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This weekend the Globe and Mail published a feature called Unnatural selection: Is evolving reproductive technology ushering in a new age of eugenics?.  The article was written in response to the ever-growing practice of using in vetro fertilization (IVF) to screen for genetic disorders.  IVF, a technology originally developed to help couples conceive, is now being used by doctors to analyze the DNA of embryos before implantation in order that those which carry chromosomes responsible for serious illnesses or developmental defects may be discarded.  This practice alone should be cause for debate, but the more serious concern is that following the development of this technology the only thing left between human beings and genetic engineering is ethics.

In practice there is no difference between discarding an embryo because it carries the chromosome for ALS or discarding embryos which don’t carry chromosomes thought to be responsible for increased intelligence.  For those who believe that the latter is science fiction, think again.  Still in the early stages of development there already exists microchips that can test a genome for well over a thousand traits, such as “heart disease, seasonal affective disorder, obesity, athletic ability, hair and eye colour, height, susceptibility to alcohol and nicotine addictions, lactose intolerance and one of several genes linked to intelligence.”  The recipe for the “perfect child” is not far off.

This is all proving to be exciting news for hopeful parents, many of whom have inundated labs practicing this research with requests for chromosome selection.  As moral argumentation is now the last line of defense against the uninhibited pursuit of eugenics it is imperative that the utter foolishness of this shortsighted and self-interested behaviour be recognized.  Our history offers no shortage of examples of technologies that, heralded upon their invention, later proved to be a Pandora’s box of unintended consequences.  Consider for a moment the global effort that is required today to ensure our species doesn’t succumb to nuclear apocalypse.  The desires to shorten World War II and gain a weaponry advantage drove the US to invent nuclear arms.  But this short list of marginal gains (WWII would have inevitably drawn to a close without the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and the US had only a four year “head start” as the Soviet Union developed the technology in 1949) is drastically outweighed by the incredibly lengthy list of costs resulting from having to  fight nuclear proliferation ever since.

How much money and political maneuvering is required to keep nuclear arms out of the hands of “undesirable” nations and terrorist organizations today?  Without the invention of nuclear weaponry Iran, Pakistan, North Korea and Al-Qaeda would represent only a fraction of the threat they currently do.  If you could snap your fingers and make that technology disappear a huge chunk of US foreign policy spending would go with it.  Instead, today, there are fears surrounding the global price of oil because international sanctions opposing the development of nuclear arms in Iran have caused that country to threaten closing access to the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation.

Anyone who thinks seriously about the political consequences of eugenics will quickly have a laundry list of potential dangers.  Among the possibilities are a new social “class” with genetic advantages.  To try and understand the political implications of such a class consider the rich human history of fighting over the distribution of wealth and power  and then try to imagine what the reaction of a majority population might be if a small class of people thrive because they were implanted with superior DNA.  Another serious problem would be a likely increase in average lifespans which would drive the global population upwards and add pressure to a planet which is already incapable of meeting resource demands.

An effort must be made to avoid these science-fiction scenarios, which is going to require an international push towards the anti-proliferation of eugenics.  The UK has led this charge by strictly regulating genetic selection to only serious, inherited disorders.  It is imperative that the rest of the world follow.  While arguments will surely be made that any such efforts are a waste of time, that the proliferation of this technology is inevitable, and that there is a moral obligation to keep it in the “right hands”, our experience with nuclear weapons proves this thinking to be folly.  The victory of these arguments in the 1940s sealed the fate of any preemptive anti-proliferation campaign for nukes and did nothing but accelerate the process of getting that evil power into dangerous hands.

Much has been written lately of the decline of the United States.  With pessimism rampant, self-esteem in this bastion of modern civilization is shockingly low.  A recent Rasmussen Reports survey says fewer than one out of five Americans believe their country is heading in the right direction.  At the same time feelings in Canada are very different.  Having waded through much of the economic turmoil of the last few years while neighbours to the south and across the Atlantic floundered, 86% of Canadians now agree with the statement that their country “is the greatest in the world.” Many may be eager to celebrate, but those with a close eye on the economy see daily reminders of the dangers ahead.  Last week, in an attempt to reign in spiraling health care costs, Ottawa fixed spending beyond 2016 to the nominal increase in GDP.  Up next on the federal agenda is the rocketing price of Old Age Security, which is projected to grow 32% between 2010 and 2015 alone.

While Canada dodged the deregulation bullet in 2008 there are two long-term fiscal challenges facing all countries in the West.  Diminishing populations coupled with increasingly expensive public services means fewer citizens to tax when more federal revenue is required.  And a steady increase in international economic competition means Western economies don’t dominate the world as they’ve been accustomed to doing for over 400 years.  The world is now flat, so Western nations must compete while they are outmatched in numbers, resources and political determination.

