Looooooong time readers will remember my "fair tax" proposal, the only one that is truly fair. But with Independence Day coming, I thought I'd try for another (ridiculous) tax idea. It wouldn't be fair in any sense of the word; it'd be better than fair, though.
As Barbie knows, a government's authority should derive from consent of the governed. The government never has the entire country's full consent, of course, but it does things that are more or less popular, like social security, health care "reform" or giving money to gang members.
So, how about this: How about no taxes?
Now, I realize they tried this with the Articles of Confederation, and it was a great weakness. But at the time we were a lot more States and a lot less United.
"But Blake," you say, "that would be the end of the government!"
"You have something on your cheek," I say. "Also, stop texting and driving."
It wouldn't be the end of the government if the government had the consent of the governed. I'm pretty radical, I know, but even I wouldn't want to see the government to go away completely. But when we allow the government to set its own levels of taxation, well, we get the current state, where we all pay about half of everything outright to various agencies with an added bonus suppression of our economic activity worth another half or more.
Run the government on donations. Run all of them on donations.
Also, allow taxpayers to allocate their money. Hate war, love handouts? Allocate your tax money to Welfare. Or, if your preferences are reversed, send it to Defense. Maybe even take it to the micromanagement level: Allow your donation to social security to be used for poor handicapped kids, but not rich old people. Or support the war in Afghanistan but not the one in Iraq.
Now, would this lead to some phenomenally bad decision making? Oh, yes, guaranteed. I don't know if we could have won the war in Iraq had we not persevered through unpopular times. On the other hand, we probably would have won Vietnam. Also, maybe Iraq wouldn't have been so unpopular if the administration had known that their success was tied to its popularity, and put some effort into explaining it.
Americans tend to be isolationists, though, so I suspect we'd see a quick drop in overseas military bases. Foreign aid—some of it would drop dramatically, of course, but some might actually go up.
War on drugs? I don't think there'd be huge support for it. But maybe if funds were limited, they could focus on the really bad stuff, and stuff aimed at kids.
The sort of business-squashing regulation industry that's bloomed over the past 100 years would be interesting. How many people would pay to support that? The real danger there would be that various industries would put a lot of money into regulation, then use that squash the competition.
Kind of like they do now. So, it's not a panacea. We'd still have to be paying attention. (Eternal vigilance, eh, what?) But, wow, what a feeling it would be. You'd really feel like you had some control. And various government agencies would bloody well have a good reason to treat you like a customer rather than a subject, wouldn't they?
I mean, hate the DMV? Don't fund it. If it has to shut down, the state could make a different plan up to better serve people. The IRS (and various state mini-IRSes) would be completely gone. Absolutely no need for a tax authority. The TSA would be a bad memory.
Tax time would be whenever you felt like it. The government could produce estimates of how much it needed to collect, monthly, quarterly, yearly. There'd be strong motivation to save a little cash in reserve for lean times.
Oh, yeah, the government would absolutely not be able to borrow.
Me? I'd pay $3,000-$4,000 a year for government. Maybe more. It's a little hard to gauge, since if it were drastically smaller, I'd be drastically better off, and feeling way more benevolent toward it than I currently am.
If you're thinking, as a lot of people probably would at this suggestion, that there's just no way that a government can exist without using force to collect money from people, I submit to you that no government really has the consent of the governed or could.
Now, if you want to argue that it's not fair, I agree. There would be tons of free-riders, just like the 50% or so of the population that pays no Federal income tax, or actually gets money back. I suspect, though, that quite a few of that 50% would donate. A lot of rich people wouldn't, probably more than the number of rich people who find ways out of paying taxes now.
But it would all be voluntary. A select few carry the burden of national defense for all of us. It's horribly unfair, but the only times you hear people complain we need a draft are when they want our national defense to be unpopular. (That's why some agitated so strongly for a draft at the height of the Iraq war's unpopularity.)
Some people would be exceeding generous while others would simply not donate at all. But there could be few complaints if none were forced into paying for things that they didn't want. And in this age of high-speed information, it's eminently do-able.
And if this couldn't work, the more interesting question become why not?
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Conservatives vs. Libertarians
I like AlfonZo Rachel, even if I disapprove of such liberal use of capital letters in the middle of his name, but I wanted to address the fallacy in his latest polemic, embedded herein. It's a good piece, worth watching for his take on Herman Cain as leader vs. representative. Trouble starts at about the 5 minute mark, though. Let's watch:
Money quote:
Which, come to think of it, a lot of libertarians do say. (These days you have to add an addendum that liberals want to control your body, too, just with regards to fat, salt, smoking, condoms and healthcare.) The irony is that this statement comes after a talk about getting ideas outside the conservative tent and is followed up with a rant on how libertarians want to claim to be conservative.
I've never, ever met a libertarian masquerading as a conservative. (OK, I haven't met Ron Paul, but he might qualify, though he's more masquerading as a Republican than a conservative.) In fact, what I see more is conservatives masquerading as libertarians, because the conservative cachet is mega-uncool, while you can be libertarian and still get invited to liberals cocktail parties. (I believe this is because liberals rightly perceive libertarians as no threat. But a lot of Tea Partiers are libertarian, and we know how liberals feel about them.)
Now, there's always been a grain of truth to the argument that libertarians really just want to engage in whatever vice they're saying the government shouldn't be meddling in. Some libertarians do just want to smoke their dope in peace, in-between whoring around and playing online poker with their winnings from their stock portfolio.
Whoops. See what I did there? Conservatives get all uptight because libertarians don't want the awesome power of the state used to shoot someone 71 times while "liberals" get all uptight because libertarians want to let people do what they want with their money. One says "How dare you do what you want with your body!" while the other says "How dare you do what you want with...", well, actually, anything at this point. Your body, your money, all your property—all of this is fair game to the modern "liberal". (I keep putting "liberal" in quotes because, remember, our Founding Fathers were all liberals back when the word meant libertarian. Co-opting the word "liberal" was the greatest trick the communists ever pulled.)
But let me get back to Zo, here. His next argument seems to be that you can't legalize drugs, prostitution and abortion without an entitlement society. There's no doubt that the two go hand-in-hand in a lot of ways, but it's the entitlement that makes destructive lifestyles not only possible but not even particularly unpleasant (financially).
This is where his argument really falls apart. What he (and other social conservatives) tells us is "Government is terribly ineffective in the economic arena, but it's oh-so-important in the social arena." Both are indefensible positions. One reason that social conservatives need to start (and are, in fact) trending more libertarian is because the government actively undermines their positions.
Government power cannot be used to strengthen the values that so-cons love, because government power is inherently self-serving, and the government hates the competition that socially conservative values rest on. Government is pro-abortion, anti-religion, anti-family, pro-casual-sex, pro-euthanasia, anti-culture, etc., etc., etc.
If conservatives don't trust the government to handle poverty, education and the economy, why on earth should they trust it to handle their most sacred values? (Conservatives actually did trust the government with education, long ago, and look how well that worked out.)
The exact same powers used to enforce conservative morality are used to justify "liberal" views of morality. Huckabee is much hated by some conservatives because of his fat kid initiatives when he was governor. But there was nothing illogical about what he did. If you start from the premise that the state must pay for children's health care, the logical conclusion is that the state must also have the power to dictate the activities of those children that impact their health. (That is, all of them.)
Is Huckabee a conservative? Why is it okay to regulate temperance and lust but not avarice and gluttony?
There are more bad arguments, but see if you can connect the thematic tie between Zo's arguments and most "liberals'":
Did you see it? Fiscal conservatives argue that people need the freedom to fail economically. Businesses need to fail. People need poverty as a motivation to improve their lots in life. Propping up bad ideas smothers good ideas.
This is no difference socially. People need to have the freedom to fail with their lives. (This is where social conservatives come in, as I'll explain at the end.) Trying to protect people from their failures also limits their possibility to succeed—and in the case of social issues, grants the government near omnipotence.
In the end, Zo conflates thinking drug use is good with wanting to decriminalize drug use which is exactly like "liberals" conflating conservatives objection to social programs to conservatives being for the problems those programs are meant to solve. Against Social Security and Medicare? You hate old, sick and disabled people. Against welfare? You want widows (these days "single mothers" as if that were a condition visited on women randomly) and orphans to die.
I know that some libertarians posit that the country would magically become nearly utopian if government got out of all of our lives. They even point to the first century of this country's existence as proof that you don't need all these vice-laws and their attendant limitations on freedom.
In reality, the truth is that removing the various vice-laws would cause an uptick in the various bad behaviors they're meant to restrict. How big, nobody knows (and some data seems to suggest it might eventually go down, even, in some situations).
There can be no doubt, the removal of the various nanny policies—and I'm including the left's economic programs and the right's morality programs—would have bad consequences. Poor people would be worse off. Some people would use drugs and ruin their lives. Exploitation. Sorrow. Despair.
But that's what we have now! With a bonus that we get massive government intrusion into all of our lives. Poor people are trapped by welfare. Drug addicts are not only trapped by drugs, they might get thrown in jail for good measure. Divorce rates are enormous and somehow I'm unconvinced that legalizing prostitution would be a huge factor (free sex has never been easier to get).
Point is, while it would be worse for some, it would be better for most, because we would have the autonomy our Founding Fathers fought for.
