6 OPINION
TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2016
EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET
Discriminatory policy preventing gay blood donors must go EDITORIAL
The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.
Next Tuesday, April 25, Community Blood Center will hold a blood drive in Shriver Center from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Donating blood offers a rare opportunity to save lives at the small asking price of a pint of blood. If you are eligible and willing to donate, we certainly encourage participation. Eligibility for donation seems like it should be fairly straightforward. If you weigh too little, have issues regarding iron-concentration in your blood or have recently received a tattoo from an unregulated parlor, you cannot donate due to safety precautions. You put yourself in harm’s way if your body cannot withstand the loss of blood, and you put others in danger if your blood is infectious. These restrictions are clear, no doubt about it. Alas, there is but one restriction that must be corrected and not just simply modified. According to the American Red Cross, a December 21, 2015 amendment by the FDA reduced the deferral to donate for “Men Who Have Had Sex With Men (MSM)” from a lifetime deferral to a oneyear deferral. There’s the modification, a change that pales in comparison to another significant change in 2015 — that of legal same-sex marriage throughout the nation. How is it that, after a landmark decision
freed same-sex partners from the shackles of the law, something as discriminatory as the MSM deferral could still exist? This original restriction, of course, is based on the assumption that HIV/ AIDS can be contracted solely by men who have sex with other men, a falsity
which should never occur. Similarly, a one-year deferral period would be meaningless for any gay man in a relationship with another man, as no one would expect such a person to remain sexually abstinent for an entire year simply to donate blood. The fact that a sexu-
The fact that a sexually responsible gay man cannot donate blood while a promiscuous straight person can is beyond reason.
not worth discussing. The reduction from a lifetime ban for donation to one year seems progressive on the surface, only it leaves one wondering why such a ban should exist at all? If, after having sex with another man, the man in question contracted HIV/ AIDS, his condition would not simply disappear after a year-long hiatus from homosexual intercourse — rather, the condition is indefinite. Again, donating would be a hazard for those on the receiving end — that is, if your blood was somehow able to slip through the grasps of those handling it and go unscreened for such diseases,
ally responsible gay man cannot donate blood while a promiscuous straight person can is beyond reason The only logical assumption as to the reason for this ban, then, is discrimination. Some, in order to elude this discrimination, simply mark that they have not had sex with a man in the last year on the questionnaire and proceed to donate their blood, regardless of their honesty. One such case was admitted in an anonymous letter run in The Student on October 13, 2015 in which a student stated why he donates blood while marking “no” for that question. He concluded the letter in an uplifting manner, writing, “I highly en-
Basic Income Guarantee offers more freedom than current welfare state POLITICS
MILAM’S MUSINGS BRETT MILAM COLUMNIST
Currently, the United States sits on the most sensible welfare reform policy proposal, sharing bipartisan support, without re-
alizing it. I’m talking about a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). The idea is simple enough: give every American citizen an annual check of some designated amount. Depending on the proposal, it could be for every American citizen -- children, adults, rich or poor; or you could do it for every adult over 21; or just those in the bottom income bracket. Charles Murray, a libertarian, in his proposal for a BIG, stipulated the money at $10,000 in 2006 dollars. The finer details of the proposal — the who and the how much — can be ironed out later. The point, at least from the perspective of those on the right, is not to do a BIG in addition to our current sprawling, bloated welfare system, but in replacement of it. In other words, a government welfare state is a reality. Almost every individual in the United States, to some varying extent, supports a social safety net. Given my political persuasion (free market anarchist), I would prefer there not be a government welfare state at all. But I’d first work with the way the world operates rather than how I wish it operated. Within this reality, I would rather reform it to work the best it can as opposed to continuing the status quo. Currently, there are 126 federal (government) programs aimed at welfare of some kind, whether it’s medical care, housing, food or otherwise. Then there are obviously numerous programs at the state and local levels. It makes much more sense to consolidate those 126 federal government programs into one streamlined program. And unlike those programs, the appeal of a BIG is that it’s just giving the recipient money without stipulations or qualifications. The recipient gets to choose how to spend the money. It’s not means-tested, meaning there is no nonsense over drug testing welfare recipients or proving employment.
One of the strongest appeals of the BIG is the aforementioned bipartisan support. Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek (free market economists), Bruce Bartlett (a conservative who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations), Martin Luther King, Jr. and David Graeber (a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement) have all expressed support for some variation of the BIG. Given how untenable reparations for slavery is, the BIG could act as a quasi-reparations program, too. Matt Zwolinski, a libertarian, made the case for BIG in his Cato Institute article, “The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Guarantee,” which has been influential to my thinking on the subject. Zwolinski has four main reasons why the BIG is a policy proposal worth doing: it involves less bureaucracy (poor people struggle currently to navigate the myriad red tape); it costs less (depending on the implementation plan); it is less rent-seeking (with no strings attached, it’s a policy that’s legitimately egalitarian); and it’s less paternalistic (there are no eligibility requirements). For Zwolinski, welfare reform isn’t a question of ideal theory, but
to care, and the evidence is not so compelling that it would, anyhow. In the United States, working is beyond reproach; it’s in our American DNA that a strong work ethic is one of the greatest virtues to possess. I’m not so compelled by such thinking, which I know may sound peculiar coming from a free market anarchist. Work serves a purpose and has value, but we tend to give it too much at the expense of relaxation and leisure. But it is also that work is so ingrained a value in our American DNA, which, arguably, counters the notion that people would stop working outright. Custom is a prime mover of human action. The empirical evidence available from the Negative Income Tax experiments between 1968 and 1980 — the closest equivalence to the BIG, albeit it’s conditional — showed that there was an overall decrease in work effort, but it was rather small. People didn’t leave the workforce. Rather, periods of unemployment lasted longer. But as Zwolinski points out in his response to such a criticism, this “gospel of work” misses the point. With such a safety net, people would be free to do other things,
The appeal of a BIG is that it’s just giving the recipient money without stipulations or qualifications. The recipient gets to choose how to spend the money.