For more than 30 years now, the consensus in the United States has been that government is the chief impediment to economic activity.  Following this logic, the solution for long-term economic growth is short-term government deterioration.  This thinking resulted in deregulation of financial markets and led directly to “the great recession”, but it poses a subtler and more serious threat of which the consequences are only now becoming apparent.  Federal spending in the United States is categorized as either mandatory or discretionary.  Mandatory spending is written into law whereas discretionary spending is evaluated by Congress annually and much easier to do away with.  In the mid-1970’s the US government started “getting out of the way” of the economy by drastically reducing discretionary spending relative to mandatory.  A gap which was around 1% of GDP in the late 1960s is closer to 10% today.

What is becoming apparent is that the services once provided by these discretionary expenditures are vital to long-term economic interests.  Among them are investments in physical infrastructure, public education services, research and development for science and technologies and programs to help raise citizens from poverty.  Arguments that favoured cutting these programs contend governments provide them inefficiently or they are altogether unnecessary.  Forty years later Americans are paying the price for this foolish shortsightedness.  While their roads and bridges need an estimated $2 trillion in repairs, their children are regularly scoring average at best in international testing.

What is proving to be the ultimate cause of America’s fiscal challenges is the belief that government has little or no role in the economy.  Decades of trading important discretionary spending for short-term fiscal benefits has left their economy void of key inputs such as infrastructure, government funded R&D, and a competitively educated workforce.  Each of these services depends on significant long-term centralized investment because markets undervalue them by nature due to an inherent focus on short-term return on investment.  Governments may not be the model of efficiency when building roads, educating children or inventing things like the internet, but to rob them of the funding to do so is national suicide because no actor in an open market will provide these services at anywhere near the scale required for a nation to be competitive in the modern world.

The ultra-liberalism that has pervaded American politics for decades has left the  country without direction and prone to all the perils of inherent market shortsightedness.  Just as Canadians are riding high on their current economic figures, their government is taking steps to reverse its success by slashing the federal public service by a third.  To balance budgets difficult decisions must be made, but there can be no doubt that the American economy would be stronger today had Americans in the mid-70s chosen to pay more taxes instead of cutting discretionary services.  It was then Americans forgot that governments are the rudders that steer economies.  For Canadians important lessons lie right across the border.  Are we paying attention?

In a recent 60 Minutes segment Grover Norquist said “the tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party.”  Norquist, head of the movement Americans for Tax Reform, takes a divisive, one-sided stance regarding this issue.  His organization’s website reads “Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle.”  Invoking the Tea Party on behalf of his cause, Norquist joins a long list of those who have attempted to highjack the founding principles of the United States.  And, like most others, he is similarly oblivious to the tenets of liberal democracy.

The header on the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation website is a sketch of the enraged Bostonians disposing of East Indian Company tea.  But Norquist and his organization make a critical error by drawing a connection between their efforts and those of the 1773 movement.  In reality, he has popularized an ideology that is antithetical to the Tea Party principles.

By dismissing the latter part of the phrase taxation without representation, Norquist ignores what was the heart of the upheaval, the lack of representative government in colonial America.  The irony here is obvious and thick.  Norquist’s organization shapes the tax reform debate on Capital Hill without any accountability to citizens of the United States.  ATR’s website lists 238 representatives of the 112^th Congress who have signed his pledge to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and businesses”.  If Americans are angered by the gridlock in Washington, they need look no further than Grover Norquist and the nearly 55% of congress he has shackled with anti-tax dogma.

The First Amendment guarantees that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”.  Those who understand the value of free speech recognize it as a vital tool for defending against the infiltration of dogma in government.  Norquist’s pledge may not be a violation of the First Amendment but what is the difference between a law that prohibits representatives from proposing a tax hike and a pledge that accomplishes the same goal?  While good government requires the open debate of all political issues, there can be no doubt Norquist’s actions have had the effect of crippling the conversation on tax policy.  Dogmatic ideologies which need to be sheltered from scrutiny should be identified as suspect and forced into the light.  The Pledge is an act of institutionalized dogma.

As Steve Kroft noted, Norquist has Republican candidates coming and going.  He tells listeners that “it is difficult to imagine winning a Republican primary without taking the pledge.”  Once elected, they are faced with a stark position, vote down all tax increases or face a stiff challenge in the next election, an opponent with substantial funding from Norquist’s organization.  While more than half of Republican voters want wealthy Americans to pay more taxes, Congress remains in paralysis when it comes to balancing the country’s budget.  The obvious problem is that one of their key policy options is entirely off the table.

The morning of the Boston Tea Party a handbill was posted around the city which read “the hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face.”  The American public are in the middle of similar standoff today, but in this case, the face staring back at them belongs to Grover Norquist.  An unelected, unaccountable citizen, he is shaping tax policy in the wealthiest liberal democracy in the world by institutionalizing anti-tax dogma.  The United States was founded with the principle of free speech to ensure the opportunity to debate all ideas, thereby avoiding the tyranny of any single political view.  There is no difference between taxation without representation and Norquist’s denial of taxation without representation.  Both prohibit debate, are forms of tyranny, and should be fought at all costs.  To resolve the current economic situation the United States needs a modern Boston Tea Party, and this time Grover Norquist and his pledge need to go over the side of the boat.