Money for Nothing

“I think the general broad principle is simply that people who are paying for their own expenses aren't subsidizing folks who simply choose not to until they need money and then suddenly they expect free money. That's -- that's basic concept of responsibility that I think most Americans abide by...penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their expenses.” - Barack Obama

Actually, Barack Obama did NOT say that. I took a quote of his (quote link here)about penalties for not having health insurance, and made it about money in general.

This does beg the question: Why is it appropriate to have penalties for lack of health insurance, but NOT lack of money? It would seem to me, in the grand economic scheme of things, you need to have money before you can have insurance, n'est pas?

Mind you, we ARE talking about health insurance, NOT health care, so don't go off on a tangent about denying people health care. This is about money.

But here is a thought for Obama. If you want penalties for not having health insurance, why not try the ultimate penalty: Denial of health care.

Marxism of the Day

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

You weren't expecting something from Karl, were you?

The Blank Wall

John Stossel nails the true meaning of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:

There was one bad thing about the fall of the USSR: We lost a very visible bad example of big centralized government.

With Washington now turning to central planning to “fix” healthcare, clean the environment, and “create” jobs, it’s helpful to have role models of failure. They remind citizens of the politicians’ arrogance.

For the young, the example of the Soviet Union resonates less and less.

On the bright side, Stossel does have this to say:

We do, however, still have North Korea, Cuba, State Motor Vehicles Departments, K-12 education, and the Us Postal Service.

That said, I don't have Stossel's faith that the young will recognize government incompetence when they see it. After all, there is still the problem of government education.

Separation of School and State

"Suppose that newspapers were run by government and funded by taxpayers, and that each American was assigned to read only the newspaper published in his or her local area. Clearly, the resulting quality of journalism would be atrocious.

Would anyone seriously suggest that this problem would be solved if only there were better schools of journalism, or higher pay for journalists, or more people who are “called” to journalism, or newspaper readers who take more active roles in digesting and interpreting the news? Surely not. All sensible people would understand that these fixes would all fail as long as newspapers faced no competition – indeed, as long as journalism is produced by the state." - Don Boudreaux

The above was a letter to the New York Times editor, on the subject of education. It is also one of the finest points I have heard made in the neverending discussion of how to fix our education system.

But reading it gave me an idea: We need a Constitutional Amendment, along the lines of the 1st Amendment, which will separate the federal government from ANY involvement in our schools. I would suggest something worded as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting any establishment or form of education, or abridging the rights of the people to acquire education in any manner. Congress is also restricted from providing any funds for the purpose of education.

I can hear the squeals of protest already, but think about it: If the federal government cannot provide funding, they cannot put strings on it either.

Also, do we really need to funnel money for college educations through the federal government? Last time I checked, there are still many people in the U.S. without a college education. So exactly how do federal scholarship funding and college loans actually help ALL of us? There are plenty of private scholarship funds out there which could do the same job as the federal government. If people believe in providing scholarships for college educations, let them donate their money to the private scholarship funds, rather than have their money taken from them under the implied threat of government force which supports our income tax system?

In addition, without having to send education money to the federal government, there will be more money available in the private sector to enable the EXACT amount of education funding we need, rather than the amount our legislators THINK we need.

Finally, in K-12 education, let the states and local school boards decide how education should be done, rather than having to promote some federally mandated curriculum, which has done nothing to help the state of education in this country. (Although I think the states should only be involved in education funding, NOT in the actual business of education. But that is a separate discussion.)

We have tried everything in public education, and NONE of it works. It is time to remove the federal government from the education system completely.

Quote of the Day

“I carry with me a personal conviction that nothing can be allowed to interfere with our determination and our resolve and our conviction." - Hillary Clinton

This begs the question: If something were to interfere with our conviction, would she still have the same conviction, or would she need a new conviction, or would she just change her conviction to fit the new situation?

I think my resolve is waning...


(Hat tip to Bloomberg.com)

Money and Gore

It is nice to see a leftist rag like the New York Times finally admit that Al Gore is making a fortune from Global Warming. However, I don't think it detracts from his message, any more than Global Warming sceptics lose credibility when they have oil company investments. While it might paint their messages in a different light, it does not take away from the inherent truth or lies contained therein.

