http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/28/motorised_crate/

They confiscated someone's home built transportation because they have excessively restrictive laws towards what people can drive. Is there any wonder that corporations are getting so huge? There's no way for smaller things to break through and start out if the regulations are so onerous and odious that only the large corporations can afford to follow them all. Who knows? That experiment could be the first step someone made to founding a new car company a decade or two down the road, but the legal establishment has cut it down at its very root.

I was searching the website about a band called Muse and what their political persuasions were. An interesting task given that they are foreign and US and European political terms don't exactly match up. Their recent songs though seem very libertarian to me. On their forum, they used the term Liberal which is generally the european way of saying Libertarian, and to them is tied closely to anarchists.

One of the posters on their forum though expressed disbelief at the american concept of Right wing Libertarians. They said that Right Wing generally means trying to uphold a social order from the past.

I would argue that it's actually easier to convince people on the right about libertarianism than it is to convince left wing people about libertarianism. Libertarians are really the true big tent ideology, because pretty much everyone can join it by merely believing one simple thing. It is not the place of anyone, or any government, to force anyone to do anything. For a right wing person to be libertarian, they can still hold all of their religious beliefs and all of their stances on how society should be, and just advocate it themselves, in their organizations in a non-violent, non-forceful manner. Basically, preaching the word to others. That's a familiar concept to most church goers, for example. With a government generally cutting against them in most of these issues for decades, they're familiar with trying to convince people to see it their way rather than using the government to take guns out to force people to see it their way. It's only recently that they re-lost their way and started using government to do this anyway.

The left wing people say they are all about freedom, and they back it up with certain things like abortion and sexual preference, but their other goals go significantly away from freedom. Social Justice, redistribution of wealth, "Fair" distribution of wages, the green movement. All of these goals are impossible to achieve without forcing people to do it. You can ask people nicely to give their money to charity, but it doesn't manage an overarching redistribution of the kind they desire. The green movement is possible without it, but they have this false sense of urgency around it and believe that they can't wait for green technology to catch up, they have to force people to stop using the old technologies and go to the green technologies right now.

All in all, it's much harder to get left wing people to abandon or delay their core principles than to convince right wing people to use persuasion instead of force.

I also found this, a nice justification of the philosophy of liberty.

Reading a new comic called Templar, Arizona. It's mildly political, but in a way that keeps me guessing about what the author's own views are. But one thing in particular made me think.

One of the characters espouses the idea that all prisons should be Vegan. I have no problem with people who themselves want to be vegan as long as they're not trying to use the government to force me to do the same, but in this case I don't have such a clearcut view on it. As long as the people in prison are there because they did something truly bad that damages other people, and not just because of some political law that is there just so they can arrest whoever they want, then I really don't have a problem with prisons serving only a certain kind of food.

Prison is not there to be a resort playground. It's there as both a consequence and deterrent to bad acting in a society, and as a way to keep them from doing it again. Our current prison system is a lousy deterrent, and a poor consequence for many actions. It would probably be better to go to a purely economic penalty system than our current system as a deterrent.

Don't give me anything about cruel punishment with that diet. Back in the feudal days that's all anyone but the nobility had.

I wouldn't agree with spending money on special vegan meals though. Just get a contract with the various grocery stores to get whatever they throw out for the day cheap, and hand the mess off to the kitchen workers to try and do something with.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

They forced some banks to accept TARP funds, and now they're refusing to take them back. Then they start dictating to the banks what they can and can't do now that they have the funds. This is freaking totalitarianism in the flesh right here. It's almost like the controllers of the government want the whole thing to fail.

And not in a good way, the Demon Overlord Laharl taking control of our country would probably be better than what we have now.

Does anyone know how to set a post to be hidden until the date that it is listed as being posted?

This post started as a debate in my mind on the way home when I recalled the Gulliver's Travels stories about Big Endian and Little Endian lilliputians fighting a war over which end they should crack open the soft-boiled egg. I didn't imagine I'd have a story to attach it to when I got home.

In any case, the root causes of a lilliputian style conflict are as follows
( lilliputians! )

There are several ways that people resolve these kind of conflicts.
( preachiness about democracy vs freedom here )

Here's the story I found...

