On muslims, extremism and politics

I was engaged in a bit of a debate this evening about American foreign policy, triggered by my Ron Paul '12 t-shirt.  I say, a bit of a debate, because the discussion was frequently interrupted by questions, comments, other conversation, jokes and my involvement in a poker game.  I felt a lot like Ron Paul must feel in the presidential debates--how in the hell do you state and defend a complex opinion in 30 seconds?  That isn't why I'm writing this blog, though.  I'm addressing some of the other issues related to foreign policy, particularly in America.

First, I want to say that I don't really know what a muslim is.  I'm no expert on the religion, I haven't read the Koran and it's been several years since the height of the Iraq war when I last made any effort to really understand differences between different sects of the religion for the purposes of understanding the problems in Iraq better.  But the point I really want to make is that I don't want to lump all muslims together, and I don't think anybody ought to.  The typical distinction is "muslims" vs "muslim extremists" and that will have to do for now.

Second, I want to state that my reading up on the issues of terrorism and muslim extremism are fairly limited.  I don't claim to be an expert, but I would claim to be more informed than the average person.  Again, around the height of the Iraq war I took the effort to read about bin Laden and al qaeda, to try to understand their goals and motives.  That seems like a reasonable issue to try to get a handle on shortly after 9/11 and during the height of two wars in the middle east.  If we're going to prevent future attacks, we must address their motives.  My understanding of these people is quite different from the George W. Bush narrative, "they hate us for our freedoms".

I believe they have historically been interested in preserving theocratic dominion over their holy lands in the middle east and in pursuing this by any means necessary, i.e. terrorism.  They began by killing muslims in muslim lands, which for obvious reasons did not endear them to said muslims.  This is when the focus of the attacks turned against western interests, particularly American.  I have also come to understand that these people's motivations to join these radical groups and carry out these extreme measures is explained generally by the theory of blowback.  Blowback is the notion that foreign influence and militarism in their holy lands inspires hatred and resentment against the West.  In other words, if the US military drops bombs on a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan, destroying a vital medical facility and many innocent lives, people over there might get a little pissed off at America.  If sanctions against Iraq during the 90s caused hundreds of thousands of children to starve and die for lack of medical treatment, people over there might foster hatred against the West.  Maybe foreign governments that prop up oppressive tyrannical regimes would be a target of resentment for those living under that oppression.

I have heard another theory and looked into it some in the past, as it was suggested to me this evening: muslims are engaged in a holy war that they are prepared to carry on for centuries.  They will deceive us, lull us into complacency and strike when we are least prepared.  I certainly accept that it is true at least in some instances, just as there are people who read too much into the lyrics of Helter Skelter or take an unusually warped view from The Catcher in the Rye.  I also admit that I think it is possible this theory explains extremism on the whole.  I have agreed in principle to study the issue further, and intend to follow through on that.

Here are my issues with that theory and questions I hope will be addressed.   I'm sure I am overlooking a few others, but four come easily to mind.

First of all, we need to distinguish as before a difference between regular people who are muslim vs muslim extremists.  I hope that the sources I am directed to will do this for me and provide some sort of scope of this issue.  What percentage of muslims are we talking about?  How do we distinguish the extremists from the sincerely good people if the extremists are not being open?  Afterall, there are always going to be groups of crazies plotting to do crazy stuff in their basements, we need to put it into a proper perspective with some sort of reliable estimate.

Second, we have to address the issue of blowback.  Is blowback a factor at all?  I mean, let's say that muslim kids in Iraq are brought up learning about holy war doctrines and hating infidels and all that.  At what point do they take an active belief?   I'm thinking of Jules in "Pulp Fiction" here.  We don't really know from his character background, but I imagine Jules always kind of believed in a god and had a spiritual side, then one day a round of ammo fires off around his head and he's gone from passive indoctrination to active belief, having experienced a miracle[*].   In other words, if a drone strike results in collateral damage, how many people are joining the cause of the holy war who were previously on the sidelines?

Third is the issue of what it means for how to change the world.  In most cases, people advocating this view of muslim extremism seem to advocate for militarism.  Is the way to solve the problem with more meddling in middle eastern affairs?  Is killing people the moral, or even the most effective strategy?  Is it possible to pursue a more passive policy of spreading our goodness by our example instead of at the point of a gun?  One interesting thing that I conjured up in recent days relating to Ron Paul and Iran came to me from one of Jim Rogers' books on traveling around the world. (He wrote two books, Adventure Capitalism and Investment Biker--both are excellent--and I cannot remember which one I am referring to here.)

He talked about Iran having one of the world's youngest populations and how out of touch with those youth the leaders of the country are.  Of course, Reason did a piece recently talking about how young Soviets' desire for American lifestyles was integral in the breakdown of the Soviet empire as the Kremlin lost the war of ideas.  I found a subtle juxtaposition that it is Ron Paul, iconoclastic and "outside the mainstream" of  American politics, whom the young voters flock to and in Iran, a young population is ripe for change and reform.  Interfering in Iran and beating the war drums with sanctions and intimidating rhetoric gives cover to the Iranian government to unite the people to a common cause of self-preservation.  Nobody wants to be attacked.  Iranians will rally behind their leaders if drones start dropping bombs or if the sanctions become too burdensome.  I'm not arguing a point of value, that they would be wise or correct to rally behind their government, I am just making a statement of historical fact.  But absent that threat, might the youthful population be capable of achieving some reforms and earning more freedom?  Does the Arab Spring have any lessons about the struggle for freedom in places where they are not accustomed to any?

So again I ask, is there a passive approach?  Does acceptance of this "holy war" theory of muslim extremism necessitate militarism?

Finally, I'm always troubled by cynicism and deceit, particularly in politics.  I mentioned before the George W. Bush narrative of extremism:  "they hate us for our freedoms".  Fine, but this ties into the issue of blowback that I brought up in my second concern about the "holy war" theory.  Recently, footage of US Marines urinating on three Afghani corpses emerged and hit the newswire.  This immediately caused me to think back to the Abu Graib photo scandal from years ago.

A leading peace negotiator for the Afghan government stated in the last week about "Urinegate", "Looking at such action, the Taliban can easily recruit young people and tell them that their country has been attacked by Christians and Jews and they must defend it," he said.