It's not that simple, of course: The Founding Fathers had a common, fairly rigid culture to conform to. A culture that valued honor, diligence, frugality, family, God and community. What we have now is a repressive government combined with a licentious culture—which is not a recipe for survival.
Traditional values are extremely important for our survival, but social cons should note how badly it works out when the government tries to enforce them. Social cons should also note, as Zo does, that the current "anything goes" point-of-view of the culture is highly destructive, and present their alternatives in that arena.
Not the government. The society. Social conservatives need to forge the bonds that tied us together in the past—and you can't do that with laws, even if you could get the laws passed.
I've heard that kids today are having lower divorce rates than their parents. Why? Because they come from broken homes or have seen what broken homes did to their friends. I know people who swore off drugs (or alcohol, for that matter) when they saw what it did to their loved ones.
People can observe. They can learn.
What social conservatives have to realize is that the government is not their friend, and the libertarian point-of-view prevents the government from working against them—and the government will always end up working against them. A lot of groups and individuals think they can master the power of the state, but it can't be tamed—it must be minimized.
Money quote:
A libertarian is just a liberal who doesn't have a love/hate relationship complex with capitalism.Whoa. That'd be like a libertarian saying "a conservative is just a liberal who's hung up on using the power of the state to control your body instead of just your money."
Which, come to think of it, a lot of libertarians do say. (These days you have to add an addendum that liberals want to control your body, too, just with regards to fat, salt, smoking, condoms and healthcare.) The irony is that this statement comes after a talk about getting ideas outside the conservative tent and is followed up with a rant on how libertarians want to claim to be conservative.
I've never, ever met a libertarian masquerading as a conservative. (OK, I haven't met Ron Paul, but he might qualify, though he's more masquerading as a Republican than a conservative.) In fact, what I see more is conservatives masquerading as libertarians, because the conservative cachet is mega-uncool, while you can be libertarian and still get invited to liberals cocktail parties. (I believe this is because liberals rightly perceive libertarians as no threat. But a lot of Tea Partiers are libertarian, and we know how liberals feel about them.)
Now, there's always been a grain of truth to the argument that libertarians really just want to engage in whatever vice they're saying the government shouldn't be meddling in. Some libertarians do just want to smoke their dope in peace, in-between whoring around and playing online poker with their winnings from their stock portfolio.
Whoops. See what I did there? Conservatives get all uptight because libertarians don't want the awesome power of the state used to shoot someone 71 times while "liberals" get all uptight because libertarians want to let people do what they want with their money. One says "How dare you do what you want with your body!" while the other says "How dare you do what you want with...", well, actually, anything at this point. Your body, your money, all your property—all of this is fair game to the modern "liberal". (I keep putting "liberal" in quotes because, remember, our Founding Fathers were all liberals back when the word meant libertarian. Co-opting the word "liberal" was the greatest trick the communists ever pulled.)
But let me get back to Zo, here. His next argument seems to be that you can't legalize drugs, prostitution and abortion without an entitlement society. There's no doubt that the two go hand-in-hand in a lot of ways, but it's the entitlement that makes destructive lifestyles not only possible but not even particularly unpleasant (financially).
This is where his argument really falls apart. What he (and other social conservatives) tells us is "Government is terribly ineffective in the economic arena, but it's oh-so-important in the social arena." Both are indefensible positions. One reason that social conservatives need to start (and are, in fact) trending more libertarian is because the government actively undermines their positions.
Government power cannot be used to strengthen the values that so-cons love, because government power is inherently self-serving, and the government hates the competition that socially conservative values rest on. Government is pro-abortion, anti-religion, anti-family, pro-casual-sex, pro-euthanasia, anti-culture, etc., etc., etc.
If conservatives don't trust the government to handle poverty, education and the economy, why on earth should they trust it to handle their most sacred values? (Conservatives actually did trust the government with education, long ago, and look how well that worked out.)
The exact same powers used to enforce conservative morality are used to justify "liberal" views of morality. Huckabee is much hated by some conservatives because of his fat kid initiatives when he was governor. But there was nothing illogical about what he did. If you start from the premise that the state must pay for children's health care, the logical conclusion is that the state must also have the power to dictate the activities of those children that impact their health. (That is, all of them.)
Is Huckabee a conservative? Why is it okay to regulate temperance and lust but not avarice and gluttony?
There are more bad arguments, but see if you can connect the thematic tie between Zo's arguments and most "liberals'":
- We're going to have to have more government intrusion, he argues, to enforce alimony and child support with all the broken families. Well, no, the Libertarian solution would be "You made a bad choice with whom you chose to have a child with. Deal with it."
- "To a libertarian, real freedom means being able to use drugs if you want to. Really?" He goes on to explain how awful drug dependence is (and says that alcohol is bad enough). Well, yeah, Zo: Really! The libertraian argument isn't that "drugs are good" it's that "government is bad".
- The black market, he says, won't go away, it'll just target minors. Honestly, the true libertarian argument here is: That's why they have parents. But assuming that's too extreme, he doesn't explain why it wouldn't be easier for drug enforcement wouldn't be easier if the various agencies involved only concerned themselves with minors. (I did smile at his notion that rich kids are "ripe for the pickin'". Sorry, dude, I grew up around rich kids and they never had any trouble getting drugs and never, ever, ever got into legal trouble.)
- Weirder, he then says these drugged out kids are going to want abortions paid for by the state. Well, they wouldn't go looking for it if it weren't possible to get them, Zo. (Also, being pro-life is not necessarily incompatible with libertarianism.)
Did you see it? Fiscal conservatives argue that people need the freedom to fail economically. Businesses need to fail. People need poverty as a motivation to improve their lots in life. Propping up bad ideas smothers good ideas.
This is no difference socially. People need to have the freedom to fail with their lives. (This is where social conservatives come in, as I'll explain at the end.) Trying to protect people from their failures also limits their possibility to succeed—and in the case of social issues, grants the government near omnipotence.
In the end, Zo conflates thinking drug use is good with wanting to decriminalize drug use which is exactly like "liberals" conflating conservatives objection to social programs to conservatives being for the problems those programs are meant to solve. Against Social Security and Medicare? You hate old, sick and disabled people. Against welfare? You want widows (these days "single mothers" as if that were a condition visited on women randomly) and orphans to die.
I know that some libertarians posit that the country would magically become nearly utopian if government got out of all of our lives. They even point to the first century of this country's existence as proof that you don't need all these vice-laws and their attendant limitations on freedom.
In reality, the truth is that removing the various vice-laws would cause an uptick in the various bad behaviors they're meant to restrict. How big, nobody knows (and some data seems to suggest it might eventually go down, even, in some situations).
There can be no doubt, the removal of the various nanny policies—and I'm including the left's economic programs and the right's morality programs—would have bad consequences. Poor people would be worse off. Some people would use drugs and ruin their lives. Exploitation. Sorrow. Despair.
But that's what we have now! With a bonus that we get massive government intrusion into all of our lives. Poor people are trapped by welfare. Drug addicts are not only trapped by drugs, they might get thrown in jail for good measure. Divorce rates are enormous and somehow I'm unconvinced that legalizing prostitution would be a huge factor (free sex has never been easier to get).
Point is, while it would be worse for some, it would be better for most, because we would have the autonomy our Founding Fathers fought for.
It's not that simple, of course: The Founding Fathers had a common, fairly rigid culture to conform to. A culture that valued honor, diligence, frugality, family, God and community. What we have now is a repressive government combined with a licentious culture—which is not a recipe for survival.
Traditional values are extremely important for our survival, but social cons should note how badly it works out when the government tries to enforce them. Social cons should also note, as Zo does, that the current "anything goes" point-of-view of the culture is highly destructive, and present their alternatives in that arena.
Not the government. The society. Social conservatives need to forge the bonds that tied us together in the past—and you can't do that with laws, even if you could get the laws passed.
People can observe. They can learn.
What social conservatives have to realize is that the government is not their friend, and the libertarian point-of-view prevents the government from working against them—and the government will always end up working against them. A lot of groups and individuals think they can master the power of the state, but it can't be tamed—it must be minimized.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Atlas Giggled
So we went to see this film Atlas Shrugged, Part 1. You may have heard of it. It's based on a book or something.
Can you tell this is going to be impossible for me to write without snark?
Let me get this out of the way: The Boy liked this movie. He said, "At first it was too much qq and not enough pew-pew," which I gather means something like "it started slowly, evoking concern in the viewer that it would never get off the ground, but when it finally got moving, it was interesting."
I always like to get The Boy's opinion first so mine doesn't influence him. In this case, I really had to bite my tongue. I've heard a lot about the book, and of course, you can't ever believe what you hear, because this movie has a MESSAGE, and it's a message book-reviewing commies have never liked. So they trash the book. And the movie could expect (and received) similar treatment.
Still, two words: Hot mess.
Wait, one word: Rifftrax.
Or two words: Cinematic Titanic.
Or a portmanteau: Fanfic.
I had this feeling when I was watching this movie that I was reading fan fiction. I realize it's an original story but the protagonist, Dagny Taggert, comes off as a Mary Sue. Seriously, you know who's good and who's bad based on how they feel about Dagny. And her dialog is stilted, to say the least, especially in the opening scenes.