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=467812

Certain muslim countries have pushed through a ban in the UN on defamation of religion.

This fits nearly all of the qualifications of Democratic Totalitarianism. 23 countries voted with 11 opposed and 13 abstaining to force everyone (Happily not yet at the point of a gun, but the UN is clamoring for this power) to shut up about their religion. Free speech hurts nobody, and if people just had the maturity to live and let live on the issue like we tried to do with this country's founding, then the world would be freer and less violent. Unfortunately one group within one side of the issue has done the War thing, they've done the Totalitarian Dictator thing in many areas, and they've now done the Totalitarian Democracy thing.

And what would compromise accomplish? They're still upset over what you can say, and you're still being muzzled and aren't free to speak.

The government can't find people to buy their debt anymore. China and sovereign funds around the world had been the main buyer since the spending orgy of the Bush administration. They no longer want to buy our debt however, since they think we won't pay it back...

Thus, the government has started playing gamese They are devaluing the currency. The Federal Reserve, a private company, is buying government bonds. The federal reserve gets all of its funds from the Treasury. The treasury... prints the money.

I have a thought about this though. I realized that the massive inflation that this caused is not the worst outcome that we can get from government, and it's actually better than one of the other likely outcomes from out of control spending in government. Inflation is basically a flat tax on everyone who has money. There are X dollars in the economy. If you print X more dollars, then you've taxed all of the existing dollars at a rate of 50% no matter what that person earns or owns.

Look at this graph, showing the supply of money in the system...

Much worse would be to make our tax even more "progressive" taxing those who create jobs while creating an ever growing percentage of people who not only don't pay taxes, but often get more money back from the IRS than they put in.

So while I hate that the government has been spending like drunken democrats for the last 8 years, at least they're funding part of it equitably.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/11/feinstein_stimulus_amendment/

The Democrats just try to piggyback it on legislation that is so widely advertised as being UTTERLY MISSION CRITICAL OR THE COUNTRY MAY NEVER RECOVER so they can get every last thing they want through without any scrutiny. This amendment is nothing less than a government mandate for 100% widespread invasion of privacy on the internet. It just goes to show that internet and privacy are one area where the two parties flip sides on depending on who is in power. When Clinton was in office, Ashcroft was the EFF's go-to guy for all things privacy related. When Bush takes office, his stance flips 180 and he becomes enemy #1 to privacy. Now that Obama is in office, the Democrats have taken up the mantle of enemy #1 to privacy...

My only hope is that in 2 years the republicans gain back a majority in the house and senate. Not likely though, because the first 6 years of the Bush administration they backstabbed every last principle that they won with in 1994...

Please don't take government money. It will destroy you. Look at other things that are subsidized by the government and how badly they are doing, and how expensive their products are... like Amtrak.

Chrysler and GM both make great products, and I'm sure Ford has made at least one passable product at some point. If the government gets a stake in them, not only will they end up making lousy products, but they will be beholden to the government in every decision they make, and it will make it harder for competitors to get a foothold.

I'm currently planning on buying either a Jeep Compass or Jeep Patriot when my current auto loan is paid off. If Chrysler takes this bailout and is partially owned by the government, I will look elsewhere for my next car. I just refuse to buy a product from a government owned company because of the degree to which they damage capitalism.

If Chrysler is partially owned by the government in 2 years, I will instead buy a Subaru... or some other quality car. I'll probably do the same even if they take the bailout without having to give up stock.

So, I guess Obama is president next year eh? Sorry about the delay, was going to write this 2 weeks ago but just haven't had the time.

I suppose that was to be expected after in spite of other better candidates McCain managed to win the republican nomination. Of course, I still think he won primarily because he had the blessing of the media for the primary campaign.

Congratulations Obama. I should have gotten to this sooner, but he won as fair and square as you can get in an election with the modern news media involved. I for one hope that he does manage to be a good president and exceed my expectations. Like I did with Bush, I plan to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, supporting him where he does things that are good, that promote America and its prosperity and liberty, and criticize his policies where they are wrong for America and hurt its prosperity and restrict liberty.