At the time of the Abu Graib scandal, I recall members of the Bush administration and the network of right-wing media arguing that the media should not release any photos of the disgusting scenes.  Their argument, which made perfect sense to me, was that it would similarly create an effective marketing pitch for the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members.  It would endanger the troops!

I am a bit skeptical of the Bush administration on this one.  While their argument made complete sense to me, one can't help but wonder if maybe they didn't want those photos to be leaked because they were desperate to cover their own asses.  Nevertheless, the argument was made and it begs the question I asked before about what role blowback plays in inspiring hatred and active extremism.  It troubles me when Rudy Giuliani, in a presidential debate in 2007, can respond to Ron Paul's explanation of blowback saying, "I don't think I've ever heard that before".  What?  Then maybe you aren't qualified to be president!  (Republican primary voters ultimately agreed.)  It troubles me when these ideas are embraced for political gain and then abandoned when an opportunity to demagogue arises. 

I hope the sources I am guided to will answer these questions.  I don't think I'm being unfair or biased toward my current opinion; I am creating a reasonable standard which this holy war theory of extremism must meet and, better yet, exceed.

* Was it really a miracle?  Perhaps Vincent was correct to argue, "Chill Jules, this shit happens."

Get a fucking clue, GOP

Not surprisingly, I've been thoroughly annoyed by the GOP primary race for the past several months.  I fundamentally disagree with all of them, except Ron Paul, when it comes to foreign policy.  The Iran issue that has been front and center in this election cycle has pushed the limits on how inane this debate can possibly be.

Although the neoconservative foreign policy does annoy and frustrate me, I can at least respect that there intelligent neoconservative arguments to be made and a lot of them that I can sympathize with.  On the whole, these arguments fall well short of persuading me.  But with Iran, the entire issue is so out of touch with reality, my skeptical nature demands that I question whether these politicians really believe a single word they are saying.

Ron Paul has been under attack for his views for months now, but as he continues to steadily rise in the polls and especially threatened to win in Iowa, he's out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News today and made this statement about Paul:  "[He believes] Iranians can get a nuclear weapon and it doesn't matter, and if Israel disappears, well, bad things happen."  He further implied not only that he believes Paul is wrong on the issue, but that he "doesn't care about the safety of the United States."  This is demagoguery at its finest.

First, only if you cherry-pick reports and seek out single sentences from pages of information can you suggest that the Iranians are on the verge of possessing a nuclear weapon.  So already, the GOP establishment hacks are behind the 8-ball in this debate.  Michele Bachmann, in the last debate, basically resorted to making things up about an IAEA report.  Unfortunately for her, Ron Paul had actually read the report and threw her arguments back in her face.  Nevertheless, she pushed on--afterall, what are the chances any of the voters would bother to look into an IAEA report?

Secondly the idea that Iran would be a threat, even if they do get to that point is pretty low.  For one, the United States is the military power of the middle east, no question about it.  Because people like Newt Gingrich are incapable of abstract thinking, they can't imagine any scenario where this would not be true.  They are apprehensive about Paul's plan to bring troops home from Germany!  (Neocon defense:  insert Neville Chamberlain metaphor here).  When considering Paul's position of bringing the troops home and not acting preemptively against Iran, you have to first understand who would step into the role of dominant military power in that region:  Israel.

In 1981, Israel acted against Saddam Hussein when they had evidence he was pursuing nuclear weapons at that time.  The Washington establishment condemned these actions because the United States does not respect Israel's sovereignty and believes that all military action, everywhere, by anyone, must first be cleared by the US State Department.  So, for the Republicans to pretend today they are standing up for Israel is absurd.  They are instead standing up for United States global hegemony.  Of course, Ron Paul stood  alone in 1981 against condemning Israel and against interfering in Middle Eastern affairs, out of a principled respect that a) the US must not police the world, and b) Israel is entitled to act unilaterally in its own affairs and defense.

Again, I want to repeat that under Paul's plan of bringing troops home, Israel becomes the military power in the region.  Israel, Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons and have adopted a tense adherence to the mutually assured destruction principle.  If Israel is threatened by an Iranian nuclear program, they have shown in the past a willingness to act unilaterally, even in the face of condemnation, and they posses a nuclear arsenal and world-class intelligence to make quick work of it.  Any argument from the GOP candidates that implies an Iranian nuclear program would mean the end of Israel is indicative of stupidity or political gamesmanship of the worst kind.

Finally, this view is less controversial in Israel than in the US.  As far as the GOP is concerned, anyone who dares to question the US hegemony is a vile anti-Semite.  Yet when Benjamin Netanyahu states that Israel would be better off if the US would allow them some independence, or when Israeli newspapers publish editorials touting Ron Paul's message, it is a normal foreign affairs debate to them.  Of course, the GOP talking heads aren't interested in empathizing with their Israeli counterparts and they aren't interested in Israel's ability to defend itself.  They represent American exceptionalism, a patriarchal view of the world where the President of the United States lives up to the billing, the most powerful man in the world.

It's time the American people demanded better from these candidates.  Or at least the American media!  I don't expect much from CNN or Fox News, but this level of journalistic ineptitude is incredible.  How they continue to allow this inane damsel-in-distress portrayal of Israel to persist is just beyond the pale.  Israel, if allowed its due independence, is strong, competent and determined, and it's time Americans respect that.

Can't we all just not get along?

I was watching a recent episode of "Stossel" where he and CATO's David Boaz joined a meeting of college libertarians to speak about liberty and politics. For most of the show, Stossel proposed a topic, and then students asked questions of him and Boaz.

It is said that getting libertarians to agree is like herding cats. At a recent US Libertarian Party convention, former LP presidential candidate Michael Badnarik gave a speech urging his fellow libertarians to stop arguing with one another over the few things they disagree about, and to work together towards defeating the candidates with whom libertarians have much to disagree about.

I like Michael Badnarik, but I just couldn't disagree with him more. I think that the one advantage we libertarians have over people of other political persuasions is that we are grounded in philosophy. We're consistent from issue to issue, where other groups and parties waver, compromise, contradict. In the old days, "liberals" were people who believed in private property, individual liberty and limited government. Nowadays, that description could only be applied to liberals if it were printed in MAD Magazine or The Onion. I don't want that to happen to the term 'libertarian'. I want us to continue to force the issues on which we disagree and to pursue a more perfect philosophy that can convince us all to finally agree with one another. The same way libertarians believe that competition in industry produces the best outcomes for production, we ought to believe that the same is true in the realm of intellectualism.

