I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment. I believe people have the right to arm themselves for their own protection and as a check against a tyrannical government.

Therefore, I agree with those who say it would be a bad idea to allow the government to have a database of guns and their owners, because that would make gun confiscation significantly easier. And, let’s face it, there are plenty of liberals who would happily ban all guns if the political climate ever shifted enough that they felt they could get away with it.

On the other hand, the lack of searchable databases of gun owners hampers investigations after a gun has been used in a crime. See this story in GQ for an examination of the problem. (Hat tip to Stacy Whitman for the link.)

So, is there a way to bridge that gap? I think there might be: privatized gun registration.

How would that work?

A federal law would allow private organizations to become gun registrars. (The NRA could become one if they wanted.) A gun registrar would maintain a searchable database of guns and gun owners, that would allow the registrar to retrieve the identity of the owner of a particular gun based on its serial number, or to retrieve a list of all the guns registered in their database for a particular gun owner. This could be used in two ways:

1. Police could ask the gun registrars to search for the owner of a particular gun that is in the police’s possession, and the registrar would be legally obligated to respond within a certain amount of time. This would allow police to find the registered owner of a lost or stolen gun (in which case the owner will presumably be happy to get it back), or the owner of a gun used in a crime (and therefore help the investigation of a particular crime). I don’t think this provision opens the door for gun confiscation, since the police would have the gun in their possession already.
2. After showing probable cause that a person committed a crime involving a gun, police could get a warrant to ask the registrars for a list of all guns owned by that person (and maybe other people in the same household). I think the warrant requirement is a sufficient barrier to mass confiscation of guns by asking the registrar.

But what if the government comes in and seizes the registrar’s database?

Good question.

1. The registrars will be required by law to have a system in place to destroy the database and any backups at a particular location if government agents try to seize the database at that location. (To protect against accidental destruction, the registrar must have the database in multiple locations. But if the government tries to seize all of a registrar’s locations, the database should be completely destroyed, with no way to recover it.)
2. Even if a registrar fails to destroy their database, and the government seizes it, that registrar’s database only has the guns and gun owners registered through that registrar. People who own multiple guns and were concerned about limiting the knowledge of what guns they had would simply register different guns with different registrars.
3. The registrars would be required by law to destroy all their databases immediately if a bill to confiscate weapons passes in either chamber of Congress, or if the President of the United States issues an executive order to confiscate guns. Thus, even if the politics of guns shifted to the point where gun confiscation became politically possible, the registrars’ databases could not be used.

Since a privatized gun registration system like this would avoid the danger of gun confiscation posed by a centralized, government-run gun registration system, I think it would therefore be reasonable to require gun owners to register their weapons.

However, since such required registration would subject law-abiding gun owners to an inconvenience (and would presumably cost them money for registration), it seems fair that they should get something in return for agreeing to such a system. Something like concealed carry permit reciprocity (a concealed carry permit from any state would be honored in any state, just like a driver’s license) might work.

Months ago, someone asked me what I would do about health care in the United States. My preferred health care policies stand no chance whatsoever of being made into law, but I’m going to explain how I would structure the system if I were in charge.
Warning: Not only is this a long post, but if you want to criticize or argue with anything I’ve said, then you must read not only my whole post, but also every source I link to. If you can’t be bothered to do the reading, I can’t see why I should be bothered with your comment.

The main principles behind my policies are:

1. Using free-market competition to lower costs where possible
2. Using self-interest to lower costs where possible
3. Encouraging personal responsibility
4. Respecting people’s liberty
5. Providing universal coverage

This plan would also completely replace Medicare and Medicaid, and would do away with the tax exemption for employer-provided health benefits.