I would encourage all republicans and libertarians to do the same. We're above the sort of nonsense that has been going on the last 8 years. There are those on the other side who opposed Bush just because he's Bush, even when he was voting with 95% of the democrats and against 66% of the republicans in congress. We should be above that, and the sort of absurd name-calling as well. The Republican party should be the party of honest questioning and honest discourse and break with the partisan nonsense of the "Bush lied, people died" "Somewhere in texas, a village is missing its idiot" "Selected, not elected" "Chimpy McBushitler" bumper-sticker-name-calling "liberals".

Now, I'd better go join the NRA while I still have a chance. :)

Scary stuff... Hopefully we never get as bad as the below here in the US.


Socialism means equality of income or nothing... under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well. - George Bernard Shaw

For those who think that chinese style totalitarian internet censorship couldn't possibly happen in a free, democratic country...

Australia

Just wait, if Obama gets in, we'll surely have the same thing happen here with the internet Fairness doctrine, banning any site that doesn't offer a "balanced" view in some nebulous bureau's opinion. There will be no stopping it either if the Dems have a 60 seat majority in the senate.

Police state, here we come.

Friends don't let friends dress their kids up in political gear...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/the_libertarian_case_for_palin.html

I'm not entirely convinced, but I can tell you that all of the attacks the mainstream media has been throwing out makes me think that they genuinely fear her. I'd love to see someone with Western sensibility back in the white house.

I still think it's absolutely frightening that of the 2 main parties, Palin is the only candidate for national executive office with any experience operating a large organization as the executive. Granted, it's only about 2 years running an organization with a budget of 6 billion, but it's more years of executive experience running anything than McCain, Biden, and Obama combined. You have to go all the way to the VP candidate of the Libertarian party to find someone with more executive experience. (Wayne Allyn Root has run a small business for years. Likely far less of a budget though, but he had to keep it successful, governments don't have that problem and can continue even if they're not successful in any way.)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/28/fcc_comcast_landmark/

Given my past criticism of Net Neutrality fanatics, there should be little doubt where I stand on this. This is an honest to goodness failure of the model that the net neutrality people held up as THE STANDARD for how to run an internet, handling all packet intelligence at the endpoints and having the middle be a big, dumb pipe. Bittorrent though cheats by flooding the net with connection requests drowning out other traffic. On most networks this successfully improves the speed of bittorrent downloads, but on older cable systems it will actually hurt both bittorrent and other traffic.

Comcast added a small bit of logic in the pipe that, according to The Register, reset a portion of the BT connection requests and managed to improve both the bittorrent performance and the performance of everything else as well.

And the net neutrality people threw a fit...

Comcast has since replaced the system and will be throttling users by their local pipe on the number of things they send out, regardless of if they're bittorrent or not which should lead to a bigger improvement for most and a major decrease for heavy users... but their old solution really doesn't seem like the evil monster it was made out to be as long as it is used as a temporary measure. It doesn't discriminate by source, website, content, at all except to correct aberrant behavior in one application while still allowing that application's data to go through otherwise unmolested.

I just don't get folks who want to force their worldview on all others regardless of the contracts those others have agreed to themselves. People are so strange, What's best for one person isn't necessarily good for others, so that one person should quit inflicting whats best for them on others.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/re-regulate-com.html

Wired is arguing that the airlines should be reregulated because the airlines are losing so much money. I think they're absofreakinglutely insane. It seems like they think there are two states to capitalist systems. Regulated and unregulated. Really, there's a huge grayscale between the two and airlines even with deregulation are still more on the regulated side than unregulated. The FAA, the Air Traffic Control, the TSA... All are regulatory nightmares created by a meddling government. Not to mention all of the environmental regulations, regulations on the energy producers, regulations on how long pilots can fly, regulations on darn near everything except who can take what routes. And they think it's deregulated because congress flipped a switch and opened up a tiny portion of it.

Lets look at their plans and the real reason it's so screwed up.


It's because of government regulations and other distortions to the market caused by government we're in this mess, and telling government to fix it by further regulating it is like putting out a forest fire by dumping helicopter loads of lighter fluid on it.

