The Plan?

This article (with a slightly more in-depth alternate article here) by Charles Murray has an interesting proposal to completely scrap the current welfare state in America--regular welfare, social security, medicare/medicaid, everything--and replace it with a flat, all-encompassing payout of $10K per year to every adult American, $3K of which must be spent on health care (either health insurance or actual medical costs). I don't know that I like the plan well enough to defend it in a debate, but neither am I ready to dismiss it.

One of the biggest things the plan has going for it is exemplified by the first sentence of the referenced article: "This much is certain: The welfare state as we know it cannot survive." It is plain economic reality that barring some major reforms, welfare & entitlement spending will eventually go bankrupt, or bankrupt this country. It probably won't happen in the lifetimes of today's Baby Boomer generation, and there's a chance it might not even happen in the lifetimes of the Gen X crowd (my genereation). But beyond 2040 or 2050, all bets are off. On our current course, the Gen Y people are in for some miserable, terrifying retirement years. Younger generations will have it bad years or decades before they can even think of retiring.

And for what? Because Americans today, especially the politicians, don't have the will, the guts or the intellect to do something meaningful about this ass-backwards train wreck we're riding (or which is riding us).

"The plan" would be expensive at first: around $350 billion in its first year above what entitlement spending costs now. (Think Iraq war + Katrina spending.) It would break even with current spending in another 5 years, and beyond that will go on to save this country (and hence us) hundreds of billions of dollars every year, and many trillions over the course of decades, trillions which could be used to pay down the nation's debt or even--I know this may sound radical to some out there--stay in the pockets of those who earned it in the first place.

By greatly simplifying the structure of the entitlement welfare state, it would realize vast efficiencies in administrative costs and general gov't overhead. (Gov't is roughly half as efficient as private charities in terms of the fraction of dollars that ultimately reach the intended recipients.) It would also put more personal responsibility into the hands of recipients, something which some people might object to, but let's face it: if someone's going to blow their welfare handout on drugs, booze or gambling, they're already doing so now.

The effect this plan would have on jobs is mixed. It is pretty hard, though not impossible, to eke out an existence on $10K/year. (Actually $7K, as $3K would be diverted to health care.) This would put strong pressure on those currently unemployed on welfare to get at least a part-time job. On the plus side, with an income floor they would be under less time pressure to get a full-time, higher-paying job, which can be much harder to get than a part-time job if you're unemployed and/or unskilled. Current welfare is significantly reduced or eliminated for people who get part-time jobs, so with the added difficulty in getting a full-time job, it can be hard to get off of welfare.

On the other side of the jobs issue, having a comfy $10K margin to go on could encourage a lot of people to work less, switching from full-time to part-time. To be sure, those who enjoy their current jobs or don't want a reduction in income wouldn't make the move, but others may decide they would rather have more free time. This could have the effect of reducing the tax base necessary to pay for this program. It could just as well, however, create enough of a pull on labor, especially in the part-time job market, to employ many currently-unemployed.

So at this point I'm not sure if this plan would be a net benefit, a negative, or a wash. What I do know, though, is that it is worth looking at by this country's policymakers.

Funny "screensaver"

OK, this is one of those things that's really bad, yet really good too. If Bush gets stuck, you can grab him with your cursor and drag him through a skinny opening, or throw him around like a rag doll. I don't normally condone violence against anyone, even tyrannical two-bit incompetent dictator presidents, but hey, this is a fun bit of pure escapist fantasy.

Censorship on the left

Many people associate censorship in this country with the holier-than-thou religious right, and this stereotype is far from unfounded. But censorship is most definitely a bipartisan issue, and those on the left have also seen fit to engage in censorship when offense is given to some group or cause favored by the Politically Correct.

Such is the case with the daily paper of my alma mater, UIUC. The Daily Illini has seen fit to fire, by email no less, its Editor in Chief, Acton Gorton, for the high crime of daring to publish the Danish Mohammed cartoons. The article linked to in the title pretty much says it all.

I have always been proud to have gotten my degree from UIUC, but this action is nothing short of shameful. The cowardly weasels involved in the firing should be ashamed, and should be required to take a course in First Amendment freedoms. Such overt censorship has no place in newspaper publishing, especially for a paper claiming to represent a student body as diverse and large as that found at UIUC.

This explains a lot!