So, if I had been at the microphone to ask a question of the two noted libertarians on stage I would have asked, "Am I crazy, or should we not continue the bickering and in-fighting in order to preserve our intellectual integrity and philosophical superiority over opposing political groups?"

10 Misconceptions of Inflation

I occasionally read articles by Jim Jubak of MSN Money when one of his articles is featured on MSN.ca homepage with a particularly intriguing title. Today, the catchy header on MSN was "Reasons to love inflation" [actual article titled, "10 reasons to love rising prices"].

No need to really follow the link, because I'll post his 10 reasons, along with rebuttals. In fairness to Jubak, about half of his ridiculous assertions are just silly--I guess his editor thought "10 reasons..." would entice more readers than, "A few reasons...." This article specifically addresses why Americans should love inflation, so he isn't pimping inflation for everyone.

1. Inflation keeps deflation from the door. Deflation can kill an economy (just ask the Japanese). With prices going lower every day, consumers have constant pressure to put off purchases because "it will be cheaper tomorrow." This is no way to run a modern consumer economy. Even the Chinese know it's a bad idea to discourage consumer spending. That's why savings accounts in China pay a negative real interest rate. Every yuan you save today is worth less tomorrow.

Sorry, Jim, I asked the Japanese and am waiting to hear back from the Chinese, but I'm still not convinced. You can't just make an integral assertion like this and then throw out a couple non sequitur non-points out to back it up. The reality is that deflation does not kill an economy, rather a decline in prices in necessary to correct prices that were driven up during boom conditions on speculation. The reality of the market is that people lose money when they make mistakes, deflation is one method by which this important liquidation occurs.

I will grant you that deflation is worse for people with low (or negative) savings, and since most Americans qualify in the category, deflation would hurt them. However, savings are the lifeblood of a healthy economy. That Americans are not prepared for economic reality, does not negate its necessity nor its inevitability.

2. Inflation gives us the illusion that we're making progress in our work lives. And that illusion provides critical grease for the economic wheels. Wouldn't a 5% raise feel good in 2011? Wouldn't it make you feel appreciated at work? You'd start to think that tomorrow you might be able to afford (fill in the blank). Even if that 5% raise was, once you subtracted inflation, equal to 0%, it sure would feel better than the honest-to-goodness 0% raises that many workers have received in the recent past. And workers who feel better -- even if as a result of an illusion -- are more productive (and less likely to throw a wrench at the servers).

Remember how I mentioned he was adding in fluff in order to come up with 10 reasons???

3. Inflation makes consumers feel richer, so they buy more. Policymakers are still trying to get the U.S. economy revving so that it produces more jobs. Waking up each morning knowing that your biggest asset, your house, is worth less doesn't make you want to strap on that American Express card and drive to the mall. (Don't give me this stuff about nominal versus real prices. We all live in a nominal world.)

The American economy suffered economic imbalances in conjunction with excess spending and debt which persist today. So naturally, the cure-all remedy for the mess is to drive people to spend more. This is absurd logic.

So what if policymakers are trying to rev up the US economy?--and by that, they are trying to induce spending and jobs, not fundamental economic growth. Just because policymakers are doing it doesn't mean it is correct policy. I thought this was an exposition to defend the policy of inflation, not to inform us of it and ask us to go along.

I also really love the deception involved here. 'Inflation will trick you cattle into thinking you have more wealth.' That, in and of itself is bad enough, but what's worse is that inflation doesn't just change the nominal wealth it redistributes the wealth in real terms. When all that new money comes into the economy, it doesn't magically appear pro-rata in everyone's bank out so that we all stay equally wealthy as before. The government and the lending institutions push that money out into the economy, primarily through politically targeted projects and big business. Wait, who am I kidding? I was being redundant; a politically targeted project usually is big business, in bed with government. In any case, that money isn't going to the middle class that policymakers are trying to trick.

4. Inflation makes consumers feel that saving is worthwhile. I've been trying to teach my kids to save. Do you know how impossible that is when banks pay 1% or less on the traditional passbook account? If it weren't for the free lollipop, there would be no way to get them to put a buck in at all. And we need inflation's help, not just in building a future generation of savers, but also in making the buy-on-credit-now versus save-to-buy-later decision tougher. Think there's any real incentive to save instead of just charging it when interest rates are so low? We need the whiff of inflation to push them higher.

This is hard to make sense of. I don't think Jubak is living in the real world or a free market fantasy land. You cannot save during periods of inflation. I cannot make that point clearly enough: YOU CANNOT SAVE DURING PERIODS OF INFLATION! Modest inflation like 2-3%, fine. But were talking inflation, not the standard year-to-year inflation we used to know. What drives inflation is low interest rates. In order to save your money, you put it away and earn interest. If the interest rates are low, though, and inflation persists, then you are saving your money in nominal terms, but you are losing wealth. (Remember how I mentioned inflation redistributes wealth?)

Then he argues that inflation will lead to higher interest rates. But this is just silly. We don't need inflation in order for this to happen. We need to remember that there is a true market for credit, just like everything else. We tend to forget this is the case because central planners have undermined this market through central banking. But interest is a charge for deferring consumption, and for incurring risk of loss/default. Savings are the supply. America has no savings so how can they have credit? You can't buy a product when there is no supply. Think about something really rare and ask yourself: does it cost a lot or is it cheap as dirt? A short supply of something, in this case savings, results in high cost of the product, in this case credit.

All the market fundamentals exist to justify massive increases in interest rates. But imagine someone with savings trying to get, say, 20% for his money. The bank is not going to pay it, they are getting money basically for free from the Fed because the Fed is printing money and lending it for nothing. Consumers won't pay the cost because the banks have all that cheap money that they can loan out for incredible profits at a low rate.

If you want high interest rates, why don't don't you try advocating for some sort of reforms in monetary control that will actually let the market determine fair and equitable interest rates in line with the economic conditions?

5. By eroding the value of money, inflation reinforces the value of concrete assets. That's important in a world that needs to do a lot of investing in finding and developing new supplies of commodities such as oil and copper. Anything that works to lower the relative cost of capital for these projects is a plus in industries with current supply/demand imbalances.