I heard recently that Jolie has obtained the movie rights for Atlas Shrugged. The immediate question was one of "can one of those Hollywood types NOT butcher the whole idea of the book."

I was rather pessimistic about it. I've encountered another thing that says that it might be less an assured trainwreck, and more of a probable trainwreck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702217_pf.html

Most Hollywood types will rail on the US for not doing something about Darfur, but will then turn around and rail against the US for being in Iraq, never mind that if we bailed on Iraq it would make Darfur look like a family picnic. Jolie at least is being consistent on this issue, saying that we should take care of the humanitarian issues in Iraq too. (We were the catalyst for opening up those humanitarian issues that had been buried underground under Saddam, so we really should stick around to stabilize it.)

If she truly is a fan of Ayn Rand, hopefully she won't butcher this as bad as it would most likely be butchered under the average Hollywood socialist.

http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080210/NATION/851739546/1001

19% of conservatives will vote third party this year most likely. 10% will stay home. This is the perfect time for a third party to show that they're serious. If a third party candidate pulls in enough votes that they would have changed the election if they voted for McCain, then it will do one of two things. A. it'll encourage the republicans to swing back to their roots away from this big socialist government kick they've been on to get those votes back. B. If they don't swing back enough, it'll allow people to see that the third party that gets the most votes might actually be viable and may not be throwing your vote away.

Right now, of all the third party candidates I've seen, one of the libertarian front runners, Wayne Root has the most appealing and comprehensive platform for liberty leaning republicans. He's a former republican who understands tax cuts, who understands how freeing an economy can help it function better, and seems to be an excellent and enthusiastic speaker. I certainly hope he gets the libertarian nomination, because he's said he's in this for the long term over the next 12 years, trying to accomplish B above. If he can get those 29% of conservatives, along with the normal 3-5% of the population that normally votes libertarian, and the 3-25% of the republican party that voted for Ron Paul... We might just have a real contest on our hands.

I think this stimulus package breaks one of my essential rules on how to make a market economy work. You can't have any situation anywhere that would make it so you would lose money by earning one additional dollar.

In this case, if you earn 74999 a year, you get a bonus check from the government. This apparently can be up to 1200 or 1500?
But if you earn 75000 a year, one dollar more, you get 0.

Bad government! No votes for you, incumbents.

However, cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of this term. Please step on this floating platform here...

(Never mind all the other things that are wrong with the stimulus package... Like the fact that it'll not do a darn thing for the economy. It's just another way of pumping aspirin into the economy to keep people from feeling pain when they really need to, and it'll lead to inflation at the same time.)

Holiday altercation with standing up for the little guys

Two thoughts on this.

1. Someone saw someone weaker being attacked by ruffians on the subway and helped defend them. Regardless of what religion they're in, we need more people like that in the country. Good people should be encouraged to come here, regardless of where they come from. (As long as they are willing to live in our system of freedom and not oppress the freedoms of others.)

2. The people who were doing the beating up initially over being wished a happy (insert holiday here) are just wrong. I understand frustration about people getting offended over being wished a merry Christmas, but by doing this they're an equal or greater part of the problem. You don't have the right to beat someone up if you're offended. You're trampling their religious freedoms as much or more than someone getting offended by Christmas is trampling yours. The freedoms that protect your right to practice your religion are the same freedoms that protect their right to practice their religion. Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from offense, in fact it means quite the opposite. It's freedom of everyone to practice their religion even if it does offend someone.

Those freedoms are within limits of course. You can't deprive others of their freedoms, so religious beliefs that do this, permit slavery, consider women to have no rights, don't allow someone to switch faiths, etc are not valid religious practices in a free society. But as long as you're not trampling their freedoms you can do what you want, including wishing anyone and everyone a merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, agnostica, winter solstice, or any other religious or non-religious holiday. Those who would force inclusiveness or those who would try and stop others from their own holiday greetings by complaining to their employers are violating that person's religious freedoms.

What kind of idiot/spoilsport do you have to be to get angry when someone states that they hope you spend some period of time in happiness? Be grateful that they care enough to say it to you.