Why has the federal gov't continued to pile on more and more debt? This quote may explain why:

"Things have gotten really bad, though, if the government thinks that only terrorists pay off their debts."

Read the full background story (it's short!) here.

Some numbers to digest

Can we say, "unsustainable?"

What the federal gov't cost every household in 2005: $21,800 ($2.4 trillion budget divided by 110 million households)
What the federal gov't will be costing every household by 2016: $25-29,000 (adjusted for inflation)
Cost of everything now which is actually federal tax (on average): 19-22%

Growth in the size of gov't:
Since 2001, 5 years ago: 45% (7.75% annual growth)
Over the past century: 25,000% (5.67% annual growth)

US population growth rate over past century: 1.3% (just 0.92% for 2005, est.)
Nominal growth in per capita GDP over past century (with inflation): 11,760% (4.9% annual growth)
Real growth in per capita GDP over past century (corrected for inflation): 651% (1.9% annual growth)

Real growth in per-capita GDP times population growth: 3.2% (limiting gov't growth to this amount would keep it at zero growth in "real" terms; see various TABOR proposals)

National debt (1986): $2 trillion
National debt (2006): $7.7 trillion ($70,000 per household)
Annual growth of debt, past 20 years: 7.0%
Actual national debt if, as companies are required to do, all future liabilities are included: $72 trillion ($654,500/household!)

What the gov't will be spending every second under Bush's proposed 2007 budget: $87,836

Wake up, people!! You're being robbed blind. Congress may sincerely believe they have the best interests of America in mind, but their actions will bring this country to eventual ruin.

Sources: here, here, here, here, & here.

Yet more Big Brother run amok

Remember the Census? That questionaire thingy you have to fill out every ten years? Its purpose is to give the gov't a reasonably accurate count of the population and its distribution for purposes of determining Congressional districts. It's actually one of the few bureaucracies actually mentioned in the Constitution and thus actually legitimate for the gov't to be doing, at least as far as actual people-counting goes.

I've had some personal experience with the Census myself: in 2000 I was a "census enumerator," which is a fancy way of saying that I handed out & collected questionaire forms from a table set up in various dorms of the local university, UIUC. I was also part of a team that went out around town to parking garages, parks, & other places looking for homeless people to count. All in all it was an interesting and positive experience, despite the paperwork. Even my supervisor, who was either fundamentalist or evangelical (I'll admit I often have trouble telling the two apart), was fun to work with.

The local Census operated out of a rented office space in downtown Champaign, IL. There I saw for the first time the 100% corrugated cardboard office desk, a marvel of disposability and cardboard engineering which I'm guessing the gov't still managed to pay way too much for. (In case you're wondering, they were actually surprisingly sturdy.)

One other thing that sticks in my mind from that experience was hearing about the budget shortfall. Several weeks before the work was actually completed, word came down from the higher-ups that our branch (which, IIRC, covered Champaign County) had already gone over its budget by double. Well I suppose that one of the good things about gov't agencies compared to the private sector (good, at least, from their perspective) is that there is an almost endless pot o' gold to dip from--namely, taxpayers. Budget overruns are certainly a source of worry, but not nearly to the degree as is the case with private companies. How many gov't agencies have you ever heard of who had to close their doors forever because they went bankrupt? At worst, usually what happens is the agency will simply lay off low-level employees who don't make that much to begin with.

But I digress. As I said, overall the work experience was, despite its occasional tediousness, a positive one. I was one of the people who got to man tables at the college dorm. I both worked with and met an interesting mix of people. One student in particular, I recall, when asked about his ancestry on the form, was adamant in his insistence that he was precisely 1/3rd Irish. He either couldn't understand, or didn't care about, our explanations that being 1/3rd anything was genetically impossible. I hope he wasn't majoring in biology. If so, maybe he got a job working for the Discovery Institute.

Most people got the short form of the Census, which consists of six basic questions and is fairly quick and painless to fill out. A few, about 1 in 6 IIRC, got the long form, which went into more detail about all kinds of asinine things like what kind of plumbing you have in your house. The long form was probably a bit less painful and time-consuming to fill out (though not by much) than a 1040 tax form. Probably 90%+ of the complaints and questions we got from people, were because of the long form.