Part I: Pricing Reform

One of the biggest problems with our health care system is that pricing is generally opaque to the consumer. While I don’t agree with all of the proposed policies, I think this blog post on Market-Ticker.org has a lot of really good ideas about how health care pricing could be reformed on a free-market basis (i.e., without the government setting prices, which generally ends badly.) For example:

• “All providers must post, in their offices and on a public web site…, a full and complete price list which shall apply to every person.”
• “For a bill to be valid and collectible it must be affirmatively consented to in writing, with a disclosure of the actual price to be charged from the above schedule for each item to be provided whether good or service, prior to the service being performed or the good furnished, subject only to the emergency exception below.”
• “No event caused by or a consequence of treatment can be billed to the customer.”
• “Auxiliary services (e.g. medical or dental Xrays, lab testing, etc) may not be required to be purchased at the point of use.”
• “Any test or diagnostic that carries no exposure to drugs or radiation, nor is invasive beyond a blood draw, may be purchased without doctor order or prescription.”
• “Wholesale drug pricing in the United States must be on a ‘most-favored nation’ basis.” (Basically, this means drug companies must sell drugs to wholesalers in the U.S. at the lowest price they offer to wholesalers in any country. My brother Jonathan worries that this will result in significantly higher drug prices in poorer countries, so maybe rather than using absolute prices, we could use pricing relative to median per capita income in each country.)

(For more details about those bullet points, see the original blog post.)

I would also add some very specific patent reform and/or tax reform: shortening the patent term and/or increasing taxes on the profits for maintenance medications/treatments, and lengthening the term/decreasing taxes for cures. Right now, the incentives for medical research are to find treatments that people will have to take for the rest of their lives, rather than on finding treatments that permanently fix a medical condition. For example, I have asthma.  I have an inhaler I use twice a day that works well enough that I hardly ever have any asthma symptoms — unless I forget to use the inhaler for a couple of days.  That medication (Symbicort, in case you’re wondering) is a long-term revenue stream for the drug company that makes it.  And I’m grateful the medication exists. But I would be better off if there were a treatment that I could take to cure my asthma so I didn’t have to keep using an inhaler twice a day.  So we should change incentives to shift medical research toward cures for conditions, rather than control or maintenance.

Part II: Government-funded Catastrophic Health Insurance Policies

There would be catastrophic health insurance for all adults, with a high annual deductible adjusted annually for inflation. A plan like this one would work, although I would suggest some variations as follows: Twenty percent co-pay on everything above the deductible (but a percentage of your copayment would be eligible for a tax credit. More on that later.) The federal government would set minimum standards for what must be offered in these catastrophic health insurance policies (CHIPs) — basically, that they must cover all reasonable and necessary medical expenses, subject to the deductible and co-pay. Insurance companies could offer more than the minimum in order to attract customers. The market for CHIPs would be nationwide and subject only to federal regulation, not state regulation.

Once a year, each insurance company would be free to set their own prices for these CHIPs, but the price of any particular policy would have to be the same for anyone who wanted to buy it. The prices would be submitted privately to the federal government by a certain deadline, after which they would be announced publicly.  Rather than set one flat fee that the federal government will pay, the government will pay for the lowest cost policy that is available to you, plus five percent. If the policy you choose is less than what the government will pay, you get to keep the difference. If it’s more, you have to pay the difference. Since many people will want to receive that cash-back bonus, and since the insurers won’t know what prices other insurers will be offering, insurers will have an incentive to offer policies that meet the minimum standards at the lowest price they can.

Nobody would be forced to purchase a CHIP, but since it would essentially be free for everyone, only an idiot wouldn’t do so. To protect idiots, we could have the government automatically purchase a plan for someone if they don’t do it themselves, unless they specifically object to having insurance.

The vast majority (over 75%) of our national health care spending is on people with chronic conditions, many of which can be prevented or alleviated through lifestyle changes.  Therefore, insurers would be allowed to offer incentives for healthy living. For example, they could offer a cash rebate to customers who don’t smoke or quit smoking during the year, or for overweight customers who lose weight, etc.

Part III: Government-funded Pediatric Care

Absent mental impairment, adults should be responsible for their own financial and health care decisions. Children, however, have neither the judgment nor the funds to make proper health care decisions, and they shouldn’t suffer because their parents’ financial situation. Therefore, using a similar system as for CHIPs above, insurance companies would offer zero-deductible, zero-copay insurance policies for children, with government standards set for what must be included. The government would pay for the lowest-cost policy available that provided care within a reasonable distance. Parents could pay extra for things like the ability to choose particular doctors, etc. The important thing is that every child would have access to care under this system even if the parents have no money.