It actually gets worse when Henry Rearden shows up, with his super-steel that's poised to save Dagny's railroad. This culminates in the most awkward sex scene since Watchmen.
I'm not inclined to blame the actors here. The dialog is awful. I mean, let's say I was trying to make a point about hating coffee, and wrote a dialogue where character A says "Yeah, it all went to hell when people started liking coffee!" and character B responds with "Why are people so crazy about coffee these days?" (Don't hurt me, Darcysport! It's just an example! Coffee is wonderful!)
Point is, Taylor Schilling and Grant Bowler (Taggert and Rearden respectively) aren't looking good here. Some of the supporting actors do okay, I think largely because they have fewer actual words to speak. Patrick Fischler as Taggert's assistant does well, and the great Michael Lerner manages to power through as the villainous Wesley Mouch, while Armin Shimerman is compelling as the weaselly state scientist.
The frustrating thing is, there is a good story here and there are so many echoes with modern life. Basically, Dagny is trying to save her family railroad from the mismanagement of her brother, while Taggert has invented a new steel that can quadruple the load capacity for high speed transport. Dagny and Henry are constantly being flanked by their competitors who prefer to go to the government rather than compete fairly.
And all the while good, competent men are vanishing, leaving behind only the mysterious phrase "Who is John Galt?"
And the movie does get better when the train stuff starts. So, what holds this movie back?
Can you tell this is going to be impossible for me to write without snark?
Let me get this out of the way: The Boy liked this movie. He said, "At first it was too much qq and not enough pew-pew," which I gather means something like "it started slowly, evoking concern in the viewer that it would never get off the ground, but when it finally got moving, it was interesting."
I always like to get The Boy's opinion first so mine doesn't influence him. In this case, I really had to bite my tongue. I've heard a lot about the book, and of course, you can't ever believe what you hear, because this movie has a MESSAGE, and it's a message book-reviewing commies have never liked. So they trash the book. And the movie could expect (and received) similar treatment.
Still, two words: Hot mess.
Wait, one word: Rifftrax.
Or two words: Cinematic Titanic.
Or a portmanteau: Fanfic.
I had this feeling when I was watching this movie that I was reading fan fiction. I realize it's an original story but the protagonist, Dagny Taggert, comes off as a Mary Sue. Seriously, you know who's good and who's bad based on how they feel about Dagny. And her dialog is stilted, to say the least, especially in the opening scenes.
It actually gets worse when Henry Rearden shows up, with his super-steel that's poised to save Dagny's railroad. This culminates in the most awkward sex scene since Watchmen.
I'm not inclined to blame the actors here. The dialog is awful. I mean, let's say I was trying to make a point about hating coffee, and wrote a dialogue where character A says "Yeah, it all went to hell when people started liking coffee!" and character B responds with "Why are people so crazy about coffee these days?" (Don't hurt me, Darcysport! It's just an example! Coffee is wonderful!)
Point is, Taylor Schilling and Grant Bowler (Taggert and Rearden respectively) aren't looking good here. Some of the supporting actors do okay, I think largely because they have fewer actual words to speak. Patrick Fischler as Taggert's assistant does well, and the great Michael Lerner manages to power through as the villainous Wesley Mouch, while Armin Shimerman is compelling as the weaselly state scientist.
The frustrating thing is, there is a good story here and there are so many echoes with modern life. Basically, Dagny is trying to save her family railroad from the mismanagement of her brother, while Taggert has invented a new steel that can quadruple the load capacity for high speed transport. Dagny and Henry are constantly being flanked by their competitors who prefer to go to the government rather than compete fairly.
And all the while good, competent men are vanishing, leaving behind only the mysterious phrase "Who is John Galt?"
And the movie does get better when the train stuff starts. So, what holds this movie back?
- Dialog, as noted.
- Characterization. Dagny and Henry are off-putting. I assume this is according to the tenets of Objectivism. They not only are against altruism, they seem to have no comprehension of it. Besides ringing false, the two of them come off as almost Asperger's.
- Worldview. There seems to be the view not just that the big players are titans, but also that everyone else utterly depends on them. I don't doubt there are titans in the world, but if the last 15 years have shown us anything, it's that the economy is powered best by lots and lots of little players. Which brings us to...
- Archaicness. Railroads? Steel? Really? Good lord, the government's machinations are so unConstitutional that—well, they look a lot like a health care mandate, only not quite as bad as that—and yet the whole focus on rails and steel and ore comes off as a little silly.
- Music. I'm not sure I blame the composer, but the music actually competes with the dialog for clunkiness, the way it's used to create emotion that really doesn't seem to be there. (Fun fact: Composer Elia Cmiral scored After Dark Horror Fest flicks Tooth and Nail and The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Elia Cmiral also scored Battlefield Earth, which this movie reminds me of. It, too, was made over the course of many years, and it, too, was a hot mess worthy of Rifftrax.
Ace of Spades was planning to do a review of this film, and chided his readers for not seeing it when it first came out, arguing that if conservatives want conservative movies, they need to support conservative movies.
This isn't a conservative movie, though. It's a movie about the perils of unlimited government and populism which, while I can get behind that and push with both hands, actually undermines its own case by making its leads be amoral.
I mean, I can't swear Dagny's had an abortion, but it wouldn't surprise me.
It seems to me that the stronger argument for limited government is that people do the right thing when left alone by the government, not people are as shallow as you think but that's no excuse for limiting freedom. I agree with the latter point, but it makes a crappy movie.
That said, the left-wing attacks on it that take it on from a philosophical POV have been largely absurd. The enemy in this film is the collusion of government with business. In no way are businesses in general the good guys here, just a few good guys fighting the world.
I'll go see part 2 if they make it, but I can't really recommend it, except as a curiosity. It was really hard for me to sit through, actually, and I laughed out loud inappropriately at several points.
But I'm used to being the only guy laughing and, as I said, the Boy liked it.
UPDATE: Ace of Spades' review here.
UPDATE: Ace of Spades' review here.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Black Holes? Yeah: Racist
Buncha twits tweeted about this NAACP vs. Hallmark story, which really must be watched to be believed. It's a must-see.
A cynical person might wonder if the NAACP had been holding on to this, uh, race card racist card for three years just waiting for a time when they needed to bolster the credibility of charges of racism.
"Blackness is being made fun of...again!"
Honestly, where have these people been? It's being made fun of again since...when, exactly? "Amos and Andy"? Ted Danson's blackface costume?
And the perpetrator of this heinous crime? That edgy, boundary-pushing comedic daredevil known as Hallmark. That's right, Hallmark made a card that talks about "black whores". It's just like them.
Do these people realize how stupid they look? Indeed, are?
More than anything, they remind me of the stories my dad would tell about when he was a kid and he heard about some new dirty rock and roll song. He'd of course immediately go get the single and play it (over and over again) trying to hear the dirty words.
He was always disappointed. But then, he was honest about what he heard.
These guys? They're nothing more than the modern incarnation of the FBI playing the Kingsman's rendition of "Louie, Louie" over and over again, trying to hear the dirty words.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Why I Dropped A Whole Bunch Of Semi-Celebrity Tweeters
Twitter is an interesting thing on a lot of levels. Way more interesting than it should be, really. After all, it's just a massive stream of unrefined short communications that you tap into selectively—and then, very often, just whittle down again.
The levels of the smears were the same level, too. First they went after her for the way she dressed, then they went after her for changing the way she dressed. They fabricated lies to smear her with than echoed them back-and-forth to each other as if they were fact. Their fury, increasingly impotent though it is, continues to rail at this woman who dares to survive and flourish even though she's hopelessly, terminally uncool.
It's so amorphous as to be only as useful as you make it, and not really designed for the OCD-types like myself. My inclination is to want to read everything someone I'm following writes, but that's only realistic for a smallish number of people. My time being so scarce lately, when I get to Twitter, I focus on the Althouse-lists like Darcy's coffee-hellos or Ruth Anne's FTA list.
Even then, I have to stop myself from paging back, back, back.
I used to follow a bunch of celebrities. Not exactly A-Listers. Mostly comedians, vets and wannabes, and some musicians. But I had—and have—a rule: Mock Palin and you're off the list.
It's not that I'm a Palin fan, though I think she's very clearly an admirable woman. (Also, while I'm damning with faint praise, I think it's pretty clear at this point that of the four of them, she'd have been the most consistently sensible President.) But the smear campaign run against her was the most appalling thing I've seen since Junior High. And that's about the level of it: The cool kids, who are cool solely by virtue of agreeing that they're cool and having the megaphone, decided to hate the pretty newcomer who wasn't one of them.
The levels of the smears were the same level, too. First they went after her for the way she dressed, then they went after her for changing the way she dressed. They fabricated lies to smear her with than echoed them back-and-forth to each other as if they were fact. Their fury, increasingly impotent though it is, continues to rail at this woman who dares to survive and flourish even though she's hopelessly, terminally uncool.
Nobody should understand this better than a comedian. Comedians are almost universally losers. Ostracized growing up. (Maybe not Dane Cook.) Still on the outside of society in a lot of ways.
And, frankly, when I see them piling on, I find it pathetic. It's such a cheap shot.
