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freedom

My take on the latest supreme court ruling

It’s best summarized by Timothy Lee.

“So I’m not thrilled at the idea of Fortune 500 companies spending a ton of money on bogus “issue ads.” But I think the dangers of such ads are frequently exaggerated. I’m far more worried about preserving the right of organizations like the ACLU to spread their message. And I don’t see any plausible way to stop the former without seriously restricting the latter. So I’m glad to see the Supreme Court take the words of the First Amendment — “Congress shall make no law” — literally.”

This ruling doesn’t change the rules about corporate contributions to campaigns, it only addresses the ability of corporations to run political ads within a certain amount of time before an election. “But corporations aren’t people! They shouldn’t hav the same rights as a person.” No, but they are a group of people. I find it odd that so many people support our right to free speech and our right to assemble but oppose our right to free speech when we assemble (HT Warren Meyer).

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freedom

The Berlin Wall

It fell 20 years ago today. I really am amazed at how quickly the cold war seems to have been forgotten. This was probably the biggest event in my lifetime and it still resonates with me now. Surely an event worth commemorating.

Categories
freedom politics

What the vote in Maine teaches us

It shows that there are a lot of people that don’t like gay folks. It’s hardly surprising really. Here’s the thing about votes like that, at best, you are only going to make a lot of people mad no matter how the vote comes out. I sound like a broken record (skipping CD?) but this kind of politics breeds resentment and hatred. The hell of it is that there isn’t any reason for the government and its laws to be involved at all. The best way to sort out this problem is to have the government out of the marriage business. There really are some things that governments do not do well and social/religious agreements are at the top of the list.

Categories
economics freedom politics

A speech I wish I could hear today

This was a speech given on national television, can you guess who it was? What are the odds that a speech like this would be made today?

“This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.”

It’s an excellent point and I think I’ll use it as a launching point for a couple of posts on political economy. That is, the rational choices people make in the world of politics. Those will follow in the next couple of weeks.

Categories
freedom politics

The difference between democrats and republicans

A friend took one of those silly facebook myers-briggs tests and was horrified to find that some prominent republicans shared her personality type. I would be honored if I were to be compared to Thomas Jefferson, but Cheney is on that list too, so I can understand the consternation.

But really, I’m surprised more people don’t the see the similarities between hard core republicans and hard core democrats. They both have ideas, BIG ideas about things. They are prepared to wage political and social war in order to have the power of government in order to bring about their visions. To a lot of people, they don’t look all that different

Oh sure, they do have different outlooks about people, morals, possibly even money, but they are united in the importance of the government and their desire to control it. Of course controlling the government is really just a proxy for controlling people that don’t agree with them. Seriously, squint just a little, Pelosi and Palin aren’t all that different in the control department.

As long as the disagreement is over how to use government to implement favorite outlooks and control the people that do not share that outlook, the political war will never end. It is this quest for power that causes the conflict.

Of course people think I’m crazy for bring this up. Duh Isaac, what else is government supposed to do? Look at the constitution, that’s what the government is supposed to do. Those things are not, for the most part, very controversial. The things that are controversial, abortion, stimulation of the economy, maintaining of the economy, protection of jobs, health care, gay marriage, etc. are all products of political party fights over power.

That’s really the difference between the two parties, how to wield power. So remember, the personality test is not a political one, don’t be too terrified if you show the same personality traits as your political enemies. The fact that you are so similar is why you are enemies, the drive is the same, just for different ends.

Categories
economics freedom

Money isn’t the problem, people are

This is something else that came up with my kidney post. it’s from a friend of mine and I think it’s a fairly common outlook.

I guess in my ideal world, Isaac, we stop our worship to the god Money, who rules over us now, and puts himself between people and life, fun, love, education, food, nature, etc, etc, etc. It seems as people make more money, and create new and better avenues to money, they also create bigger needs for regulation and protection to control the greed produced in its wake.

Wow, where to start? How about this, the greed doesn’t come from the money. People have unlimited desires, we always want more. Of course in order to satisfy all of those wants, this world would need to be unlimited as would our lifespans. This is a limited world. We are limited.

When economists say that there’s no such thing as a free lunch (TNSTASAFL), they aren’t really taking about money. What they mean is that something has to be given up. There is labor, and time spent on lunch. Now, we could incur that cost ourselves, or we could get someone else to incur it for us. Of course, if they do that for us, they expect something in return.

Ultimately, we are all engaging in barter. I exchange my labor for someone else’s labor. Some people make sandwiches, some people sell cameras, other people do other things. But barter is really unwieldily. If I sell cameras and I want a sandwich, I would have to find someone that makes sandwiches AND wants a camera. So instead of doing direct barter, we use money instead. We exchange out labor for money and then exchange the money instead of labor directly.

Peoples’ desires for more is always what is at the root of what people blame on money. Those desires would still be around even if money were to disappear tomorrow. Of course, a world without that unit of exchange would suck. We should all be thankful for the existence of money, it makes life much easier. People’s desires, or if you prefer, greed, has always been around and always will be. What we have to do is learn how to deal with other people’s and our own and stop blaming other things for what we see as wrong in the world.