At the time, I sympathized with those for whom the long form gave difficulty, though being a part of "the machine," I didn't say much out loud. A few people complained that the gov't simply had no business knowing the kind of things they were asking. Quite frankly, they had a point. Still, the long form fell short of being truly excruciating, and there was some cold comfort in knowing that roughly 1/6th of the population also had to deal with it.

That's changed now, and not for the better.

Now comes news of three rather insidious expansions of the Census Department's inquisitiveness into true Big Brother territory. The first is the use of a much longer, and much more personal questionaire. At 73 questions it is more than twice as long as the previous long form. Click on the link above to see what kind of personal info they are now wanting to know.

The second expansion is that these forms are no longer sticking to the every-ten-years time scale, but have in fact already been mailed to a number of people. Might we eventually have to fill out Census forms yearly, as we already have to do with our tax returns? Major elections affected by Census numbers are, at most, every two years, you might say. But most of the info on the regular long form is already totally irrelevant to determining Congressional districts. It's being collected for no other reason than because the gov't wants to know. Both the nature of the questions, and the non-10-year timetable of the new Inquisition-length form do away with any facade of being used for redistricting purposes.

The third form of expansion is in the sheer insidiousness of this new form. It's only being mailed to a few isolated people in remote locations, apparently designed from the start to try to avoid the light of media glare. Furthermore, in a very Orwellian move, it not only threatens a $5,000 fine for not completing it, but essentially deputizes the recipient into an involuntary Inquisitor of anyone who lives in the same household. It forces the recipient, by threat of law, to extract all info from his housemates, a la the secret police of East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Orwell's Oceania. Can you imagine that conversation? "Yeah, I know these are intensely personal questions about your income, medical and psychiatric history. But if you don't tell me all they want to know, we're both screwed!" And in a move that Big Brother would be proud of, the form stipulates that any info collected may be shared with "other agencies." If the info you provide doesn't match up with the info the gov't has already obtained about you, look out!

A couple columns down I asked, What happens when the gov't becomes the enemy? The enemy of any expectation whatsoever of privacy, the enemy of being able to live free without fear of the gov't? How much more of this are we really prepared to put up with, for no good reason? Hopefully, not much more.

Thought for the day: A question for creationists

Cretinists--er, creationists--often argue that the phenomenon of "irreducible complexity" (irreducible to them, anyway) is evidence for a Creator or Designer. This begs the question, though: Is their god irreducibly complex? If so, then who created their god?

We atheists already know the answer to that one.... ;-)

What happens when gov't becomes the enemy?

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." -- Plato, Greek philosopher (427-347 BC)

The worst sort of betrayals come from those sources you most want to believe in. And when they betray you, it can be hardest to admit that they've done you a grave wrong. And so it has become in this country.

To many or most Americans, the American gov't and the country of America are synonymous; you can't have one without the other. It is the American gov't which, through the Constitution and Bill of Rights, grants us our most cherished freedoms. It is the gov't which is charged with protecting those freedoms from those who would want to destroy what it means to be an American, to be free. It is the gov't which shields us from oppression and tyranny...right?

What happens, then, when that same gov't becomes the source of oppression and tyranny, not merely against the "undesireables" of society (criminals, terrorists, etc.), but against everyday, innocent civilians?

To more than a few, admitting that the gov't itself is guilty of treason against freedom is akin to turning in one's own parent or child to the KGB, or admitting that your religious beliefs are totally false. It's just something that many people are not prepared to do on a deep emotional level. This reluctance to admit deep wrongdoing on the part of an entity we want to believe in, unfortunately only allows it to go that much further into tyranny.

In the past, I have been reluctant to give a free ride to either the Dems or Repubs; both are offenders of freedom and American ideals. As a libertarian, I have often watched in dismay while Dems blame Repubs for everything bad even as they turn a blind eye to their own ignorance, incompetence and corruption, while Repubs do likewise against Dems while excusing their own misdeeds. I have been hesitant to ever claim that one side is substantially worse than the other, for fear that doing so may unduly take focus away from the bad deeds of the other side.

And sure enough, it usually wasn't long before the other side would do something at least as egregious. Repubs acting like fascists under Bush Senior? Sure, but then came Janet Reno and Waco. Dems acting like tax-and-spend drunken sailors? Sure, but then came Bush Jr. and a Repub-controlled Congress who have taken federal spending, pork, and debt to stratospheric levels. (Reagan would be spinning in his grave, were he not guilty of the same in his time.)