Part IV: Emergency Care

A free market for health care can’t really work in many emergency situations. Again, drawing on the Market-Ticker.org blog post:

“All true emergency patients, defined as those who are unable by medical circumstance to choose where their treatment is to take place and require immediate medical intervention to either stabilize their condition, prevent severe permanent impairment or death … must receive the same price for the same service as a person who consents to said service.”

Part V: Health Care Tax Credits

There would be a tax credit for a percentage of your health care expenses below the deductible on your CHIP, and another tax credit for a percentage of whatever your copay expenses have been on your CHIP.  The percentages would be variable on a sliding scale based on two factors: First, the percentage eligible for a tax credit goes down the higher your income. This means richer people get less of a credit than poor people with the same health care expenses. Second, the percentage eligible for a tax credit goes up the higher your copay expenses are as a percentage of your income. This means people whose copay expenses are higher relative to their income get more of a credit than someone with the same income but lower copay expenses.  These credits are meant to maintain the personal incentive for keeping costs down, while also preventing costs from exceeding a certain percentage of your income.

Part VI: Health Care Financing

Obviously, there will be some people who won’t be able to pay their bills up front and/or can’t afford to wait until they can get their money refunded via tax credits. This can be handled by allowing anyone to get a special credit card, usable only for medical expenses, with a nominal interest rate that is the same for everyone — and the interest will be considered a medical expense when it comes to calculating tax credits.  The government will pay tax credits directly to the credit card issuer first, then any remaining tax credit would go to the taxpayer. If, after tax credits, there is still a balance on the card, the taxpayer would be responsible for paying it off. If the taxpayer did not do so in a timely manner, the credit card company could get reimbursed by the government, and the government would add that amount, plus interest and penalties, to the taxpayer’s tax bill.

Part VII: Revenue

Since this plan involves the federal government spending money and/or losing revenue (mostly through tax credits), additional revenue would be needed, and the most likely source is higher income taxes.  Since employers that currently offer health insurance to employees would no longer need to do so, some of that taxation would be offset by higher earnings. Lower health care costs would also offset some of the impact. But yes, this plan would involve a tax increase.

Okay, so that’s the basics of my plan.

Now, some of my liberal/progressive/socialist friends will say it would be simpler just to have a government-run single-payer system, getting rid of insurance and just making all health care free. And they are right, it would be simpler. But it would also mean that the government would be setting prices for medical care, resulting in distortion and perverse incentives. (That’s not to say that the current system doesn’t also distort prices and create perverse incentives, but those are things I’m trying to reduce with my plan.) My plan uses market forces to lower costs, a process that is less likely to result in shortages than government bureaucrats setting prices. My plan achieves your goal of universal coverage in a way that could be supported by many Republicans, and based on past experience you might agree that a plan with support from both parties would be best.

On the other hand, some of my conservative/libertarian friends will object to the higher taxes and increased government regulations required to implement my plan. And, from a philosophical standpoint, they are right to do so. There should always be resistance to increasing government power. However, I would argue that, as a practical matter, this plan better implements conservative and libertarian ideals than Obamacare, the current GOP legislation, or the single-payer system liberals will attempt if Republicans fail to improve the health care system in this country. I would also point out that our current health care mess is the result of FDR’s WWII-era wage controls, and that Ronald Reagan favored universal coverage, so leaving people to fend for themselves on health care is not necessarily a conservative value.

So there you have it. I remind you of the ground rules for criticizing or arguing with this post: you must have read my whole post and all of the linked articles. If your comment shows you have not done so, I reserve the right to delete it.

I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how many lives have been saved by Obamacare, and how many lives will be lost if it is repealed. So I decided to look at the mortality statistics for the United States before and after passage of the Affordable Care Act. The data for 2009-2014 is taken from the Age-Adjusted Death Rate table on page 22 of this PDF and the data for 2015 comes from the Key Findings on page 1 of this PDF. (I originally started writing this post before the 2015 data came in, and had to update the data before publishing.)

The ACA was passed in 2009 and took effect in 2010 (although parts were not phased in until 2014).

My chart starts in 1980 because that’s when the table starts doing year-by-year data rather than decade by decade data. It ends with the 2015 data because those are the latest available.

I included a couple of trend lines after 2009, to show what the age-adjusted death rate would be if it had continued to change at the average rate from 1980-2009 (30 years) or the average rate from 2000-2009 (10 years).