I forget what it was that Palin had done—maybe the "death panel" comment—but I ended up dumping most of the celebs I followed when they started mouthing off about her. I don't even remember who they are any more, for the most part.
James Urbaniak (who plays Dr. Venture on the inestimable Venture Bros. cartoon) was particularly vile, and not the only one. I almost felt bad for dropping Michelle Collins because she actually pleaded "Please don't drop me" right after her joke. Dana Gould—Jeez, I've always loved Gould's dark schtick, which is almost entirely centered on being a doomed loser, and he, this guy who looks like he's never been so much as camping, decided to take a shot at Palin's grasp of reality.
Who else? Oh, the lovely and talented musician Marian Call. She actually didn't make a comment directly because she's smart enough to avoid those subjects, and said as much. And then...the temptation must have been too much, since she coyly linked to a really gross insult.
Does unfollowing mean I won't be supporting these people in the future? Yeah, actually, it probably does, at least for a little while.
I'm not much for fairness, but the whole assault on the Governor was so unfair as to get my hackles up. And I think this was obvious and blatant, and anyone being honest should be able to see that.
And, come to think of it, I never see comments like that from the few A-Listers I follow. (Kelsey Grammer, Kirstie Alley, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, etc.) I think that confirms my thesis about what's behind the attacks.
Ends, Means and the Arbitrary Execution of Power
My sister used to like to, as a sort of coup-fourré of any argument, snap "So, you're saying the end justifies the means."
It stumped me for a while, because everyone knows the ends don't justify the means. But then I realized she had reframed the argument in the wrong way, and began to retort, "The means don't require justification!" What I had realized was that she didn't like the ends, and was attacking the means rather than just coming right out and saying she didn't like the ends. (Sometimes she also didn't like the means, because she really didn't much like it when I did anything.)
I thought of this while I was driving and, as many of us do, wondering about whether I might be pulled over. I wasn't doing anything wrong I don't think. I wasn't speeding, hadn't done any reckless lane changes. I was driving the Bumblebee, which may not be compliant with all the laws. (I recently had to outfit it with a new catalytic converter to pass a smog test.)
And it reminded me of something Althouse said a while ago that appalled me: She said that universally applying the law would be horrible. I think she even used traffic laws as an example.
I, on the other hand, tend to view universal application to be a necessary requirement for justice and reasonable governance. Speed limit laws? If they were universally applied, they'd quickly be (mostly) repealed. And so it is with, I think, most of the laws—particularly "regulations", which are of course just laws that have been passed in violation of the way the Constitution allows—would go away were they all enforced.
What this means is that the government gets to pick-and-choose who to prosecute, allowing for the arbitrary exercise of power. This is often done for political reasons, but it's also just done because it can be.
This is particularly relevant in light of the recent James O'Keefe case, where he was prosecuted for doing what has been standard practice in journalism for as long as I can remember. Burying the lede about Senator Landrieu's lying, the old media completely unselfconsciously is labeling O'Keefe a "criminal" and an "activist" for doing what they've been doing since I was born.
It's such a dog-bites-man story these days that it's barely worth noticing, much like the old media itself. "It's only okay when we do it," they're telling us.
But this itself made me reflect on the phrase "the end justifies the means", and how the thinking of that is meant to be the very epitome of evil.
But when you think about it, the intended end is the only thing that can rationalize any means. I mean, think about it: You suffer many injustices in your day-to-day life, don't you? (I know I do. Well, maybe not many, but enough.) But you don't (e.g.) fly a plane into the nearest Federal building because they ripped you off on your taxes.
OK, some people do, but we call them crazy, even if we agree they were poorly treated.
People always end up talking about Nazis when this ends/means thing comes up. But the Nazis had no trouble with the means—the means were, in fact, the point. The end was what was hazy. "We'll kill all the Jews and life will be great!" Hitler sure didn't believe that. He thought actually achieving that end would be awful and require him to make up a new target.
Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions. In their cases, the means actually were the ends. Yeah, I know all the blather about justice and immanetizing the eschaton and what-not, but the point of communism (and socialism and environmentalism and fascism) is raw, naked power which is what any dictator ends up with. Power and the ability to continue to exercise it.
(Sort of tangentially related, Matt & Ezra's Excellent Adventure continues unspoiled. One of them is bound to win the Walter Duranty Award for Oustandingly Naive Journalism.)
Nothing really revelational here, I just always find it interesting when I end up analyzing something I've assumed for years and found it not to be all that true.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
I Like The Cut Of This Buckley's Jib.
I've not really been up on William F. Buckley (referred to as Mr. Fbuckley on "Laugh In", if tales my parents have told me are true...) but I came across this at The Other McCain:
I think this is exactly right, if better thought out than "liberals" actually do any more. Except for being based on a mountain of fallacies, it even sounds reasonable.
They are men and women who tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason; that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable, and should be scientifically eliminated; that all peoples and societies should strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm.
I think this is exactly right, if better thought out than "liberals" actually do any more. Except for being based on a mountain of fallacies, it even sounds reasonable.
I wonder if there's a mirror-image on the left, where "liberals" describes "conservatives" as accurately? Oh, wait, that's right there is!
Racists!
Touché, statists.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
In Which I Admit I Was Wrong
I have been saying sardonically since November of 2008 that's Obama would be the greatest President ever. Because he was so transparently an unreconstructed Marxist and because I knew that he would overreach, I figured this put him ahead of a squishy John McCain, who would move us down the road to socialism while the press decried it as conservatism, just as they did with Bush even when he was doing things that were "liberal".
Unlike some, I'm not so cynical that I could actually vote for Obama on that basis, but I figured it would play out that way.
Worst-case scenario would be that someone on Obama's team might actually understand economics and fixed the economy—which really isn't that difficult if you're not a true believer in communism. With a repaired economy, the administration would have a blank check as far as implementing social programs like health care reform and providing graft to all their buddies.
Fortunately, they've drunk their own Kool-Aid so they really don't understand cause-and-effect. They actually believe a command-and-control economy can work.
Even more fortunately, the American people seem to have woken up to the dangers of overreaching government. I've been predicting an electoral bloodbath for November for the past year, but I think the actuality may exceed even my expectations. The goal should be to make health care reform so toxic that a veto proof majority will vote to repeal it—and given how bad it's currently faring after only a few days, I don't think that this is as wild notion as it might have seemed a few months ago.
So how am I admitting I was wrong? I think that the American people were waking up to the dangers of big government anyway. I think they would have fought McCain as well, just as we saw pork busters emerge under Bush.
In other words, I don't think it was necessary to put the American people through the trauma of a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress destroying the economy in order to alert the them to the dangers the government poses. I think they would've gotten there anyway. And it will get a lot worse before it gets better.
I only hope that people will respond to the same degree that their freedoms have been trampled.
John Adams echoes Freeman Hunt
Do you remember this post by Freeman Hunt called "He Is Not Coming"? I responded to that one twice, here and here.but I'm currently reading David McCullough's book John Adams. And I came across this interesting passage:
"I wander alone, and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate," he wrote in the seclusion of his diary. "We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune—in everything. I feel an unutterable anxiety."
It must be admitted that to some degree the times create the character of the people. The Greatest Generation is considered to be the greatest because of their handling of the Depression and World War II. And, frankly, I don't think they handled Great Depression that well since they left us a legacy of unsustainable social programs, to say nothing of a compromised Constitution. We won't even get started on their child-rearing abilities.
I think there's a real opportunity here for greatness and I think the American people are up to it. I guess what I'm saying is that he may not be coming but perhaps we are.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Lazier and Stupider Than I Thought
Trooper York advised me to drop the whole "Obama is stupid and lazy" meme, on the basis of the government's ability to persecute its enemies—something he, as a New Yorker, is all too familiar with—and that was probably wise, given the way this administration seems to work.
Remember, you're not just civic-minded, but a community activist and future or current law student! Personally, I'm sort allergic to legal procedings and even I would've considered small claims court.
But—man, oh, man—it's like the guy is baiting me. Maybe the blog prof is wrong here, but I suspect not. Obama bought liability and then expected to have his car repaired. And what's with disparaging a business satisfying the legal requirements? What else are they gonna do?
It's that stuff that worries me. I know people get to be that age without even a basic grasp of—not even economics!—but the simple mechanics of how business works. I mean, insurance is a trickier product than a lemonade, but it's still providing a service for a cost with enough left to make a profit.
Lazy.
Oh, yeah, and there's the whole not-leading-the-whole-national-health-reform-process-until-it's-gone-to-hell-only-to-submit-a-bill-nearly-identical-to-the-rejected-Senate-bill-only-more-expensive-and-then-having-a-summit-where-he's-completely-unprepared-to-address-any-real-concerns-thing, too.
But I'm sort of inured to that level of stupidity and laziness by this point. You?
Stupid.
Now, if you were a civic-minded fellow (the sort that might run for President) wouldn't your first inclination be to try to figure out why you weren't covered? I mean, if you were supposed to be covered, and you weren't, that sounds criminal, doesn't it?
Remember, you're not just civic-minded, but a community activist and future or current law student! Personally, I'm sort allergic to legal procedings and even I would've considered small claims court.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Pepsi Throwback
Have you seen the "new" Pepsi Throwback? Basically, it's Pepsi from the '70s: In the old packaging but made with sugar.