So even though I'm not and have never been a Bush supporter, it nonetheless comes as no easy task for me to say, that Bush Jr. has got to be one of, if not the, worst President in American history.

Now when I say "worst," I don't mean "most disliked" or "most at odds with my personal beliefs." I mean, worst for the economic health of this country, worst for its future, and worst offender of America's most cherished notions of what it means to be free.

Of course, there's more than enough blame to go around; Bush himself is not solely responsible for all that's happened. There are the members of his administration, and 500+ members of Congress (Dems & Repubs) who have all acted in concert to put in motion the machinery of oppression and ruin.

What, exactly, is this machinery? What precisely is the blame for? Well, where to begin....

How about federal budgets, and debts, which have been growing much faster than the rate of population or economic growth? This is simply unsustainable, and a recipe for economic ruin.

Warrantless wiretaps on Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism.

National ID cards. Are your papers in order?

Orwellian police states in our airports. "Please remove your shoes, forfeit your nail clippers, wait while we check to see if you vaguely match the description of some secret list of people, and have a good flight!"

Military tribunals for American citizens--no access to defense lawyers, no opportunity to confront, examine or refute secret evidence, no opportunity to defend yourself.

Secret "black prisons" in totalitarian countries. Abuse and torture of prisoners. Indefinite detention without charges.

The ability to examine any American's medical records, financial records (banks & credit cards), library books checked out, etc., even if there is no indication of involvement with terrorism.

And the latest offense (that we know of), the deliberate infiltration of pacifist groups (one confirmed, and possibly 100+ others; see link 1, below) whose only "crime" is being anti-war. This is, unfortunately, nothing new, but it is still disturbing to see this specter from the past active again. (Link 1, link 2, link 3.)

Both the nazis and the communists at their heights of power (and terror) used such powers themselves, and like the current administration, justified such abuses and tyranny on the grounds of national defense, keeping the "homeland" safe, and routing out boogeymen. And if liberties end up permanently curtailed, protests chilled, thousands of innocents harassed, spied on, and even rounded up, well, it's all for your own good, and all you need to do is trust the gov't, not be of middle-eastern descent, and not join any groups the gov't doesn't like.

With every passing day, the American gov't grows more and more similar to the totalitarian regimes it once so proudly denounced. And like them, it paints these increasing curbs on our liberties and privacy as necessary for our protection and well-being. It tells us that if we're good, that we have nothing to fear. But it neglects to tell us that its definition of "good" may be totally different from ours. It asks us to trust that it will never abuse its vast powers for its own gain, or simply for the sake of exercising its powers. It tells us that many of these measure are temporary, just until we can eradicate every last bit of evil everywhere in the world for all time. It tells us, this is not tyranny, but freedom.

And most of us want to believe it, because this is our own gov't. Of us, by us, for us.

So what are we to do when our own gov't starts destroying our freedoms and privacy, just as surely as any communist dictator or sharia-implementing muslim fundamentalist? The first step, as with any problem, is to admit that there is a problem. A big problem. Stop defending, apologizing for, or attempting to justify these misdeeds. Keep shining the light on them. Fight to keep gov't transparent and accountable. Keep yourself educated. And refuse to give in to tyranny.

See also: this article.

Repubs are for free markets & capitalism? I don't think so....

One of the many reasons I dislike the GOP is because they falsely claim to be in support of capitalism & free markets, when what they practice is anything but. How many Repubs out there--particularly of the neocon variety--have you heard speak out against subsidies (the lion's share of which goes to mega-farms, not mom-&-pop farms)? Against corporate welfare? Against business-gov't cronyism? Against pork projects & earmarks that benefit businesses (especially in their own districts)? Against gov't-mandated employee "benefits" like social (in)security or medicaid/medicare?

Repub hypocracy with respect to free markets is not in itself the only damage they're doing to economic liberty. Their hypocracy has been used to great effect by liberals & other free market-haters to paint capitalism as a cruel, corrupt, impoverishing system of greed and cronyism--everything that it is not, but everything that Repubs themselves put into practice and call capitalism.

It's always refreshing when I come across an article that shows that I am not alone in these thoughts, especially when the article is well-written and expands on the original point. This article does just that, and goes further to show how it's not just the Dems, but much of the gov't itself which is perpetuating these false images. The article is ultimately a call to arms for libertarians to speak up to dispell these myths & lies, but also does a valuable service in exposing the sources of all this misinformation & propaganda.