If the ACA were saving a significant number of lives, one would expect the death rate to decline faster than those trend lines.

Instead, as you can see from the graph, the decline in the death rate slowed after the ACA passed. If the death rate had continued to decline at the same rate as the previous decade, then about 175,000 fewer people would have died in 2015 (based on a U.S. population of 319 million in 2015).

Now, of course, I am not asserting that Obamacare is the cause of the slowing decline in mortality rate.  Correlation does not imply causation. There are a lot of things that can affect the death rate, and it’s quite possible that other factors — factors that by pure coincidence became more significant after Obamacare passed — have overwhelmed the impact of Obamacare. But if Obamacare is, on average, saving lives, that’s not showing up in the basic mortality statistics.

On November 4, 2008, I made the following blog post:

Congratulations to President-Elect Obama

It was succinct, but heartfelt. No matter who is President, I want them to do what is best for our country.

With that in mind, I post the following:

Congratulations to President-Elect Trump

While I didn’t vote for him, I wish him well in doing what is best for our country.

Note that I’m not saying I will support him in doing what he thinks is best for our country. When I think he’s wrong, I will oppose him. When I think he’s right, I’ll support him.

Part of me is relieved that there’s at least a chance of getting a constitutional conservative appointed to the Supreme Court to replace Scalia.  Frankly, I wish we could go back to having both parties confirm qualified nominees even in the face of ideological differences. But the Democrats’ refusal to confirm Robert Bork set us down this path, and I don’t see a way back — short of significant numbers of liberals/progressives coming to realize that having a powerful central government unconstrained by the Constitution is a really bad idea and working together with limited-government conservatives to make the Supreme Court (and the rest of the federal government) far less important in our lives. So, for the foreseeable future, Supreme Court appointments are going to be highly partisan affairs. With that in mind, any bets as to how long it takes the New York Times editorial board to flip back in favor of filibusters for nominations?

• 1995: “Time to Retire the Filibuster” (against)
• 2005: “Walking in the Opposition’s Shoes” (in favor)
• 2013: “The Senate Clings to the Filibuster” (against)

I’m guessing it’ll happen in 2017.

Then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room.  You can’t always blame a candidate for who supports them. But Trump hired Steve Bannon as his campaign manager (and now wants him to be a senior advisor in the White House), and Bannon has deliberately courted the support of from “alt-right” groups. I don’t know if Bannon is personally an anti-semitic white nationalist — I find the evidence somewhat weak — but there is no doubt that after taking over Breitbart News, he made the alt-right his target market. To me, this is very troubling.  It’s one thing to be the main party one side of the political spectrum and end up receiving the support of some unsavory people because they consider you at least marginally better than the other main party. It’s quite another to deliberately court their support.

Going back to at least Reagan, Republican campaigns have tended to focus on freedom — that we can solve our nation’s problems by enhancing people’s freedom. Trump barely mentions freedom, and his proposed solution to most problems seems to be “Make me President and I’ll fix it” — which seems more like a cult of personality than a principled approach. Coupled with that, Trump’s seeming admiration for dictators who are “strong leaders” becomes even more troubling. His proposals at various times in his campaign for things such as forcing Muslims to register or even banning them from entering the country seem to me to be treading into very dangerous waters.

Of course, I was wrong about Donald Trump’s electability. So I may be completely wrong about how he’ll govern.

Shortly after I moved back to the U.S. in 1983, my family watched the TV miniseries The Winds of War, based on the novel by Herman Wouk. I remember thinking it was very good, but after 33 years I don’t really remember anything about the plot.

Except for one scene: As I recall it, some Jewish characters are trying to get out of Nazi-controlled territory, and they are with a group of non-Jewish Americans. The Nazi border guards say that the Americans are free to cross the border, but that, naturally, any Jews must identify themselves and be detained. One of the Americans then declares that he is a Jew, everyone in his company is a Jew, and they must either all be allowed to cross the border or they must all be detained. Unsure how to handle this, the border guards finally allow everyone to cross. (I probably have some of the details wrong, but I’m pretty sure that was the gist of it.)

The simple heroism in that scene has stuck with me even after the rest of the miniseries has faded from my mind.