The political tactic of "killing the messenger" does not work in scientific debates. Even if a person has an ulterior motive, their message must be taken at face value, and must be refuted on it's own value or lack thereof.

You don't need to attack Gore to debunk the Global Warming theory, which is still ignoring several important factors:

1. It fails to account for how changes in the sun impact our atmosphere. We have seen a correlation between sunspots and the Earth's temperature. Yet Global Warming theory places carbon dioxide as a more important factor on the Earth's atmosphere than our planet's PRIMARY source of heat?

2. During the period of the dinosaurs, Earth's atmosphere contained larger concentrations of carbon dioxide than it currently does, yet both flora and fauna flourished. If Global Warming is so horrible for the Earth, then how do they account for this?

You don't need to attack Al Gore to find the holes in his message.

Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism

According to Jesus Huerta de Soto (in his essay "Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism"), the great flaw in the Founding Fathers' thinking was "their ideal is theoretically impossible, as it contains the seed of its own destruction, precisely to the extent that it includes the necessary existence of a state (even a minimal one), understood as the sole agent of institutional coercion."

When you consider how the Founding Fathers viewed the differences between republics and democracies, you can see the flaw in their thinking. For example:

"The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended" - James Madison

As long as people view the government as some anomolous "other" entity outside of themselves, then any government is doomed to failure, regardless of whether it is a monarchy or a democracy or a representative republic.

Madison was right about one thing: The larger the government, the less connected to it will be the people under it. As long as people feel no responsibility for their own government, they will inevitably seek to use government towards their own ends. We see this today with the proliferation of special interests, ranging from the lowest welfare recipient to the highest CEO on Wall Street, with all of them seeking to get their cut from our government.

Another example:

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide" - John Adams

What Adams forgets is how the Ancient Roman republic devolved into dictatorship. Representation did not protect the people from the follies of poor representative leadership (which handed over dictatorial powers to Julius Caesar, and then Augustus Caesar), leading to the Empire, and the inevitable fall of Rome.

Jesus Huerta de Soto's essay does get the part right about how no government has ever succeeded over the long term, and the Founding Fathers were wrong to assume they could do what had never been done before. However, de Soto does fail to deal with one problem: other governments.

As de Soto describes it, anarchocapitalism does sound like a great idea, until you start to consider: How do you protect it from other ideologies, and more specifically other governments? Inevitably, some dictatorship will come along and use force to enslave an anarchocapitalist "government".

Unless anarchocapitalists are willing to live like the people in Afghanistan, which is really the only comparable system to what they propose that has actually shown an ability to defend itself along with an ability to maintain their political/cultural system, then anarchocapitalism is doomed to failure. The only difference will be that anarchocapitalism's failure will come from outside of itself.

No beef in global warming stupidity

From the timesonline.com:

People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Let us assume for the moment that Lord Stern is correct, and we follow his absurd advice.

Everyone stops eating meat from cows and chickens and other domesticated animals. Of course, based on Lord Stern's argument about these animals using too much water and creating greenhouse gases, I assume we will be discontinuing the consumption of milk and other dairy products, since their continued consumption would create no net reduction in water usage or greenhouse gases. So no more cheese, milk, eggs, etc.

After we go on our strictly vegetarian diet, what will become of all these farm animals? If we release them into the wild, most of them will die, although some might survive, continuing to use water and create greenhouse gases. No, we will have to slaughter all of them. Who knows which cow fart might lead to the end of the world as we know it?

Naturally, unemployment will rise as all dairy workers will be out of a job. On the bright side, Global Warming will be creating more arable land in currently cold climates, so there will be plenty of farming jobs available. We will need them too, since we will all be consuming more vegetation. However, if Lord Stern's plan works, even this avenue for employment might be closed. This also means there will be less food available for the world's current population. But the deaths of millions is fine, since they will also be creating fewer greenhouse gases. It might even solve the unemployment problem!

When all is said and done, assuming Lord Stern is correct, we will save the planet from Global Warming, but have fewer people and jobs, and all dairy animals will be extinct.

This reminds me of the old Sam Cooke song:

Don't know much about history,
don't know much biology.
Don't know much about a science book,
don't know much about the french I took.
But I do know that I love you,
and I know that if you love me, too,
what a wonderful world this would be.

Global Warmers like Lord Stern definitely "don't know much", but will they still be calling it a "wonderful world" after they get done with it?