So for my part, I would call on all Bush-supporting neocons out there to take a good hard look at what exactly it is you've been supporting with his economic policies, and either start advocating real capitalism, or stop calling yourselves capitalists, because you are anything but.

gay marriage, interracial marriage

For some time I've wondered if I was the only one who saw virtually no difference between the arguments against gay marriage today, and those against interracial marriage a couple generations ago:

• "God/the bible prohibits it."
• "It's unnatural."
• "It's filthy."
• "If we allow this, then we'll eventually see people marrying animals."
• "It will lead to the degeneration of society."
• "It defies the definition of what a 'true' marriage is supposed to be."

Those arguments were total bullshit then, and they're total bullshit now. They are nothing more than excuses and rationalizations for the bigotry, gross ignorance and hatred of those making the arguments. Fortunately, most people no longer have a problem with interracial relationships, and a lot of those who do would feel embarrassed and ashamed if they expressed their opinions in public.

I'm not gay, but I am in an interracial marriage. I fully support gay marriage, though not (just) because of the parallels between gay & interracial marriage. I would support both gay and interracial marriages even if I weren't in the latter form of marriage myself. It's simply a matter of equal--yes, equal, not "special"--rights. This article does a fairly decent job of pointing that out.

One does not have to be a woman, after all, to support womens' suffrage, or a racial minority to support civil rights & racial equality. Freedom is simply not whole, until it encompasses the whole of society.

Now, about the military's ban on gay soldiers....

How to ruin health care

For all its faults, real or perceived, American health care is on the whole pretty good. Criticisms of it usually center around its lack of universality in insurance coverage. Many liberals in this country equate the "necessity" of having health insurance with the necessity of, say, breathing. This despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of hospitals do not turn away patients for lack of an ability to pay. (That is, in fact, a good part of the reason you can expect to pay $7 for a single aspirin in a hospital.)

Those who argue in favor of universal health care often do so from a gross ignorance of basic economics. Everything that universal health care is supposed to do, such as sheltering patients from the true cost of service, and increasing the customer base to 100% of the population, actually put strong upward pressure on prices. Since it also controls costs by force, though, the result is a significant decrease in both the quantity and quality of care.

This is especially evident in Canada's failing health care system, where new pharmaceuticals are introduced at less than half the rate as here in the States, and the waits for medical treatment are approaching ridiculous lengths. In England, kidney dialysis is seldom approved for anyone over the age of 55, because the limited medical resources are considered better spent on younger people who don't have just a decade or two to live anyway. And in many countries with socialized medicine, medical expenditures (the costs that the end patient isn't supposed to feel the effects of) are gobbling up budgets despite sharply rationed care.

Now, the Peoples' Republic of California may be following these other dimwits down the Feel-Good Road to Hell (paved, of course, with one part good intentions, to ten parts taxpayer moulah). As this well-researched article astutely points out, the consequences are almost inevitably going to be ruinous for both California's budget and health care industry, should they actually proceed with this. It would appear that once again, fundamental economic truths are being flat-out ignored in favor of feel-good political doctrine.

If this measure passes, I'd be tempted to chastise voters on their self-destructive decision, but most of them are simply the products of grossly incompetent public schools that teach little in the way of real, meaningful economics. The real people to blame are the politicians who vote in favor of bills like this, and especially the self-serving cretins who come up with these legislative cancers in the first place. They may not know much economics either (in fact I'm pretty sure they don't), but that does not lessen their culpability in voting for something that will ultimately decrease quality of health care and bankrupt future generations. Of course by the time the full effects of socialized medicine are felt in California, those who originally enacted it will have been out of office (and possibly deceased) for many years, leaving their successors--and all future Californians--to make the painful sacrifices and clean up the awful mess.

It's really a pity that there isn't some way of holding legislators personally responsible for such irresponsible, ignorant, ruinous, and costly acts. And no, I don't consider merely voting them out of office as any kind of accountability. Make the SOB's serve jail time, and have their fortunes & possessions liquidated and all future earnings confiscated as reparation (or at least the beginnings of reparations; how could one possibly repay tens of billions of dollars?). Yeah, I know that would never happen; politicians go to great lengths to shield themselves from any kind of real accountability for their legislative misdeeds. (Step one: vehemently deny they've ever passed any bad legislation.) But hey, we can dream of justice for our rulers, can't we?