It's...sublime. It doesn't leave a film in your mouth. It has a clean, refreshing taste. Swear to God, it actually bubbles nicer. The bubbles are sharper and more lively. I had this obsession a few years ago with trying to find soda that bubbled the way I remembered—and never could. (Returned a whole lot of fountain drinks as "flat".)
In the mid-'80s, the soda companies switched from sugar to high fructose corn syrup. One of the reasons given for this is that HFCS is "easier to transport". Curiously, the soda companies don't use HFCS anywhere else in the world. Just the US. In fact, one trick used by sugar soda fans is to buy sodas imported from Mexico (which I've heard CostCo has).
So if it's not transportation, why would soda companies use it? Well, the Federal Government subsidizes HFCS, making it slightly cheaper than sugar. The Federal Government also jacks up the price of sugar (to seven times the world price!), making sugar a lot more expensive.
It's probably too soon to blame HFCS for obesity, liver disease, diabetes and autism, but not to soon to blame it for screwing up the soda experience. And never to soon to blame the government for making it all economical.
We already eat quite a bit of corn: On the cob, loose, as chips and tortillas, corn bread, polenta, etc. To then HFCS in virtually every sweetened product on the market? Probably a bad idea.
Meanwhile, the Snapple Company is coming out with Dr. Pepper "Heritage"—the sugar-based version of Dr. Pepper.
And the corn folks are already in full blown PR mode. You've probably seen the HFCS commercials. And if you search for it on the web, the industry sites are there. The recent indications of mercury being found in it, probably doesn't help their image.
Having re-tasted the old sodas (and having drunk a lot of "gourmet" sodas over the years), I sure bet these guys don't want to go head-to-head with sugar.
Oh, by the way: Tomorrow is the last day for Pepsi (and Mountain Dew) Throwback. I'm gonna stock up.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Can We Stop Calling Them Pro-Choice Now?
Look, I consider myself pro-choice. Ish. On the one hand, I embrace the pro-life argument: From conception, the zygote/embryo/fetus is a living organism; it's human (I don't really buy that it's not quite human yet or whatever the justification is); morally, we're left with murder, or at best, self-defense.
I guess I shouldn't say "pro-choice" but "anti-law". 'cause if we take the moral absolute for our baseline for law, we end up with every woman's uterus being a potential crime-scene. The potential for government mischief is boundless.
Abortions have always been done. The strongest deterrent, however, has probably been religion. I think if abortions are to be prevented, it's really got to be up to religion. (It sure would be nice if the government stopped paying for them, though.)
But let's not split hairs, shall we? While I think only a very small fraction of pro-life types are actually anti-sex or anti-choice, the mouthpieces of choice are, essentially, pro-abortion. The rabid hatred of Sarah Palin over Trig was indicative. But the howling over a benign Superbowl commercial that didn't even mention abortion?
Yeah. You guys aren't pro-choice. You're pro-abortion. Abortion, remarkably, survived WWII without the taint of eugenics. Margaret Sanger was all about stopping the non-whites from reproducing, yet somehow remains a hero and frequently cited hero for Planned Parenthood. (At least the FBI has the taste to be a little ashamed of Hoover.) Planned Parenthood's holy grail is forced sterilization; Not so much with the "pro-choice".
Now all the feminist groups have aligned with the environmental groups, and the environmental groups have never relinquished their Malthusian influences either. John Holdren advises Obama on "science" matters, and he's a big fan of forced abortions and other means of "birth control", too.
So, yeah. Not pro-choice. Like many other slippery moral paths, an expression of a desire for "freedom" to do something traditionally considered immoral hides a desire to force people onto that path.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
So, How Radical Are You?
I was watching Stossel's new Fox Business Channel show ("Stossel!"), and he had on the Whole Foods guy to talk about health care. This is a great plan: You can get anything on this plan. (And snake oil is expensive. I thought I should try to find a job with these guys.) Stossel had a good mix in the audience, and a communistsocialistprogressive to attack any ideas that didn't involve the government taking over the most intimate of choices we make.
As a sidebar, the progressive version is such an easily repeated lie, it reminds me of—well, of every other progressive lie I've been swamped with in my life. "Single-payer is the only way to get universal coverage." As if the government's first move isn't going to be to make that coverage a lot less universal to save costs. As if "medical treatment" had no metric of quality, just so long as everyone gets some.
Anyway, the lefty guy didn't have anything in the way of substance—not his fault, there really isn't a good case to be made, especially in light of the universal failures of the schemes at home and abroad—and so he accused the two of them of being Grover Norquist acolytes.
I, and both Stossel and Whole Foods guy John Mackey (and I hope most people) regarded this ad hominem with bemusement. The progressive wanted to equate their distaste for a state-run health system to a desire to destroy Social Security, Medicare, roads, apple pie and motherhood.
I don't really know who Norquist is. He seems to want to cut government in half, which is something I'm cool with. He then wants to cut it in half again. I'm pretty sure I'll be cool with that, too. He's anti-FDA, NEA and IRS. These strike me as good things to be against.
Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that Ruth Anne commented in the Cargo Cult thread:
I used to believe that the Democrats were the party of civil liberties. After listening throughout the '80s to the damage done to civil liberties by the War on Drugs, I could not help but notice the hypocrisy of not repealing it in the '90s. In fact, as soon as a Democrat was in charge, it was like the gross expansion of government powers was a feature, not a bug.
Needless to say, I wasn't any more surprised that the Democrats didn't curb the Patriot Act in 2009 than I was that the Republicans didn't curb spending.
What am I getting at? Well, the scourge of drugs is a problem; probably one of the worst we face today. (I'm so anti-drug, I extend this to a great many prescription drugs. See the latest reports on how anti-depressants are largely less effective than placebos.) It's right up there with—well, with a massive, intrusive, all-consuming government.
Let me tell you, if I had to choose between our current monstrous government or a country without drug abuse, I would probably take the latter. (Maybe partly because I think the stupidity of drug abuse feeds into the stupidity of big government. But still.) But that's not the choice.
Our monstrous government is particularly inept at social engineering. There have been successful wars on drugs in the past. They were won by rounding up all the suspected drug dealers and killing them. That's not something we can do, even if we wanted to.
So, if I want the government out of drugs—and sex, and health, and safety—does that mean I want a country full of drugs (and diseased helmet-free whores)?
Shockingly, no.
And this is sort of a problem. We used to have a church and society that enforced relatively homogeneous ideas of normalcy, decency, morality and other things that do the actual work of holding society together.
As a sidebar, the progressive version is such an easily repeated lie, it reminds me of—well, of every other progressive lie I've been swamped with in my life. "Single-payer is the only way to get universal coverage." As if the government's first move isn't going to be to make that coverage a lot less universal to save costs. As if "medical treatment" had no metric of quality, just so long as everyone gets some.
Anyway, the lefty guy didn't have anything in the way of substance—not his fault, there really isn't a good case to be made, especially in light of the universal failures of the schemes at home and abroad—and so he accused the two of them of being Grover Norquist acolytes.
I, and both Stossel and Whole Foods guy John Mackey (and I hope most people) regarded this ad hominem with bemusement. The progressive wanted to equate their distaste for a state-run health system to a desire to destroy Social Security, Medicare, roads, apple pie and motherhood.
I don't really know who Norquist is. He seems to want to cut government in half, which is something I'm cool with. He then wants to cut it in half again. I'm pretty sure I'll be cool with that, too. He's anti-FDA, NEA and IRS. These strike me as good things to be against.
Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that Ruth Anne commented in the Cargo Cult thread:
In short: Yes. I'd phrase it differently. I'd like to see a whole class of laws simply go away. The same power that allows the government to regulate drugs also allows it to threaten vitamins and other supplements.
Could you clarify this? My husbands thinks it means you want to legalize drugs. I don't disagree about the bad effects of the 'War on Poverty' and the probable bad effects of the 'War on Health'...
I used to believe that the Democrats were the party of civil liberties. After listening throughout the '80s to the damage done to civil liberties by the War on Drugs, I could not help but notice the hypocrisy of not repealing it in the '90s. In fact, as soon as a Democrat was in charge, it was like the gross expansion of government powers was a feature, not a bug.
Needless to say, I wasn't any more surprised that the Democrats didn't curb the Patriot Act in 2009 than I was that the Republicans didn't curb spending.
What am I getting at? Well, the scourge of drugs is a problem; probably one of the worst we face today. (I'm so anti-drug, I extend this to a great many prescription drugs. See the latest reports on how anti-depressants are largely less effective than placebos.) It's right up there with—well, with a massive, intrusive, all-consuming government.
Let me tell you, if I had to choose between our current monstrous government or a country without drug abuse, I would probably take the latter. (Maybe partly because I think the stupidity of drug abuse feeds into the stupidity of big government. But still.) But that's not the choice.
Our monstrous government is particularly inept at social engineering. There have been successful wars on drugs in the past. They were won by rounding up all the suspected drug dealers and killing them. That's not something we can do, even if we wanted to.
So, if I want the government out of drugs—and sex, and health, and safety—does that mean I want a country full of drugs (and diseased helmet-free whores)?
Shockingly, no.