rather that of comparative institutional analysis. Within the confines of political reality, a BIG is necessarily more liberty-minded than the current welfare state. There are certainly valid criticisms of the BIG, just as there are of current welfare programs. Criticisms such as a BIG would deincentivize working, that government would quickly impose conditions and that there’s a concern wherein the government can argue against civil disobedience on the grounds that it’s giving us a basic income. Zwolinski in particular worries about even more fervent antiimmigration stances if a BIG was in place, although we see that now with the current welfare state. (I don’t have the space to address all those criticisms, but I wanted to at least acknowledge them.) However, with respect to the primary objection one would find with the BIG -- that it would deincentivize working -- I’m hard-pressed
like go back to school, take care of their newborn child or simply not feel so much pressure if they’re laid off from a job. It’s unusual for a policy related to welfare to have such specific support from all sides of the political spectrum and yet, oddly, it hasn’t exactly reached full currency in the mainstream. I do find it odd that Bernie Sanders, the self-avowed socialist, is merely “sympathetic” to the idea rather than a vocal advocate, however. Imagine if someone with his current momentum and platform proposed this sensible idea rather than pandering with free college tuition and a $15 minimum wage. I want to live in a world with more freedom, not less. The BIG is not ideal freedom, but it is necessarily more freedom than the current welfare state.
MILAMBC@MIAMIOH.EDU
courage anyone who is physically able to give blood, regardless of your sexuality.” We do not condone lying in order to donate blood, but, at the same time, gay men should not be put in a situation in which they have to lie. We are living in a time in which tens of thousands of units of blood are needed each year to treat patients with conditions like cancer, sickle cell and traumatic accidents such as car crashes. However, despite the fact the 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood, only about 10 percent of the population does, according to the American Red Cross. Thus, it is imperative that we encourage as many people as possible to donate in order to save the maximum amount of lives that we can. We don’t want to follow in the path of North Carolina state legislature. Additionally, we don’t want to give in to the fear that plagued the country in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that exploded in the media in the 1980s. This disease can afflict anyone, and creating a blanket rule for one group of people produces a net loss for an otherwise noble cause. One blood donation has the potential to save multiple lives when tragedy strikes. No one should have to die because of an outdated, discriminatory policy.
Reflections of a Black conservative student POLITICS
TO THE EDITOR: To call somebody a racist should be a very serious matter. A racist is a person who believes that one race is inherently superior or inferior to another. It’s not intelligence or goodness that determines an individual’s worth, it’s the color of their skin. To say that racism is foolish and stupid – not to mention evil – is to understate the case. But according to many of their critics, conservatives are that stupid and that evil. But, with few exceptions, conservatives are neither. So why is the charge even made? The answer is primarily political, i.e., to maintain black support for liberals and liberal policies. To back up this charge, the accusers point to conservative policies. So let’s examine some conservative policies to see if they are, indeed, racist. Affirmative Action is a good place to start. It was Democratic President John F. Kennedy who first used the term “affirmative action” in 1961. But affirmative action, in the way that we think of it now, wasn’t implemented until 1970, during the administration of a Republican president, Richard Nixon. The theory was that, because of historical discrimination, blacks were at a competitive disadvantage to other races and ethnicities. To erase that disadvantage, standards that most blacks presumably couldn’t meet had to be lowered. Some might make the case that this policy had some utility when it was first put in place. But that was a long time ago. The conservative position is that blacks have repeatedly proven that they can compete with anyone without the benefits – the demeaning benefits, I might add – of lower standards. There are countless examples of Black success in every field at every level. The policy is no longer necessary. But the conservative argument goes further. Study after study shows that, in the case of college admissions, affirmative action actually hurts many blacks. By lowering standards for blacks and some other minority students, colleges set many of these students up for failure. They get placed in schools for which they’re not prepared. High black drop-out rates confirm this view. So does common sense. If white students with mediocre SAT scores were admitted to Ivy League schools, they too would be set up to fail. Let’s do the math. Conservatives believe that blacks and other minorities are every bit as capable as
whites of succeeding as policemen, firemen, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, politicians and college students. Yet, for this belief, conservatives are called “racist”. The irony, of course, is that those who accuse conservatives of being racist believe that blacks and other minorities are not as capable as whites of succeeding and therefore still need affirmative action almost a half-century after it was first implemented. Let’s look at another issue where this contrast between conservatives and those who accuse them of being racist is even more starkly drawn: voter ID. Conservatives say that America should require that every voter present an ID when he or she votes, just as European countries do in order to keep their elections honest. Are all of these democracies racist? Of course not. Yet, the accusers say the conservatives who support voter ID laws are racist. Why do they say this? Because, they argue, it’s really a ruse to prevent Blacks and other minorities from voting since many of them just aren’t capable of acquiring an ID. Can you get more condescending than that?
The conservative position is that blacks have repeatedly proven that they can compete with anyone without the benefits Let’s be real. You need an ID to drive, to fly, to buy a beer, even to purchase some cold medicines. Whites can do it but blacks can’t? Tell me who the racists are again? One more example. It’s conservatives who push for school vouchers which would allow all parents, not just wealthy ones, to choose their childrens’ school. It’s the other side that doesn’t trust minority parents to select an appropriate school for their children. Why aren’t the people who compel black children to stay in terrible schools the racists? At some point, maybe you’ll start asking yourself, as I did, who really is obsessed with race, and whose policies really hurt blacks and minorities? Maybe it’s not who you think it is.
DERRYCK GREEN TWITTER: @DERRYCKGREEN