I can't make much sense of this statement at all. He may be suggesting that low interest rates, linked with the inflation, make financing capital investment cheaper so that oil can be sought out, drilled and refined. But, what about that whole thing he said a minute ago about inflation bringing about higher interest rates, which would have the opposite effect on capital investment? I can only hope this is not the point he wishes to make--except that this is frightfully the most coherent of the possibilities.

Furthermore, when credit isn't based on a pool of savings, but on the whims of the gurus in the ivory towers, low interest rates result in viable economic projects competing for funds while non-viable projects. Thus, essential capital that should be allocated to vital oil exploration and ore mining will be siphoned off by retail and service ventures that seem profitable due to the incorrect market signals being sent to entrepreneurs by the interest rate. At least when all that inflation leads to high interest rates, it will make only the most essential ventures profitable--unfortunately, those profits will come on the backs of high prices.

6. Inflation is essential to ending the slump in the housing markets. Cheap mortgage money isn't enough to get buyers into the market when they're afraid that the price of the asset is about to slump. We need inflation's help to get us back to the good old days when homeowners could count on their houses being worth more (in nominal dollars, I know) every year. Inflation can make home ownership a no-lose investment again.

The slump in the housing markets is essential to correcting the mistakes that were made in the last bubble. Propping up bad investments is not a sustainable economic policy. People made mistakes, and they will lose money. The faster these mistakes are behind us, the sooner we can move on.

And once again, Jubak refers to tricking people into thinking or feeling that they are richer, or their assets have appreciated by simply putting a bigger number on their assets without actually having market conditions change to bring true value to the investment. Apparently inflation is good for Americans like sugar pills are great for serious medical conditions. Real medicine not required, a simple placebo will do.

7. And while we're at it, we need inflation to make debt loads more affordable long term. How? By shrinking the real value of that debt every year. Owing $450,000 on a mortgage is much easier if inflation is eroding the value of that debt every year by 3% or so. (Yes, inflation pushes up the price of credit, but as long as your own debt carries a fixed interest rate, you don't really care about the higher rates future debtors will pay.)

I'm reminded of a joke: two economists are walking down the street when one of them sees a $50 bill on the ground and says, "Look, $50!" The other man replies, "There can't be $50 there, someone else would have picked it up already."

In other words, you can't just rip off your creditors by riding a wave of inflation, they already jumped on that wave too. Prices reflect forecasts into the future, including the price of credit, interest.

8. Without inflation we have no hope of containing the U.S. national debt. The U.S. government needs inflation to reduce the real value of its debt even more than strapped homeowners do. As of January 20, according to the very frightening U.S. debt clock, the U.S. national debt was $14.1 trillion. That's roughly $45,000 in debt for every U.S. citizen (which is almost as big a burden as the $52,000 in personal debt per citizen). That doesn't count the unfunded liabilities for programs such as Medicare. Think there's much chance that burden will be sustainable in the long term without some help from our friend inflation?

Inflation is not an increase in wealth, it is an increase in figures. You can't afford more stuff just by inflating the currency. Any manipulation of the currency is really going to be a default. I don't think we should even call it a national debt anymore. It is not going to be paid. Either the Debt will be restructured, which although it is a default is at least honest. More likely, the money will just be printed and worthless dollars will repay creditors for the valuable savings they sacrificed. Jubak is arguing a case for fulfilling the accounting figures of the financial obligations, but I hardly see that as an issue. What good is balancing the accounts when the value has been squandered. If and when it comes time to crank the printing presses in order to liquidate the debt and many of the entitlements, accounting is going to be the least of our problems.

9. Inflation is also crucial to restoring personal and national financial discipline. At current interest rates, money is simply too cheap for the U.S. federal government and Congress to pay much attention. At current interest rates, the payment on the U.S. national debt comes to just $3.5 trillion a year (or $11,310 a year per U.S. citizen). That's a ton of cash, but it's not enough to crowd out spending on crucial government programs. Inflation pushes up interest rates so that Americans can't afford to build that lame weapons system in some congressperson's district. Then, whammo, we have a crisis on our hands. And we all know we're not going to fix this problem without a crisis.

This is the same fallacy Jubak has been falling for throughout his article. The interest rates create the inflation! Asking for inflation to cure low interest rates is asking for low interest rates. It's silly. It's like a dieter saying, "I hope I get full soon, because I want to stop eating." Just put down the knife and fork and have some restraint!

10. Best of all, inflation makes it easier to tell stories that begin "When I was your age . . . " Try this one for fun: "When I was your age, I used to pick beans in the hot sun for a whole day to earn just $1." That sounds pretty good, at least until your kids are old enough to figure out that a $1 in 1958 would be worth about $7.60 today. (Here's an inflation calculator they could use. Don't let them near it.)

I was worried we weren't going to get any more fluff, but he managed to squeeze one more in there. Jus tfor fun, I'll disagree with Jubak on this as well. What do old people say? "I used to walk 10 miles in the snow, uphill, against the wind, both ways, to get to and from school." Old farts don't want to tell their grandkids about the candy bars that were "only a nickel". That sounds like grandpa was living in a utopia of free-flowing chocolate and jolly rancher raindrops. No, grandpas should be rooting for free market currencies and the consequent deflation. When our grandchildren are at the store buying 50-cent Mars bars, we can tell them about how Mars bars were $1.25 in our day, and we can throw in , just for good measure, "you youngins don't know how good you got it!"

The wisdom of central banking

"Cheap money is not a long-term growth strategy."

That is the sage warning from Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, and he's absolutely correct. Which begs the question, why is this an economic strategy that is deemed legitimate in the first place?

Carney's wise words restated, cheap money is a short-term growth strategy. Although that is not necessarily true by inductive reason, it must be so. Surely, cheap money would not be a viable tactic if it was not conducive to growth in either the short- or long-term.

By the BoC governor's own logic then, economic growth fueled by cheap money is unsustainable. That the national economic policy, as set by the Bank of Canada, is unsustainable should frighten and confuse us all! What is a bubble, afterall, but unsustainable, short-term economic growth?

Some people, hellbent on rationalizing the insanity of the ruling elites, would claim that a rollercoaster of ups and downs can still produce long-term overall growth trends. I fully concur with this assessment, however I find that it is indicative of the shortcomings of Keynesian thinking. This type of analysis subjects the components of the economy into aggregates that need not be considered to any substantive degree, and instead observes the statistical outcomes of the composition. But inside these aggregates of long-term winners are many, many losers, all the people who were guided by central planners into unsustainable, doomed-to-fail investments by the conditions that spurred short-term growth. To these people, economic conditions that guide investors into prudent, sustainable activities are paramount to their welfare. These conditions, unfortunately, are brushed aside in favour of politically expedient government action. When will we learn?