And this is sort of a problem. We used to have a church and society that enforced relatively homogeneous ideas of normalcy, decency, morality and other things that do the actual work of holding society together.
The whole question of what to do about that is a whole 'nother post at least. But it's also actually tangential to the question of government control. Because the War on Drugs hasn't appreciably reduced the amount of drug use, as far as I can tell. And government has a particular talent for both undermining traditional morality and destroying civil liberties in a draconian and semi-random manner.
So, yeah, in short, if you have a question about whether I think the government—particularly the federal government—should be involved in, well, just about anything, my answer's probably going to be no.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Cargo Cult Christmas
The great visionary Alan Kay once compared the dot-Com goldrush (while it was still going on) to a cargo cult. This was one of those big "a-ha" moments in this moron's life. I'd heard of cargo cults but had just thought of it as an amusing story. If you follow that Wikipedia link, you can see a sort of apologetic tone about how "an isolated society's first contact with the outside world...can be a shock".
But what the dot-Com mania showed was that there's nothing about the mentality that's exclusive to primitive societies. People figured if they bought a clever domain name, wealth would follow. Some had worked out an extra step, of course:
1. Buy Domain Name
2. Attract Investor Dollars
3. ???
4. Profit!
And, of course, some of them never thought past step 2. After all, once investors give you lots of money, you're done, right?
In short, the fundamental issue is a lack of understanding of relationship between cause and effect. Hell, forget about airplanes, a small island culture would probably have a harder time imagining the logistics—the massive industrial and social machinery—behind a military supply drop. You'd first have to get them to grasp the concept of millions of people.
While the dot-Com bubble was doubtless motivated by the same burning desire for unearned material wealth as the island chief's, the dot-Com guys had no comparable excuse. Regardless of the medium, the basics of trade don't change: You have to offer people something they want before they give you money; and if it's something they can already get, you have to offer more, like a lower price, higher quality, greater convenience or better service.
These are not mysterious things, yet if you were watching the madness ten years ago, you saw a 10-year-old company whose increasingly commoditized product was losing market share hand-over-fist buy out a media powerhouse that made its 75-year fortune on essentially unique product—and you also saw this hailed as a great move for the media powerhouse.
Once my eyes were opened to this parallel, I began seeing cargo cults everywhere. Because they are everywhere. And we're probably all guilty of cause-effect confusion to some degree, in some areas of our lives.
As a rather bizarre example, in our culture you can see cargo cult religions (of all denominations), where people mimic the practices of religion while eschewing anything not immediately gratifying, anything that requires sacrifice, or anything that would actually bind people together, as religion is supposed to do. (Then they're surprised when there's nothing there in their time of need.)
But sometimes it's harmless and even kind of cute, when done with awareness. Sports fans, for example, will be very superstitious when rooting for their teams, wearing same clothes or eating the same food or performing some ritual because that's what happened the last time the team made a big score. This is more a knowing game of pretending to have a power (in a situation where you really can't) than a genuine cargo cult mentality. Or so one hopes. (Athletes themselves will have such superstitions, but they don't forgo training for them.)
Oftentimes it's pernicious and destructive, and completely backwards. The idea, for example, of focusing on building self-esteem by giving a child the rewards associated with self-esteem. This creates a sense of entitlement combined with a very fragile ego—a less functional combination hard to imagine.
You can probably see where I'm headed with this.
We have before us this Christmas the most astounding example of a cargo cult I can recall in my lifetime: We have a government that doesn't even understand their own flawed philosophy, mimicking the destructive actions (which had observably bad ends) without even grasping the logic behind them.
For example, the current administration has reduced Keynesian theory (which Keynes himself didn't fully accept) to "throw money all over the place, especially to our friends and good things will happen."
Same with health care: "Pass some laws—any laws—and health care will be 'solved'." The very passage of the laws themselves seems to have been backwards "Let's talk about how we've won and celebrate the passing of these laws, then we'll work on getting them passed. " (Consider the number of times Harry Reid proclaimed he had reached a consensus.)
Even the compromises emerged not from the idea of giving-and-taking on substance so that ultimately everyone could vote for something that was good enough, but by cajoling the "yeas" through any means necessary, no matter how bad a bill was created.
There's no grasp of cause-and-effect.
The frosting on this Christmas cookie being the philosophies that are being aped were never very successful either. FDR's "stimulus" may have been neutral, but the regulatory atmosphere—the atmosphere of wild experimentation, was demonstrably harmful. And even as real job creators today say they're reluctant to hire in such an unpredictable environment, it's not enough to spread money around, the administration has to show that it's willing to stick its fingers everywhere.
You don't need a litany of what the tax, regulate, redistribute process has done to the American economy. The War on Poverty created a permanent underclass, and the War on Drugs created a massive criminal class. The current War on Health (as I suggest we christen it) will have similarly dubious effects. (Even if the current mess doesn't pass, would you, as a young person, be eager to go into medicine in this environment?)
At some point, one has to wonder if the actual cause-and-effect of freedom and stability leading to prosperity isn't very well understood by a lot of those working to undermine it.
At least that's what I'm wondering as I sit under my Christmas tree, singing carols, waiting for presents to appear.
But what the dot-Com mania showed was that there's nothing about the mentality that's exclusive to primitive societies. People figured if they bought a clever domain name, wealth would follow. Some had worked out an extra step, of course:
1. Buy Domain Name
2. Attract Investor Dollars
3. ???
4. Profit!
And, of course, some of them never thought past step 2. After all, once investors give you lots of money, you're done, right?
In short, the fundamental issue is a lack of understanding of relationship between cause and effect. Hell, forget about airplanes, a small island culture would probably have a harder time imagining the logistics—the massive industrial and social machinery—behind a military supply drop. You'd first have to get them to grasp the concept of millions of people.
While the dot-Com bubble was doubtless motivated by the same burning desire for unearned material wealth as the island chief's, the dot-Com guys had no comparable excuse. Regardless of the medium, the basics of trade don't change: You have to offer people something they want before they give you money; and if it's something they can already get, you have to offer more, like a lower price, higher quality, greater convenience or better service.
These are not mysterious things, yet if you were watching the madness ten years ago, you saw a 10-year-old company whose increasingly commoditized product was losing market share hand-over-fist buy out a media powerhouse that made its 75-year fortune on essentially unique product—and you also saw this hailed as a great move for the media powerhouse.
Once my eyes were opened to this parallel, I began seeing cargo cults everywhere. Because they are everywhere. And we're probably all guilty of cause-effect confusion to some degree, in some areas of our lives.
As a rather bizarre example, in our culture you can see cargo cult religions (of all denominations), where people mimic the practices of religion while eschewing anything not immediately gratifying, anything that requires sacrifice, or anything that would actually bind people together, as religion is supposed to do. (Then they're surprised when there's nothing there in their time of need.)
But sometimes it's harmless and even kind of cute, when done with awareness. Sports fans, for example, will be very superstitious when rooting for their teams, wearing same clothes or eating the same food or performing some ritual because that's what happened the last time the team made a big score. This is more a knowing game of pretending to have a power (in a situation where you really can't) than a genuine cargo cult mentality. Or so one hopes. (Athletes themselves will have such superstitions, but they don't forgo training for them.)
Oftentimes it's pernicious and destructive, and completely backwards. The idea, for example, of focusing on building self-esteem by giving a child the rewards associated with self-esteem. This creates a sense of entitlement combined with a very fragile ego—a less functional combination hard to imagine.
You can probably see where I'm headed with this.
We have before us this Christmas the most astounding example of a cargo cult I can recall in my lifetime: We have a government that doesn't even understand their own flawed philosophy, mimicking the destructive actions (which had observably bad ends) without even grasping the logic behind them.
For example, the current administration has reduced Keynesian theory (which Keynes himself didn't fully accept) to "throw money all over the place, especially to our friends and good things will happen."
Same with health care: "Pass some laws—any laws—and health care will be 'solved'." The very passage of the laws themselves seems to have been backwards "Let's talk about how we've won and celebrate the passing of these laws, then we'll work on getting them passed. " (Consider the number of times Harry Reid proclaimed he had reached a consensus.)
Even the compromises emerged not from the idea of giving-and-taking on substance so that ultimately everyone could vote for something that was good enough, but by cajoling the "yeas" through any means necessary, no matter how bad a bill was created.
There's no grasp of cause-and-effect.
The frosting on this Christmas cookie being the philosophies that are being aped were never very successful either. FDR's "stimulus" may have been neutral, but the regulatory atmosphere—the atmosphere of wild experimentation, was demonstrably harmful. And even as real job creators today say they're reluctant to hire in such an unpredictable environment, it's not enough to spread money around, the administration has to show that it's willing to stick its fingers everywhere.
You don't need a litany of what the tax, regulate, redistribute process has done to the American economy. The War on Poverty created a permanent underclass, and the War on Drugs created a massive criminal class. The current War on Health (as I suggest we christen it) will have similarly dubious effects. (Even if the current mess doesn't pass, would you, as a young person, be eager to go into medicine in this environment?)
At some point, one has to wonder if the actual cause-and-effect of freedom and stability leading to prosperity isn't very well understood by a lot of those working to undermine it.
At least that's what I'm wondering as I sit under my Christmas tree, singing carols, waiting for presents to appear.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Blog Wars
Hello, everyone!