That’s why, even before I saw others suggesting this course of action on social media, I decided that if Trump actually implemented registration of Muslims (or any other minority group, for that matter), I would would register as an act of solidarity. (I am under no illusions that such action would require the same level of heroism shown by people who protected Jews during World War II, but I feel it would be the right thing to do.)

I sincerely hope that in four years time, people will look back at the aftermath of this election and realize the fears about a Trump presidency were tremendously overblown, and that his election wasn’t a step down the road to fascism.

I sincerely hope that, as one Trump supporter told me, Trump’s extreme positions were merely for negotiation, and that he would moderate his positions and lead his extreme supporters to be more moderate.

But I will remain watchful.

Obviously, our next President will almost certainly be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Most likely, that will happen because one or the other won enough states with enough electoral college votes to have at least 270.

And I’ve already discussed the unlikely event that McMullin wins Utah’s six electoral college votes and neither Trump nor Clinton has 270, so the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, which would choose between Trump, Clinton, and McMullin. (There’s a similar scenario if Gary Johnson wins a state and McMullin does not.)

But I want to talk about some even unlikelier scenarios that are still possible:

1. On Election Day, Clinton wins 270 votes to Trump’s 268 (or another very slim margin). However, one of Washington’s Democratic electors has already announced he will not vote for Clinton. It’s possible there could be more. If enough electors refuse to vote for her, that would take Clinton below 270 EC votes. The election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, to choose between Clinton, Trump, and whoever the defecting elector(s) choose to vote for. (Most likely: Bernie Sanders. Absent a huge post-election scandal for Trump, it’s hard to see how Sanders could win in the House, but it’s technically possible.)
2. On Election Day, Trump narrowly wins in the electoral college, but one or more Republican electors announce they will not vote for him, reducing him below 270. The election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, to choose between Clinton, Trump, and whoever the defecting elector(s) choose to vote for. (Most likely: I’m going to say Mitt Romney, because he’s a known quantity and because he’s old enough that, if elected, he would not run for re-election, so he wouldn’t interfere with other candidates planning to run in 2020. Second most likely: Paul Ryan.)
3. On Election Day, Clinton and Trump tie at 269. (Or announced defectors from one or both parties, or a McMullin win in Utah and/or a Gary Johnson win somewhere, will reduce both candidates below 270). Knowing that she cannot win in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Clinton decides to do what she can to block Trump and start a civil war within the Republican Party: she instructs enough of her electors to vote for Mitt Romney (or Paul Ryan) that he is in third place in EC votes (beating out Bernie Sanders, who would have almost no chance in the House.)  There are some possible sub-scenarios here:
   1. The Republicans in the House reject the attempt to manipulate them and choose Trump.
   2. Romney or Ryan (RoR) initially has enough support from Republicans to prevent Trump from winning 26 states in the House, but not enough to win 26 states himself.
      1. The Senate has flipped to Democratic control.  Since the Vice President is chosen by the Senate from between the top two EC vote recipients, Tim Kaine is elected Vice President. (Or, because electors didn’t defect from Kaine, he was elected in the normal way regardless of who controls the Senate.) Democrats have no incentive to get involved in the fight between Trump and RoR, because if the deadlock continues, Kaine will become acting President. As the deadline to Inauguration Day nears, the Republicans who support RoR have no incentive to give up, because they’re committed to blocking Trump. Faced with a choice between sticking by Trump and letting Kaine become acting President, or voting for RoR, Republicans in the House elect RoR as President. Trump voters are livid.
      2. The Senate stays in Republican control. Since the Vice President is chosen by the Senate from between the top two EC vote recipients, Mike Pence is elected Vice President. (Or, because electors didn’t defect from Pence, he was elected in the normal way regardless of who controls the Senate.) Trump’s supporters in the House are now willing to hold out as long as necessary, because they don’t object to Pence as acting President. However, Democrats figure out they have some leverage: they can offer their support for RoR in exchange for some concessions, while also foreclosing the possibility that Trump eventually wins enough support in the House. So RoR is elected President by a coalition of anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats. Trump supporters are even more livid, branding RoR and his Republican supporters as traitors.

This is what I hope will happen:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

This is my prediction for what I think will happen:

 
Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

I’ve seen a lot of people claiming that Evan McMullin winning Utah just helps Hillary Clinton get elected.