Liberals have no business making attack ads

Below is the most recent ad from the Liberal Party, attacking Stephen Harper for the "Fake Lake" for the G20 Summit. I've been hearing the voiceover on the radio many times per day recently as I listen at work. After hearing it a few times, I actually began to think about it--so in a sense, the advertisement worked.


[from Liberal.ca]

First off, I'm completely and utterly annoyed with practically everything Harper does as PM, and I cannot think of one single thing to do with the G20/G8 meetings that I support him on. Furthermore, from listening to talk radio at work the last week or so, I can't think of a single person I heard call into any of the shows to support "Fake Lake" or much of anything to do with the meetings either, and even the seemingly conservative-leaning hosts haven't had anything good to say about the Summit expenditures themselves.

With that in mind, the Liberals are not advertising Harper's boondoggle in order to raise awareness, or to get a point across about the validity of the expense(s). It is purely an effort to attack the opposition on one of its mistakes. And therein lies the problem.

For one, I think that if you polled Canadians, asking us if we think the Liberals would have spent similarly outrageous amounts of money to host these ridiculous meetings, most of us would say yes. The fact that the public probably does not believe that the Liberal Party would have done things fundamentally different indicates that there is a sense of hypocrisy in the ad. Perhaps they genuinely believe over at Liberal headquarters that they would have tightened the purse-strings--such naivety should no more be rewarded than the inherent hypocrisy of the ad.

Secondly, I don't accept the discourse of modern politics which avoids philosophy and focuses on singular events, which avoids root causes and focuses on symptoms. There is a root problem with the Harper government that is in the philosophy of its members. That money was squandered on a stupid pond is symptomatic of this philosophical underlying problem. Had money been thrown away one time because of a mistake in judgment that was consistent with a sound philosophy of governance, I believe it could and should be overlooked, to a reasonable extent. And this draws us back to the first point: the Liberals also suffer from a lack of sound philosophy which manifests itself in unique symptomatic errors. Maybe instead of a pond, they would have wasted millions on some other boondoggle. But because the two parties share the same affliction, we can be sure they will both exhibit similar symptoms, even if we can't forecast what those symptoms might have been had the other party been in charge.

Thirdly, even if the attack was not hypocritical, it's horrible discourse. If the Liberals were worth voting for, I wouldn't be writing about philosophy today because they would put out an ad that carried that message to the people themselves. They would differentiate themselves from the Conservatives at a philosophical level instead of at the symptomatic level--practically, the superficial level. They would point out the difference in their views on government and explain how such manifestations as a phony lake would be inconceivable if they were running the show.

Clearly, this is not the case. The Liberals and Conservatives share a common ideology underneath their rhetoric. I guess the moral fo the story here is that when political allies are trying to draw attention to how different they are from one another, the people should always remember to take notice of the opposite, how very similar they really are.

Ann Coulter vs. Human Rights

I don't know anything about Ann Coulter. I have seen her on TV for maybe 5 minutes, and I've heard of the titles of a couple of her books. Other than that, I just know of the occasional controversial quote the media pundits pick at for a few days. She seems to be a religious and political nut, but I'm in no position to make that judgment.

She should be able to say any nutty thing that she wants to: hateful, disrespectful, idiotic, etc.

Believing that you're right, and being unwilling to open the issue up to discussion is just saying "fuck off" to anyone who happens to disagree with you. How does that encourage people to open their minds, let alone change them? The way we deal with these people today is to institute oppressive laws, to vilify the individuals and to treat their ideas as taboo and "just plain wrong". When we vilify them automatically for their ideas, we're pushing them into a defensive position that causes them to strengthen their resolve on the ideas even more than if we just ignored them and let them be. When we decide an exchange of ideas is no longer necessary, we can expect good speech to be limited as well, and that only helps the spread of bad ideas.

We should be doing the opposite. We should focus on the ideas and not the individuals. The bad speech should be drowned out by good speech. The debate should be open and accessible for all, so that any listeners should never have to rely on the bad speech they hear as the only speech they hear. The answer to bad speech is more speech.

Beyond that, we should enthusiastically engage the individuals who hold these unacceptable views, and offer them the chance to share their ideas with us and to listen to ours. When we invite them into an intellectual discourse, we're inviting them to share our viewpoint and to change--or at least to be less hateful to those of us who see things differently.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant; we should be bringing bad ideas to the forefront, exposing them as flawed and offering our peers an opportunity to change their minds. Isn't that better than "fuck off"?

---

A little off-topic but shares my broad concept of the free market of ideas: watch Penn Says: Love of Truth and a Little Bullshit. I believe it's not only bad--intellectually bad--for people to believe in bullshit and not engage in the free market of ideas, it's also intellectually wrong to believe in something so obviously right and close the door on exchange of ideas. Al Gore likes to say, "the debate is over"; the debate should never be over.

"When you announce that you believe in something that you feel but you can't prove, you're just saying "fuck off" to everyone who doesn't happen to feel that....Questioning things that others have faith in is just another way of saying, "I'd like to share this feeling with you, give me something we can test in this world we agree to share." -Penn Jillette

Representation

I'm very troubled by the way government works to pass laws. The US health care reform was a great example of that. Forget the backroom deals, the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of legalese that nobody actually read, the reconciliation process and all the rest of the ugly mess that is democracy in action in the US Congress.

I'm annoyed to see a divided issue like this settled with growth in government. The issue of health care was fairly evenly split. There was a slight favour among people towards not passing the bill, but let's just call it even for all intents and purposes here. The Congress is made up of representatives, including the aptly named, House of Representatives. Supposedly, democratic government is all about representing "the people". But when an issue is divided as the health care issue is in the US, how do you possibly represent the people? Half want more government, half want less. The Congress cannot represent the people's will with either an increase or decrease of government intrusion, nor can the even keep it the same or balance it out.

