question, to instead consider a generalization of the question. Then, having answered the more general question, you get the answers to more specialized versions for free, and you know they’re consistent with each other.
This is actually a pretty large part of what we call thinking.
Here’s an example. When thinking about some particular kind of welfare, we can ask: Generally speaking, under what conditions should we give tax money to people who can get along without it?
When you put it that way, the answer is pretty clear. There are no such conditions.
Here’s another example. When thinking about paying for goods and services, we can ask: Generally speaking, under what conditions should one person pay more for exactly the same thing as another person, just because he has more resources?
A moment’s thought shows that the answer to this question is the same as the answer to the previous question: There are no such conditions.
Here’s a third example. When thinking about restricting some particular kind of liberty, we can ask: Generally speaking, under what conditions can we violate individual rights in order to pursue some particular outcome?
The New Hampshire constitution contains a particularly elegant answer to that question: People can be required to surrender some of their rights only in order to protect their other rights.
In each of these cases, a bunch of specific answers follow from the general answer.
Should we give food stamps to people who can already afford food? No. Should we give heating oil subsidies to people who can already afford heat? No. Should we give housing subsidies to people who can already afford housing. No.
Should richer and poorer people pay different amounts for the same food in a grocery store? No. For clothing? No. For transportation? No.
Can we violate everyone’s right to free speech in order to keep the feelings of some people from being hurt? No. Can we violate everyone’s right to self-defense in order to make some people feel safer? No.
But when we ask the same questions about education, suddenly — according to many conservatives and libertarians — we get completely different answers:
Should we give education subsidies to people who can already afford education? Hell yeah!
Should we make some people pay more for public schools just because they have more? Sure!
Should we violate everyone’s right to property in order to fund a state monopoly? You bet!
And what this tells us is that instead of thinking about education, these people are feeling about it. Thinking tells them that the answer is no, but their feelings tell them that the answer should be yes. So those feelings become the drivers of public policy in the form of statutes, regulations, and court decisions.
Note that all of those general questions are themselves specific instances of an even more general question: When do the ends justify the means?
One of the first things that children learn from adults is that the ends do not justify the means. You don’t just take something from someone, or force someone to do something, just because you can get away with it.
You either find a way to negotiate for what you want — each of you giving up something you want, to get something you want more — or you learn to get along without it.
The question I always wonder about is, when we teach this to children, are we lying to them? Or do we believe it, but just forget it as we get older? Or do we remember it, but choose to ignore it out of convenience?
I wonder about it because taking something from people, and forcing people to do something, just because we can get away with it, have become the two most basic functions of government. If we’re happy with that, we should just stop lying to kids about it. But if we’re not happy with that, maybe we should change it.