That is false, and I’m going to explain why.

First, McMullin winning Utah makes a difference in who is elected President in only one circumstance: if neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump manages to get to 270 electoral college votes. It’s highly unlikely that will happen, but it is possible. Fivethirtyeight.com’s model currently puts the chances of a deadlock at 0.5%, and the probability of Utah being a tipping-point state at 0.1%.

But let’s assume that it happens: McMullin wins Utah’s 6 electoral college votes and is in third place in the electoral college. That means the U.S. House of Representatives gets to choose the president from among the top three electoral-vote recipients: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Evan McMullin.

However, under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, in the House each state gets one vote, and 26 votes are needed to choose the new President. That means Wyoming has just as much weight as California in the voting.

Currently, the Democrats control 14 House delegations. Three are split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. And Republicans control 33 delegations. Those number may change a little after the election, but unless there’s a wave of support for Democrats (which would mean a Clinton victory in the electoral college anyway, so it would never have gotten to the House) the Republicans will control a significant majority of the House delegations, and the Democrats will be several states short of the 26 needed.

Now, here’s the point where people who know enough to get this far tend to make their big mistake: “But the Democrats will be united behind Clinton, while the Republicans will be split between Trump and McMullin. That will allow Clinton to pick up the extra states she needs.”

Here’s the reason that won’t happen: the Republicans will get to write the rules about what determines whether a state is voting for a particular candidate. Because they are not completely stupid, and because they hate Clinton, they will write the rules so that it requires a majority of a state delegation to vote for one candidate, or else the state’s vote isn’t counted. So, if the Republicans in a state they control are divided between Trump and McMullin, Clinton doesn’t get that state’s vote.

Therefore, it is politically impossible for Clinton to be elected by the House.

So, even in the extremely unlikely event that McMullin wins Utah and blocks the other candidates from getting an electoral college majority, it does not help Clinton get elected.

Forty days ago, I explained why I would be voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for President. Now, I’m going to explain why I’ve changed my mind.

On the issues, ISideWith.com shows I agree with McMullin (97%) about the same percentage as I do with Johnson (96%). I still think Johnson’s experience counts in his favor, but at this point it’s become clear that he’s not going to be competitive in Utah. He’s actually fallen in the polls over the past month. Meanwhile, McMullin is doing far better than I expected, with the latest poll putting him in second place, just 1% behind Trump (and 1% ahead of Clinton).

Now, it’s possible to envision an elaborate scenario in which McMullin wins Utah, neither Trump nor Clinton get 270 electoral college votes, and McMullin is chosen as president by the House of Representatives. The political science major in me would love to see that happen.

Realistically, though, there’s currently about an 85% chance Hillary Clinton will win the election. Nothing that happens in Utah, including a McMullin victory, is likely to make a difference to the outcome of this election.

But a McMullin victory would send a clear message to the Republican Party that Donald Trump was an unacceptable candidate, and hopefully the party will get the message and implement changes to their nomination process in order to avoid a repeat of this year’s fiasco.

UPDATE 10/17/2016: I have since switched to supporting Evan McMullin, as outlined in this blog post.

Over the past month and a half since resigning as precinct secretary/treasurer for my local Republican Party because I oppose Trump, I’ve done some serious thinking about who I will vote for.

So I’ve decided to support Johnson. If he can get in the debates, I think he might be able to win some electoral college votes, and there’s a slim chance he could deny both other candidates an Electoral College majority. (Fivethirtyeight.com’s projections currently say about a 0.5% chance.) The recently published Washington Post/SurveyMonkey poll of every state found Johnson at 23% in Utah, to Clinton’s 27% and Trump’s 34%, so there may be an opportunity for Johnson in my state (although the poll didn’t include McMullin, so his impact is uncertain).