The conventional wisdom would be to compromise. Both sides can choose their battles and both can get some benefit from compromising, so goes the theory. But even for the sensible tone and spirit of working together, compromise is ridiculous. That compromise is the solution assumes that both sides have equal legitimacy (turning issues into only two-sided affairs is a bit simplistic, but it's for simplicity's sake). Both sides aren't equally legitimate. If some people want more government, they need to impose their will on those people who do not want more government. Those wanting less government are not imposing their will on anybody to achieve that goal, they are merely deferring to private contract any additional particulars that the 'more-government' people might like to have. And what's more, even just keeping things the same, which seems like the reasonable thing to do in most cases, is in fact illegitimate versus reducing government. Once again, to keep things the same means to impose your will on those who want less government burden.

This brings up a lot of questions now about when a suitable majority is reached. If 75% of people want more government, then certainly they have a sufficiently-large majority over the rest to enact their goals, right? Well, for me that is certainly false. Nobody has the right to impose his or her will on another person, no matter how many people agree with him/her, or how few people agree with the minority. With 99% of people desiring one thing, the tiny one percent is no less entitled to be free from the majority than if it were 51-49 or even.

For the purposes of this blog, I don't need to get into this issue though. My point is that we should at the very least be discussing what a suitable majority is. For people like me, it is 100%, and though others might disagree with that, would they disagree that a representative government has to have the support of more than just 51%? 60? 70? 80? I hope most people would concede that 51% is not sufficient.

On the second point, it bothers me that the margins of success were so small in both chambers of the Congress on the health care reform. For the House, a body of 435 members, the vote was decided by less than ten votes--approximately 1.5% won the day! We may not be able to accurately determine public opinion on any given issue. Due to the fact that health care reform was high profile, multiple polls were conducted to help us get a reasonable estimate of where the people stood. On smaller issues, and other more technocratic issues on which many people will not be well-informed and which the media are uninterested in, such polling may never take place. In these cases, it's expected that the voter's have elected the right person to cast the right vote. And again, is 51% support enough to justify a law that burdens 100% of the people? I don't think so.

This also brings up a corollary with regards to repealing laws. If, for argument's sake, we determined a 75% super-majority to be necessary to pass a new law, shouldn't we similarly require only a 25% minority to vote favourably to repeal an existing law?

To sum up, shouldn't we be tweaking our government processes? Are they really working for us in the spirit of "representational government"?

A touch of irony caught my eye

While checking out some of the day's news on Google I came across a headline, "Students at Queen's Park to protest poverty."

Reacting to the first line of the article, "Hundreds of student protesters...[forced] road closures and traffic snarls for part of the afternoon," I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony.

The way to end poverty is to get out of the way and let entrepreneurs engage in production and trade. Forcing road closures and traffic snarls not only effects commerce and trade, but also the quality of life of those whose free time was ruined, which is probably more important. Afterall, we work so that we can produce a more enjoyable standard of living, not just for the sake of production.

I could have just let it go with a chuckle over the irony had these students been addressing serious solutions to poverty (of which we in Canada really know nothing about, but I digress...). Instead, the protests were pushing predictable ideas of more government interference in the wealth-producing private sector in order to redistribute funds.


The article goes on to mention that the students were also concerned about rising unemployment and rising tuition set against the backdrop of the current recession. The students are concerned about their futures, and for good reason. If only they understood about the debt they are inheriting, they would have far more reason for concern about the future. My one-year old niece is on the hook for $15,000 of federal government debt, just waiting for her in the coming years. And due to the policies of the same government, I have trouble forming an optimistic outlook for the job market she will be participating in.

We are on the verge of discovering what real poverty is all about. Thankfully, Canada hosts a great deal of opportunity with the vast resources that could be put to good use in a free market. If only we let the private sector produce wealth, it will pull us all higher.

The Flames should be vaccinated

An uproar has resulted from Calgary Flames players and their families receiving preferential treatment in receiving h1N1 flu shots while many Albertans were turned away due to a shortage of the vaccine. Other stories tell of the Flames' farm team, the Heat, receiving shots at an undisclosed clinic.

No one should be surprised to hear of such things happening. But there are important points to consider here. First, there is a shortage of the vaccine. Whether it is Dion Phaneuf or John Q. Public who is turned away by the shortage is moot. In the sense that there wasn't a random selection, or some discerning criteria for selection, it is very troubling to see a group of people given the shots instead of another group, the regular Joes that stood outside public vaccination clinics only to be turned away. But in general, I feel no better or worse knowing that the limited group of people receiving the treatment were of one group or another.

What bothers me about this situation is that free market principles would have enabled the Flames to pay for vaccination according to high market prices (induced by the shortage). But instead we reject market principles because it seems unfair to allocate resources through free transactions. But I ask those who cringe at the thought of the wealthy buying up vaccines, is it any less troubling to watch a shortage affect the wealthy than the poor? At least if the market forces were at play, there would be some additional revenue to speak of which could be reinvested to produce more vaccine. And when shortages cause prices to be bid up in the market, it signals entrepreneurs to invest in the activity and provide the product so that they can get a cut of the action.

Instead the government wants to ration out the vaccine according to certain criteria and otherwise to random selection (or first come, first served). While putting a price on health care seems cold, there is no moral high ground to random selection. This is particularly so when we consider the harmful effects of government supply mismanagement and disinterest in maximizing revenues that could be reinvested into ongoing production of the vaccine.

Just think, the Flames could have been vaccinated AND there could have been a profit to encourage further production of the vaccine to counter the shortage.

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice

The following discussion between Ron Paul and Larry King touched on one of the most intellectually bankrupt arguments employed by many who are unwilling to do serious thought. King recalled, "Lyndon Johnson once said, 'The probable answer is that a government is going to have to be half-capitalistic and half-socialistic.'" This argument can be stated in many different ways, as promoting balance, as an objection to extremism, etc. Of course, these are all just platitudes with no real thought behind them.

Such ideas as balance and moderation sound good. Humans seek to avoid conflict and controversy (most of us, anyway) and so many are willing to accept a balance, or compromise, as being desirable. Furthermore, we accept the concept of moderation in nature and biology. e.g. It's good to let your kids get dirty and build up their immune systems, but it's also good to teach them good hygiene. It's good to get some vitamin A, but not too much. etc. ad infinitum.

Around the same time Johnson was making such empty remarks, Barry Goldwater famously said, "Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, and extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." Now there is a well-reasoned statement.