"...while the rich get richer."

Many of you may recognize that title as part of a liberal catch-phrase. While bemoaning poor people getting poorer may be a legitimate gripe (at least if it's true), it's always disturbed me that many liberals feel the need to also point out that rich people are getting richer. Often, if there is any thought that goes into it at all, it is the mistaken notion of economics as a zero-sum game: that one person can only prosper at the expense of another. Getting a bigger piece of the pie necessitates someone else getting a smaller piece.

Those with more than an elementary-school level of understanding of capitalism (this excludes, sadly, probably at least half of all Democrats and a considerable number of Repubs as well) know that capitalism is an economic system of wealth creation, meaning it is not a zero-sum game.

(Side note: Many anti-evolutionists make the same mistake with regards to thermodynamics, when they argue that increasing complexity over time isn't possible due to entropy. They assume Earth is a closed energy system, which it certainly is not.)

I had previously assumed that bemoaning "the rich getting richer" was caused by a malicious form of envy. This article, however, paints a different picture. The gist of it is that most people apparently would rather be better off relative to their peers than better off in absolute terms. The example given is that most people would prefer a job making $100K/year in a company where most others only make $90K/year, rather than a job where they make $110K/year whilst their coworkers pulled in $200K/year. This is more than merely envy or a case of "keeping up with the Joneses" though. Earning or having less than your peers in relative terms is a signal that you are not as valued among them. Earning less could mean less job security (since presumably your job is not valued as much), while having less could potentially lead to social exclusion. And on a deeper evolutionary level, at least for men, those who tend to earn and have more also tend to be more successful at attracting mates and passing on their genes.

That said, I'm not quite prepared yet to give up on the notion of plain ol' class envy to explain the hatred of the rich among liberals and many poor. And it's certainly no basis for enacting liberal or socialistic economic policies which try to level the playing field, not by raising the poor, but by lowering the rich. Still, this is a good additional insight into such thinking.

Thought for the day: Optimism vs. pessimism

The pessimist complains, despite all the good things in life, "What is there to be happy about?"

The optimist proclaims, in spite of any bad things in life, "What is there to be unhappy about?"

Which side do you lean toward?

Crank calls from god

This article explores the dilemma of obedience to god when that obedience would mean doing something you and the rest of society would consider wrong or evil. If god commanded you to kill your (or another person's) kids, would you do it? Austin Cline writes:

The above question opens a huge can of worms for believers, which is why I think many simply try to avoid dealing with it. If you think that you have received such an order but believe that it’s from Satan rather from God, or merely a delusion, then how can you believe that anyone else who has claimed to received communication from God also wasn’t deluded or tricked? If you accept that such an order is genuine, how can you dismiss anyone else as being deluded?

In short, how would you have any way of knowing that it was actually god giving the order, and not a delusion?

At some basic level, humans often fall back upon their own judgement and values. If another person says they received orders from (or merely talk with) god, it's much easier to dismiss it as a delusion (or deception) if it's something that strikes you as being self-serving or not right. But people are much more hesitant to dismiss such things when it happens to themselves rather than to other people. The reason for this is that because hallucinations and other mental anomalies happen internally to one's mind, they can seem very real to the person they're happening to. Our real-world perceptions share the same mental space as hallucinations, thus the two can be hard to distinguish. So if a person thinks they are hearing a voice from god, it may be really quite difficult for that person to realize that it is, in fact, just an auditory hallucination. And of course, people generally do not want to admit (even to themselves) that they're not actually hearing real voices, because that would mean there's something wrong with them mentally.

I think it may be the case that those who are of a more rational mind, who practice rational thought regularly and are not prone to belief in things without evidence, may have a mental edge in protecting themselves from such rogue mental occurences. A person with a firm grip on reality may have a brain that wired to better protect against certain mental disorders and hallucinations. I'll admit I have absolutely nothing to back up this assertion with, and I do recognize that some mental disorders are unavoidable due to hormone imbalances or drug use. But if a person has the mental tools to recognize when his perceptions don't match with reality (i.e. that he's hallucinating), he may be less prone to "hearing voices from god" or "talking with god."

I think there's a good reason why atheists and other non-theists don't receive personal communiqués from god, and it's not because god doesn't like them.