Now, to deal with some objections:

1. But a vote for Johnson is a vote for Clinton! (Or: But a vote for Johnson is a vote for Trump!)
   No, it’s not. Let’s imagine Clinton and Trump are tied, and I get to choose who I vote for. If a vote for Johnson were equivalent to a vote for Clinton, then my voting would break the tie in Clinton’s favor. But it doesn’t break the tie. It has exactly the same effect on a tie that not voting at all would have. Which means that, from the perspective of those who claim that a vote for Johnson is a vote for Clinton, everyone who doesn’t vote is equivalent to a vote for Clinton. And since about 40% of Utah’s voting-age population doesn’t vote, all of them should count as votes for Clinton. Added to the about 25% who will actually vote for her, that gives Clinton about 65% of the vote. Trump might as well give up now. (Substitute Trump for Clinton in the above and adjust the numbers, and the same argument applies.)
2. OK, but if you don’t vote for Trump, Clinton might win! (Or: If you don’t vote for Clinton, Trump might win!)
   Well, if you don’t vote for Johnson, Trump or Clinton might win!
3. But Trump says he’ll implement [policy that I like]!
   I feel sorry for you because you think Trump can be trusted.
4. But Johnson can’t win!
   It is highly unlikely. But it is possible. However, voting is not always about winning. If it were, then there would be no point in voting for candidates who are way down in the polls. Right now, I think the Republican Party (and the Democratic Party, for that matter) need to be sent the message that when it comes to candidates, they chose . . . poorly. I think voting for Gary Johnson is the best way to send that message.
5. But Johnson isn’t a conservative!
   No, he’s not. But he’s generally in favor of limited government and fiscal responsibility, and against crony capitalism, all of which are relatively conservative positions — especially compared to Trump and Clinton.
6. But what about the Supreme Court?
   This. And this.
7. But Johnson is pro-abortion!
   Johnson believes Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, and that the issue of abortion should be left to the states. I believe he’s correct as to how the Constitution should be interpreted.
8. But Johnson smokes marijuana!
   He’s stopped for the campaign, and he’s promised not to smoke it if elected President. Besides, it’s been a while now since I decided the War on Drugs has been a failure, with costs and unintended consequences that far exceed any benefits. I favor decriminalizing drugs and dealing with drug addiction as a public health problem, not a criminal matter.

I’m sure some people will have other objections, but I think that covers most of them.

If you are enthusiastic about voting for Trump or Clinton, then I doubt I can say anything to persuade you to vote for Johnson. But if you’re looking at the choice of Trump or Clinton with distaste, then I suggest you give serious consideration to Johnson.

The 1880 U.S. Census recorded a John Oberlander living in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin. His wife is listed as Isabella Oberlander, a white female, age 30.

Isabella’s maiden name was Jones, and in the 1870 census she was recorded as a mulatto female, age 20.

Isabella was my great-great-grandmother. My family did not know about these census records until less than 10 years ago, and we were not certain to what extent they were reliable. But a few years ago I had my genes sequenced at 23andme.com, and it showed I had 1.7% Sub-Saharan African ancestry. That would correspond to my being about 1/64 black, and Isabella being about 1/4 black — which is presumably what enabled her to pass as white.

Through much of the 20th Century, some states classified people as black or white using the “one-drop rule“: if you had any black ancestry, you were considered black. The Supreme Court finally struck down those racial classification laws in Loving v. Virginia, the case that legalized interracial marriage nationwide. That case was decided on June 12, 1967 — about three months after I was born. So, for a brief part of my life, in some states, I would have been legally classified as black.

At the time I was born, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I am a member, did not allow anyone with any black ancestry to be ordained to the priesthood. Fortunately, that was changed by Official Declaration 2, on September 30, 1978 — about six months before I was old enough to be ordained a deacon.

Of course, since my great-great-grandmother Isabella passed as white and did not let her descendants know of her black ancestry, no one would have known I was legally black in some states or that I could not be ordained to the priesthood in the LDS Church. It wasn’t until my DNA test in 2013 that I knew for sure. However, that knowledge has certainly made the issues of slavery, racial segregation, and the priesthood ban for blacks feel a lot more personal to me.

Legally, the question of how much black ancestry is required for someone to claim to be black appears to be open. The U.S. Census Bureau allows you to self-identify your race.

However, because I look white and was brought up as white, I don’t feel like I really have any right to identify myself as black on the basis of 1/64 ancestry.  So you probably won’t see me on any lists of black science fiction authors. (It’s different when it comes to identifying as Hispanic, because I did spend a significant portion of my childhood in Latin America, I was brought up bilingual in Spanish and English, and I knew my father was born and raised in Argentina.)