Blindfold

Univesality – not one law for rich, another for poor.

Not one law for blacks, another for whites. Not one for women, another for men.

Aka: equality before the law, equal protection of the laws

Proportionality of punishments to crimes.

Guilt or innocence a function of the evidence not the whim of the judge.

Is there a finger on the scales?

Sword

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Justice must be swift and certain or it is not justice.

But sword pointed   down

means justice should be minimized. Coercion

(aka violence) is bad.

Criminalize as little as possible.

Starting gate

Justice is about equality of economic opportunity.

If you are malnourished or lacking the same cultural capital at the starting gate, there is no equality of opportunity. Is there a diversity versus equal opportunity trade-off?

Are some values less conducive to upward mobility?

Does greater economic inequality make the rungs of the ladder too hard to reach?

Does a too high minimum wage rip off the bottom rung?

Is there a parental liberty versus equal economic opportunity trade-off?

Pie/Leaky Bucket

Is money being taken from the wells of the rich to the cups of the poor in a “leaky bucket” – much of it going to third parties and reducing work incentives for both rich and poor?

Is there a fundamental trade-off between growing the pie and splitting it more evenly?

Income and Wealth Inequality Statistics:

Current versus historical.

What is too much? What is too little? Who decides?

How?

Mobility Statistics

How much is enough?

What explains differentials in mobility?

Is the American dream

a fraud?

Tax Burden statistics

How much is too much vertical and horizontal inequality? Where are we on the spectrum? What would change your mind?

Religions tell three big stories: how and when the universe began and how and when it will end

(cosmology), how to live

(morality), and how we

the enlightened came to acquire this knowledge.

All great religions have the same common ethical core – a message of gratitude (piety, obedience, humility, renunciation) and kindness (mercy, love).

All great religions acknowledge the difficulty of living according to these principles in the face of bad luck, the unkindness of others, and our own negative emotions.

All great religions offer

a recipe for a discipline

which should minimize deviations from the narrow path of gratitude and kindness

RELIGION:

     The Big Picture

A medieval set of answers to ultimate questions, a corrupt set of institutions bent on survival and expansion, a bunch of good people doing good things,

These disciplines incorporate prayer at many times during the day as well as a regular calendar of collective ritual events.

All religions have historically been a barrier to scientific and economic progress as the priestly class has sought to prevent the rise of competing castes.

There is no power more absolute than that of power over the souls of men. As all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the historical consequences have been dire.

Separation of church and state and freedom of religion are critical to freedom of speech and human progress. But some sort of secular equivalent of religion must exist to answer all the ultimate questions of morality, cosmology, and history.