Sorry for the long absence. I've been hard at work looking for work to be hard at work at. I'm going to be part-time at the current job (which didn't stop them from giving me two new, huge projects to do) which is a mixed bag. On the one hand, if I get another PT job or consulting gig, that's a kind of security and potentially more money. On the other hand, if I get a FT gig, that can mean things like going into an office and wearing clothes and stuff. (Shudder.)
I've got two other projects with potential going, so I'm working on those as well. It's just busy.
Which is my whiny excuse for not posting reviews on An Education and Everybody's Fine yet. I will, though, soon. Promise.
Meanwhile, I've been watching the Goldstein/Patterico wars, which I hate. I actually unfollowed Patterico on Twitter because his attacks strike me as both petty and strident.
To summarize, Patterico said that Stacy McCain had made a racist statement (over ten years ago!) but may or may not be actually racist himself. Goldstein, on a pretty straightforward point of logic says, no, there cannot be racism without intent. You can't say someone made a racist comment but may or may not be racist. Patterico then talks about "unconscious" racism, etc. etc. etc.
I feel for Patterico because he's parroting what we've all learned, isn't he? We've all learned over the years that white people, in particular, are racist (even if only unconsciously so) and their willingness to use words that others deem racist is proof of that. I mean, we've all lived through the kabuki of constantly changing names/titles/designations to prove the purity of our intentions. And we've all lived through (and accepted) the gradual loss of our freedoms to do the same.
Volokh himself talks about this in the terms of the First Amendment here. Like Volokh, I want people to be free to express their prejudices. I don't want them cloaked in PC talk. I don't want a ritual that is used to demonstrate the right thinking; I want what people think to be right out there in their speech and associations. Then I can choose whom I want to associate with. (And you know what? A lot of racism and other faulty -isms actually do yield to logic, but you never learn that when people just know it's taboo to discuss certain things.)
But despite the simple truth of Goldstein's argument—I mean, really, to argue that racism doesn't need to be intended by the racist is to argue that it's an actual substance with physical properties that can be identified byclimate scientistsproperly annointed clergyright thinking people—Patterico has instead doubled-down, defending the most heinous corruption of our ability to communicate.
It's not the first time he's done this, and it's a shame, because he does really good work calling out the L.A. Times on their biases, errors and general buffoonery. But as Goldstein points out (again and again): if you accede the ability to decide what you meant to another agency, you lose if ever you decide to go against that agency. (Said agencies, not remarkably, are always statists, and these days, they're on the left. It wasn't so long ago they were establishment Christians and other social conservatives who wanted the state to interfere on behalf of their causes—the whole problem with the old order, when you think of it.)
Anyway, Goldstein absolutely skewers him with a two part demonstration on exactly how Frey's logic can be used against him. But Patterico seems to have a hard time with being wrong. Either that, or far worse, he doesn't want to let intention get in the way of his own ability to exercise power over others by misconstruing their speech.
Nah, he's probably just being pigheaded.
Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to reviewing stuff.
Sorry for the long absence. I've been hard at work looking for work to be hard at work at. I'm going to be part-time at the current job (which didn't stop them from giving me two new, huge projects to do) which is a mixed bag. On the one hand, if I get another PT job or consulting gig, that's a kind of security and potentially more money. On the other hand, if I get a FT gig, that can mean things like going into an office and wearing clothes and stuff. (Shudder.)
I've got two other projects with potential going, so I'm working on those as well. It's just busy.
Which is my whiny excuse for not posting reviews on An Education and Everybody's Fine yet. I will, though, soon. Promise.
Meanwhile, I've been watching the Goldstein/Patterico wars, which I hate. I actually unfollowed Patterico on Twitter because his attacks strike me as both petty and strident.
To summarize, Patterico said that Stacy McCain had made a racist statement (over ten years ago!) but may or may not be actually racist himself. Goldstein, on a pretty straightforward point of logic says, no, there cannot be racism without intent. You can't say someone made a racist comment but may or may not be racist. Patterico then talks about "unconscious" racism, etc. etc. etc.
I feel for Patterico because he's parroting what we've all learned, isn't he? We've all learned over the years that white people, in particular, are racist (even if only unconsciously so) and their willingness to use words that others deem racist is proof of that. I mean, we've all lived through the kabuki of constantly changing names/titles/designations to prove the purity of our intentions. And we've all lived through (and accepted) the gradual loss of our freedoms to do the same.
Volokh himself talks about this in the terms of the First Amendment here. Like Volokh, I want people to be free to express their prejudices. I don't want them cloaked in PC talk. I don't want a ritual that is used to demonstrate the right thinking; I want what people think to be right out there in their speech and associations. Then I can choose whom I want to associate with. (And you know what? A lot of racism and other faulty -isms actually do yield to logic, but you never learn that when people just know it's taboo to discuss certain things.)
But despite the simple truth of Goldstein's argument—I mean, really, to argue that racism doesn't need to be intended by the racist is to argue that it's an actual substance with physical properties that can be identified by
It's not the first time he's done this, and it's a shame, because he does really good work calling out the L.A. Times on their biases, errors and general buffoonery. But as Goldstein points out (again and again): if you accede the ability to decide what you meant to another agency, you lose if ever you decide to go against that agency. (Said agencies, not remarkably, are always statists, and these days, they're on the left. It wasn't so long ago they were establishment Christians and other social conservatives who wanted the state to interfere on behalf of their causes—the whole problem with the old order, when you think of it.)
Anyway, Goldstein absolutely skewers him with a two part demonstration on exactly how Frey's logic can be used against him. But Patterico seems to have a hard time with being wrong. Either that, or far worse, he doesn't want to let intention get in the way of his own ability to exercise power over others by misconstruing their speech.
Nah, he's probably just being pigheaded.
Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to reviewing stuff.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
In Which I Suspect The Free Market Of Not Being Entirely Free
Interesting anecdote from Reason on how Canadian health care treated one woman, or rather failed to treat her, along with a doctor who puts up a price list on his website about what things cost. I tracked the website down and noted an interesting thing.
Some of you know that my dad was in the hospital a month ago. As it turns out, they gave him angioplasty (through the femoral artery, yeow!). If you go to that site, you'll see angioplasty costs $12,500.
That's expensive, but not unmanageable. Presumably, one wouldn't need a lot of angioplasty. And catastrophic coverage well, wouldn't need to be all that huge to cover it.
Now, my dad's two days in the hospital cost $140,000.
Frankly, that seems unpossible to me. Who could possibly afford that? How can something exist in a market that nobody could afford?
I suspect there may be market distortions at work.
If one wanted to fix the health care market, one might start by locating the distortions and removing them.
Just a thought.
Some of you know that my dad was in the hospital a month ago. As it turns out, they gave him angioplasty (through the femoral artery, yeow!). If you go to that site, you'll see angioplasty costs $12,500.
That's expensive, but not unmanageable. Presumably, one wouldn't need a lot of angioplasty. And catastrophic coverage well, wouldn't need to be all that huge to cover it.
Now, my dad's two days in the hospital cost $140,000.
Frankly, that seems unpossible to me. Who could possibly afford that? How can something exist in a market that nobody could afford?
I suspect there may be market distortions at work.
If one wanted to fix the health care market, one might start by locating the distortions and removing them.
Just a thought.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Financial Crisis Explained?
"In short, on April 2, 2009, the President signed a communiqué that essentially turns over financial control of the country, and the planet, to a handful of central bankers, who, besides dictating policy covering everything from your retirement income to shareholder rights, will additionally have access to your health and education records."
--Bruce Wiseman, "Hitler's Bank Goes Global"
My dad sent me a link to this guy (of whom I've never heard) who lays out the banking crisis as a plan to unseat the U.S. dollar as the basic unit of international money. It's not a long read, and interesting as it maps how what might be considered typical banking and political shenanigans were exploited.
The quote above comes from the second article in the series and is of particular interest to me (and I'd think to anyone who values our Constitutional Republic). The President basically gave the keys to the country to a foreign bank. (And this is not a political issue; Bush would doubtless have done the same thing.)
Much like socialism, it's come to pass that having a group of ultra-powerful private bankers run a country's economy is just the norm for the world today. Politicians, of course, just want to spend money, not think about it, so they just let someone else do the thinking for them.
The question of whether or not the President's actions are legal and binding is a separate one, and the crucial one for all of us: Wiseman issues a call to action for everyone to make sure their representatives know that what the President signs is essentially a treaty and needs to be ratified by Congress.
Anyone have Glenn Beck's number?
--Bruce Wiseman, "Hitler's Bank Goes Global"
My dad sent me a link to this guy (of whom I've never heard) who lays out the banking crisis as a plan to unseat the U.S. dollar as the basic unit of international money. It's not a long read, and interesting as it maps how what might be considered typical banking and political shenanigans were exploited.
The quote above comes from the second article in the series and is of particular interest to me (and I'd think to anyone who values our Constitutional Republic). The President basically gave the keys to the country to a foreign bank. (And this is not a political issue; Bush would doubtless have done the same thing.)
Much like socialism, it's come to pass that having a group of ultra-powerful private bankers run a country's economy is just the norm for the world today. Politicians, of course, just want to spend money, not think about it, so they just let someone else do the thinking for them.