Theoretical concepts like liberty and market intervention do not work the way that many other things work in biology and other sciences. There is a real provable reason why a balance of vitamin A is optimal vs. avoiding it altogether or taking it in abundance. A dietitian didn't just come up with the answer that moderation is best, nor did he just make up what constitutes moderation. Actual thinking and experimental science went into showing why it is so.

On the other hand, pursuing a balance between government and liberty confronts both philosophical and scientific problems. Those pursuing moderation have either failed to address either of these problems, or they have failed in their study of history and philosophy to understand their error.


(Ron Paul on Larry King Live [29/10/2009] following Michael Moore)

Just admit the free market works!

To all those out there complaining about the rise of the Canadian dollar, or to those in the US insisting that a lower dollar is beneficial: admit that the free market works!

Monetary values are driven by a few different factors. Supply and demand, of course, being the core function. In the past, demand for the US dollar was predicated on a false notion of security; that the US was home to the freest market and the strongest economy. Something a self-fulfilling prophecy has been propping up this perception for quite some time now since the fall of the Bretton Woods agreement, and certainly since the asset bubbles of the past 15 years.

When money creation is coupled with production, the demand for a currency can be retained. In a sound money economy, production increases over time (think electronics for the simplest example) as the money supply remains constant. This means that higher quality goods are produced in higher quantities, and the prices actually drop as supply is driven up against a constant money supply. But when dollars are produced by fiat at the printing press, the incentive to produce is weakened. Afterall, the inflation of the money supply will not be immediately felt, rather prices throughout the economy will be gradually bid up by consumers with more currency in their pockets. In the meantime, with more dollars and therefore better [temporary] purchasing power to buy foreign goods, it becomes cheaper to import than to produce at home. Why work harder to grow production when you've got more dollars and a higher purchasing power on others' production?

Of course, what happens over time is that prices are bid up to the extent that any increased purchasing power is wiped out as a new equilibrium is found. Now, with the dollar no longer beign stronger, it's time to go back to work and produce. And in fact, the foreigners now hold the dollars you spent to get their goods, so they have a stronger purchasing power and can have their turn at sitting back and waiting for the fruits of your labour to arrive at their doorsteps.

This is not the way it really works in global trade. Over the past many years, the US has convinced foreigners to accept their dollars for real production, and then to not spend those dollars, but rather invest them back into the American economy. This has created the bubble we are not even close to putting behind us.

But what if there were no increase in the money supply? China still has a relatively poor population compared to the people of the US. Their labour still would have been cheaper and would have produced goods that could compete for American dollars. The reason why a weak dollar is incorrectly perceived as a good thing is because it encourages exports, i.e. it ensures more jobs in production. A weaker dollar is the same as a lower wage, when it comes to the global marketplace. If Canadians have a strong dollar, it means we have a bigger wage to spend in the global market. If Americans have a weak dollar, it means they have lower wages. The problem is that in our current economies, dollar values are set by central bankers not the market.

Canadian manufacturers who are clamoring for a weaker dollar are in fact clamoring for a lower wage, plain and simple. Instead of having each labour group bargain its own wages with each management group, we have a monolithic central bank setting the price level. Unfortunately, that is not going to be enough, the bank cannot meet everyone's demands and find a common equilibrium. Only through the market can this be achieved.

Why Freakonomics was great

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

--Henry Hazlitt

I got the book "Freakonomics" shortly after it came out. It was my first dose of "pop science" reading and I enjoyed the book very much. What I didn't realize until a few years later, after recently reading some newer pop science economics, was why Freakonomics was, and still is, the best of the lot.

Hazlitt ("Economics In One Lesson") condemned Keynesian economists for failing to properly connect economic policies with future consequences. The Keynesians counter: 'in the long run, we're all dead'. Now it is just expected of the Grand Poobahs of economics that they have the intelligence and resolve to fix any problem that comes along, and we generally see any care of the past or the future thrown out the window. Bernanke tells us not to worry about inflation tomorrow, because tomorrow is tomorrow and we only need to worry about today. Go shopping! They'll take care of it when it becomes an issue.

I specifically recall two studies in the book that led me to write this blog (admittedly, I did not read it recently or even scan through it--I'm going on memory alone here). First, Dr. Levitt attempted to find out what happened to crime rates, which led him back in time to an unexpected causation: legalization of abortion. And later he sought to find an answer to the nature-nurture question and parenting methods.Both of these studies called for looks into the past and a search for long-term relationships between causation and consequence. Unfortunately, applying rational principles to 'freakonomics' is insightful, applying those same principles to real economics is obscure, arcane, anachronistic, out of the question.....

Celebs fall for the false dichotomy

In relation to my previous post about language and manipulating ideas, I'm going to address the recent video put out by Will Ferrell and some guest celebrities.

The video (from Funny Or Die) is a satirical public service ad, in which a bunch of celebrities remind us, sarcastically, to look out for the insurance companies who stand to lose huge profits and the execs who stand to lose their large bonuses and private jets. And of course, they talk about how private insurers will refuse coverage based on contractual terms.

The obvious thing that jumped out at me from this ad was that these celebs have fallen hook, line and sinker for a false choice dichotomy--a decision between only two options. The message in the video is to promote Obama's health care reform by bashing the existing system and playing up one or two points on the reform plan. But this is an oversimplification that goes beyond oversimplification. If I were thinking of oversimplifying the health care question I could come up with no less than four options: free market, lightly regulated, highly regulated (current US system) or fully socialized. In terms of this oversimplification, the celebs in the video are actually not even for reform at all; they want to take a highly regulated system and keep it highly regulated according to the Obama plan, with some minor policy changes within the system.

I could respect these people a lot more if they did a video about the problems with the current system and then actually asked people to think of many alternatives that might help and to debate the merits of each. Dumbing the debate down into Shitty Current System vs. Reform is a false choice and of course, if such a debate is allowed to be narrowed in such a way, reform is always the most seductive option. But reform should not be synonymous with more control, more government and less freedom, particularly without an honest debate.

P.S. Will Ferrell isn't funny and hasn't been for at least 1o years....

Corporate bashing

One of the things that frustrates me with a large group of people associated with libertarianism is the corporate personhood concept.

Corporate personhood is the concept that a corporation is a distinct legal person. Corporate personhood came into being a long time ago by fiat, and now corporations demand that the rights afforded human beings by the constitution be guaranteed to them as well.