As far as the government being the best thing in order to protect us from greed, I’ll just say this; the government is made up of people too. They aren’t special people, they aren’t above anyone else. They too, are subject to the same types of desires and greed as anyone else. The difference is that the people in government are able to wield quite a bit more power than the average person. Entrusting other people with that kind of power is asking for trouble, and boy have we ever gotten it. At best, I would say that the government’s efforts have not helped at all with the issue of greed. Of course they have done that at great cost, and I really do think that they’ve made things worse anyway. Inevitably, when government “protects” us from something, they give more power to some corporation or at least give them more money. Keeping a level playing field is best accomplished without government interference and it allows us the maximum amount of freedom to determine our response to other’s greed.

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freedom

Happy 4th of July!

The 4th is my favorite secular holiday. It commemorates a momentous event in history and a radical approach to government. I am a little saddened that it seems a bit too radical for Americans today. Politicos have either ignored the financial freedom=civil liberties equation (which goes both ways) or they don’t care about either. Too many people have been hoodwinked into thinking that the folks in DC have their best interests at heart AND are the best ones to make sure that people are OK.

I’m optimistic though. Today is the day when we should refresh our memories and cogitate over this sentence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Happy 4th of July, happy Independence Day!

Categories
culture freedom

Prop 8

OK, now that prop 8 has been upheld, there is more legal stuff being brought to bear to overturn it again. failing that, people are promising to bring it to another vote as early as next year.

This is crazy. Regardless of which way this goes, about half the population of CA will fight it. At what point do people say enough?

An obvious solution is for the state of California to say, “We don’t care who you marry, don’t talk to us about marriage!” Why people feel the need to have the state bless their union I’ll never understand. All of the benefits and privileges that are associated with marriage can either be gotten rid of, or managed some other way. We don’t have to have all of this wailing and gnashing of teeth, people could be getting on with their lives if they would stop turning to the wrong entity for validation. Sheesh….

Categories
culture freedom

Memorial day

I was watching a baseball game on sunday night when the announcer reminded us to remember the people that have voluntarily put their life in danger for their country. A fair number of them never came home, and there’s no doubt that we owe them a great deal.

On this memorial day, and I think on all memorial days from now on, I want to especially remember the people that died in conflicts that they did not want to be a part of. Many people fought only because they didn’t want to go to jail. They didn’t care about falling dominos, a UN resolution, or any other reason the politicos gave them for killing other people and getting shot at.

It’s one thing to die for something you believe in, it’s quite a different matter to die for something that you don’t care about. A lot of soldiers died that way, between a rock and the draft.

In addition to remembering the bravery of the soldiers that fought and died for us, we should also remember the additional burden of the ones that were forced into dying for us. Memorial day should be a day to remember bravery, but it should mostly be a remembrance of sacrifice.

Categories
economics freedom

Tea parties and taxes

Alright, I’ve had about as much as I can take. The reaction to the “tea parties” has been ridiculous for the most part. I am not going to defend the political opportunism that a lot of the people in those protests showed. I’m positive that there were a significant number of people there that just don’t like Obama and would take any opportunity to vent. I’m not going to deal with them because I never take that sort of thing seriously. I’m going to talk about what those protests were nominally about, taxes.

There are two parts to tax protests, the amount of the tax and the use of the tax. I’ll deal with the latter first because it’s easy. I think that the repulsion of what our tax money has been used for stretches across all partisan lines. People of all stripes were appalled by the uses of our money. Bailouts of fabulously wealthy people (and campaign contributors), wars, propping up of failed companies (detroit, I’m looking at you), etc. I was amused when I read about some signs at a counter demonstration that read, “End corporate welfare!” They should have been part of the demonstration, not against it! Going into debt is not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what you are buying. The recent misuse of our tax dollars is shocking, it should piss everyone off, no matter what their political leanings.

Ok, the other thing I hear in reaction to the tea party protests is that the people are stupid because Obama has actually lowered taxes on the people protesting. Let’s get this straight, OBAMA HAS RAISED TAXES DRAMATICALLY! What? Obama has done exactly what he has (rightfully) accused dubya of doing, piling on debt and leaving it for the next administration. What Bush did was terrible, but Obama has taken it to the next level. Why is no one calling him on this? Debt is simply taxes deferred. All of the debt that is being wracked up needs to be paid. There are two ways for us to pay it off, more taxes, or inflation. Either way, we will be getting the shaft. Why more people are not protesting the tax rate on their children I’ll never understand. Debt is taxes deferred. It’s the perfect political ploy, deliver stuff and don’t be around when the bill comes due. When we are languishing with rampant inflation and/or higher taxes, Obama wil be long gone.

People need to look past political affiliations and concentrate on basic accounting. That’s the main idea with the protests. The press and people that are prone to political partisanship are painting this as a “Which side are you on” issue instead of “We need to pay attention to what’s going on with our money.” Why is this so difficult for people to understand?