The question of whether or not the President's actions are legal and binding is a separate one, and the crucial one for all of us: Wiseman issues a call to action for everyone to make sure their representatives know that what the President signs is essentially a treaty and needs to be ratified by Congress.
Anyone have Glenn Beck's number?
Friday, November 27, 2009
Inappropriate Advertising
Far from being intrusive, I've actually found that I enjoy Google Mail's targeted ads. (And yeah, I know they're evil. A company who's first motto is "don't be evil" virtually had to turn out that way, didn't it?)
I've written about the spam, for example, and it's sort of interesting trying to figure out what the targets in this so-called targeted advertising is. But now Gmail has presented this ad for the Baader-Meinhoff movie with the tag, "The revolution is reborn!" Er, maybe it was "reignited". (I don't know what caused Gmail to put that ad up, but it changed and I can't get it back now.)
Wait, what? Nooooo. I hope the point of that movie was that revolutionaries were dumb thugs using political ideology as an excuse for bad behavior.
I mean, even if you're an ideological fellow traveler, I would hope this movie served more as an embarrassment than a rallying cry.
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." -V.I. LeninI tend to agree of late that the very term "Capitalism" is Marx's socialist framing of what is, in essence, freedom, and that we're poorer for using the term to describe free markets.
By the way, it was Marx who infected economics—by all rights a hard science with immutable laws—with politics and turned it into the morass it is today.
Jerky jerk-face.
I've written about the spam, for example, and it's sort of interesting trying to figure out what the targets in this so-called targeted advertising is. But now Gmail has presented this ad for the Baader-Meinhoff movie with the tag, "The revolution is reborn!" Er, maybe it was "reignited". (I don't know what caused Gmail to put that ad up, but it changed and I can't get it back now.)
Wait, what? Nooooo. I hope the point of that movie was that revolutionaries were dumb thugs using political ideology as an excuse for bad behavior.
I mean, even if you're an ideological fellow traveler, I would hope this movie served more as an embarrassment than a rallying cry.
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." -V.I. LeninI tend to agree of late that the very term "Capitalism" is Marx's socialist framing of what is, in essence, freedom, and that we're poorer for using the term to describe free markets.
By the way, it was Marx who infected economics—by all rights a hard science with immutable laws—with politics and turned it into the morass it is today.
Jerky jerk-face.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Race Against Time
As the struggle to increase state control over health care continues, it occurs to me that this is a race against time.
Sure, this is often been framed as a race against time, in the sense that Obama needs to spend his political capital as fast as he can before the impact of his actual actions (or inaction) start to deplete it.
But there's another race against time: The more time passes, the harder and harder it gets to pretend that "Well, Europe does this, and they're all just swell as can be!"
'cause, of course, they're not. Right now, Americans (on the whole) would not tolerate the sort of care that Canadians and British receive. The French system is supposedly top notch, but of course it's in the red to the tune about 10% of its total budget, can't be decreased, and so of course will only increase.
On top of that, you have the constant double-digit unemployment and the sometimes staggering poverty levels of western Europe.
Even the middle-class in, say, Scandinavian countries, which are often heralded as blissful blonde paradises, can't (for example) go to lunch routinely. It's a significant expense. Not surprising, when you consider how much a Big Mac costs. Not surprisingly, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are in the top 5 of the Big Mac Index.
I haven't been able to validate the $8.99 footlong sub at Subway, talked about in that PJTV video, but most things are taxed to death. I once sent a Dutch pal a $20 computer game because it was $70 in his country.
Last time we voted down government medicine was 15 years ago. And it was tabled for all that time, and all that time the countries that had government medicine have only gotten more in debt. 15 from now, some of them (at least) will be bankrupt, and that will be the least of their problems, one suspects.
So, if we can win this battle, that might end the argument for the century.
It'll come back, of course. Tyranny always comes back in one form or another. All we can do is fight it off every single time.
Eternal vigilance.
Sure, this is often been framed as a race against time, in the sense that Obama needs to spend his political capital as fast as he can before the impact of his actual actions (or inaction) start to deplete it.
But there's another race against time: The more time passes, the harder and harder it gets to pretend that "Well, Europe does this, and they're all just swell as can be!"
'cause, of course, they're not. Right now, Americans (on the whole) would not tolerate the sort of care that Canadians and British receive. The French system is supposedly top notch, but of course it's in the red to the tune about 10% of its total budget, can't be decreased, and so of course will only increase.
On top of that, you have the constant double-digit unemployment and the sometimes staggering poverty levels of western Europe.
Even the middle-class in, say, Scandinavian countries, which are often heralded as blissful blonde paradises, can't (for example) go to lunch routinely. It's a significant expense. Not surprising, when you consider how much a Big Mac costs. Not surprisingly, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are in the top 5 of the Big Mac Index.
I haven't been able to validate the $8.99 footlong sub at Subway, talked about in that PJTV video, but most things are taxed to death. I once sent a Dutch pal a $20 computer game because it was $70 in his country.
Last time we voted down government medicine was 15 years ago. And it was tabled for all that time, and all that time the countries that had government medicine have only gotten more in debt. 15 from now, some of them (at least) will be bankrupt, and that will be the least of their problems, one suspects.
So, if we can win this battle, that might end the argument for the century.
It'll come back, of course. Tyranny always comes back in one form or another. All we can do is fight it off every single time.
Eternal vigilance.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Two Kinds of Government?
This guy may be crazy—he's written extensively about the Federal Reserve system, vitamin B-17 as a cure for cancer, and Noah's Ark—but he's close to the mark about government.
He argues that systems are either favoring individual freedom or favoring collectivism. He also argues that collectivism is a lie—there are no groups, only individuals. (No forests, only trees.) This is true in the sense that policies that favor groups tend to harm the individuals of those groups, but not true in the sense that we (humans) do have a very real desire to promote the survival of our tribe and species. (Unless you're PETA.)
Also, it's not really true that systems ever favor individualism. I mean, sure, they do in writing. But the system favors itself, and that favor transcends anything written or stated about the system. Almost as if systems were themselves organic.
Basically, you can draw a line, like this:
On the left, you have the ultimate totalitarianism, something along the lines of 1984. On the right, you have complete anarchy.
Now, the thing is, you can't have complete anarchy. I mean, it's theoretically possible, and if men were free in spirit (say, free of sin?) it would probably be an optimal set-up. But, under such circumstances, Communism could also work.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and anarchy (white) leads to the void being filled by black—the first strong-armed dictator who sees easy prey. And it's far from the absolute end where trouble occurs. Our Founding Fathers felt the need to override the Articles of Confederation to create the Constitution. (Which area of history I need to study more. How weak was the Confederacy? How much of the Constitution was a power play?)
"But Blake," you say, "you're always advocating pushing to the right as far as possible."
Why, that's very astute of you. Yes. Yes, I am. That's because the state—any state, at any given time—will move to the left, toward more power and less freedom. And we're in about as much chance of getting anywhere near anarchy as we are of getting pizza raining from the sky.
So, yeah, I push toward ever smaller government. I've long maintained there only need to be two parties at any given time: One arguing that the government should handle a particular issue, and one arguing that they shouldn't. The ones arguing that government shouldn't should usually be in power.
And forever banished should be the argument that just because one doesn't want the government to handle something, one doesn't want the situations handled. If anything, the reverse should be argued, as there is a lot more evidence to support it.
He argues that systems are either favoring individual freedom or favoring collectivism. He also argues that collectivism is a lie—there are no groups, only individuals. (No forests, only trees.) This is true in the sense that policies that favor groups tend to harm the individuals of those groups, but not true in the sense that we (humans) do have a very real desire to promote the survival of our tribe and species. (Unless you're PETA.)
Also, it's not really true that systems ever favor individualism. I mean, sure, they do in writing. But the system favors itself, and that favor transcends anything written or stated about the system. Almost as if systems were themselves organic.
Basically, you can draw a line, like this:
On the left, you have the ultimate totalitarianism, something along the lines of 1984. On the right, you have complete anarchy.Now, the thing is, you can't have complete anarchy. I mean, it's theoretically possible, and if men were free in spirit (say, free of sin?) it would probably be an optimal set-up. But, under such circumstances, Communism could also work.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and anarchy (white) leads to the void being filled by black—the first strong-armed dictator who sees easy prey. And it's far from the absolute end where trouble occurs. Our Founding Fathers felt the need to override the Articles of Confederation to create the Constitution. (Which area of history I need to study more. How weak was the Confederacy? How much of the Constitution was a power play?)
"But Blake," you say, "you're always advocating pushing to the right as far as possible."
Why, that's very astute of you. Yes. Yes, I am. That's because the state—any state, at any given time—will move to the left, toward more power and less freedom. And we're in about as much chance of getting anywhere near anarchy as we are of getting pizza raining from the sky.
So, yeah, I push toward ever smaller government. I've long maintained there only need to be two parties at any given time: One arguing that the government should handle a particular issue, and one arguing that they shouldn't. The ones arguing that government shouldn't should usually be in power.
And forever banished should be the argument that just because one doesn't want the government to handle something, one doesn't want the situations handled. If anything, the reverse should be argued, as there is a lot more evidence to support it.
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