Obviously, there is a problem with this notion--corporations are not people, and only people have true rights. So why am I on the side of the corporations on this argument? And why is it such a frustrating debate?

When I say I'm on the side of the corporations, I may be exaggerating. I do not believe that a corporation is a person, nor that the law should treat it as such. And I would like to see common law rediscovered and fiat law like this thrown out. However, a corporation is a collection of people, all with full and equal rights. Generally when people argue against personhood, they are not only advocating for the corporation to be treated as an asset of a group of free people, they are instead suggesting that a corporation is subservient to the "common good".

Recently, The Colbert Report had a feature on corporate personhood where Stephen Colbert predictably railed against the notion that a corporation should be able to spend money on political campaigns or that a corporation has the right to free speech at all. This is the common type of thought associated with the anti-personhood movement.

But when you make the case that those who own and operate a corporation cannot speak freely insofar as they are part of the corporation, it is an abridgment of individual liberty against those people. While a corporation has no true rights, all the rights of speech, privacy and everything else of the ownership is legitimately extended to the corprorate asset, just as my righs are properly extended to my property.

Instead of focusing on ways the state can deny people rights, we ought to be looking at how to eliminate any privileges extended to them by the state. Corporations follow different tax and investment regulations and ownership enjoys the security of limited liability. Limited liability is one of the greatest moral hazards imaginable, providing no accountability to ownership for the misdeeds of its business' operations. This is analogous to holding a dog responsible for attacking a child, instead of its owner.

We should scrap silly notions like corporate personhood along with all the silly regulations and benefits doled out by the state, and embolden our position on individual rights and their extension to property.

What is capitalism?

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

--George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

As a libertarian, I need never fear a shortage of frustration. The government is assured to do something I will disapprove of tomorrow. The newspapers are sure to publish all sorts of asinine commentary that ignores the logic of Austrian [free market] economics and the ethics of libertarianism. But I generally don't mind being part of the minority. What is terribly frustrating however, is the great difficulty that I have even attempting to communicate ideas with non-libertarians.

Many years before even knowing what a libertarian was, I read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and became fascinated with the ideas expressed in the story. Most compelling was his attention to the language 'newspeak', that ideas could be suppressed by manipulating the language with which they are expressed. Now I fully appreciate newspeak, not as a literary term but as a reality.

What is capitalism? The term has taken on a full load, used to define any economic order from a pure free market to one on the brink of socialism. And we all lose as a result. As the analysts attempt to unravel the current economic crisis, the need for articulate language is paramount. A free-marketer like myself can scarcely use the term 'capitalism' in any assessment of the economy without likening myself (in the eyes of others) to Conservatives, Republicans and other groups of people who are not only terrible advocates of the free market, but in fact the most dangerous enemies of my 'capitalism'.

Eight years of George Bush calling himself "a free market guy', a fiscal conservative and a capitalist is a problem for those like me--coincidentally, a free market guy, a fiscal conservative and a capitalist, though i practically never found myself agreeing with Bush's economic policies. Conservatives pay lip service to capitalism, while they adopt corporatist policies that enrage the socialist crowds. This is a perfect dichotomy: capitalism vs. socialism, where capitalism is a system that serves the special interests and enrages the socialists, and where socialism is a system that serves the special interests and enrages capitalists. Beautiful! This was one of the many prescient points made by FA Hayek in Road to Serfdom, that government can control the people by representing an opposition to one unfavourable option in order to garner support for some policy that serves its own interests. A left-right political dichotomy serves to bolster this tactic. Once one policy has bilked the people for long enough, support will turn against it and the opposition ideology can be adopted in the same manner.

The moral of the story is, I suppose, that next time you see someone complain about capitalism, pay a little attention to which capitalism they are railing against and don't let that sour you to other capitalisms, such as my free market brand which certainly cannot be blamed for the current crisis given the fact that it was not being practiced. And while you're at it, be on guard for other politically-charged words that maybe don't mean anything, or at least any one thing, anymore.

After seeing District 9

One thing I've been thinking about lately is something I read through some links I followed from Michael Shermer's site (if I remember correctly). A skeptic of so-called "UFOlogy" made a case for why we may never witness alien life come to our planet, that I found very interesting to ponder. He pointed out the amazing technology required to travel through space and interact with life in other planets--other galaxies even--and made the case that if the technology of their space programs could be so advanced, they must also have incredibly advanced consumer and household electronics as well. And if they have such technologies, wouldn't they be zombified the way we humans are by our television sets and broadband internet access? Interesting hypothesis.

Some problems I found with this theory:

• Human laziness is a result of our evolution, an evolution that presumably took a different path than our alien counterparts, and therefore would suggest they might not share our foibles
• Prosperity, such as leisure and consumer electronics, are the result of liberty and self-driven entrepreneurship. We see with humans that when a totalitarian regime comes to power, the people cease to have leisure time, toys and the opportunity to be entrepreneurial, instead becoming means to their masters' ends. We take it for granted that alien visitors, because of their evolved intelligence, would therefore be interested in what we consider to be higher pursuits than war, power and conquest, but it seems to me that the most likely alien civilization to reach us would be that of beings subjected to the whims of a self-indulgent authoritarian.
• If the opposite is true, than the advances in technology must then be brought about not by force, but rather by entrepreneurial activity. This means a relatively free market--at least as free as modern western society. If this is the case, I think that there is a vast overstatement of the ignorance of our modern society. We still have enough freedom that people are driven away from their TV sets and computer screens, even if a large segment of the population cannot resist. These would be the individuals that would bring about technological advances and be adventurous enough to travel to Earth.

I've probably overlooked many theoretical concepts here and certainly excluded many theories both in favour and in opposition to the thinker whose idea I am addressing here. But I just wanted to get a stream-of-thought thinking exercise off my chest, not solve the riddle of interstellar relations.

Oh yeah, and after seeing District 9 and enjoying the movie, I did have some problems with it....Namely, that these creatures created cybernetic-style technology for their weapons and spacecraft, and they had the remote transmission system that the little alien used to get the ship moving over district 9, not to mention the technology of the actual transportation and weaponry themselves. And yet, they were communicating with regular speech--regular given their biology, that is. If they have the technology to mutate the main character into an alien, and the technology to fix him, as the alien insisted he could, along with the cybernetic biologically-integrated technology, why weren't they all fitted with nano-communication devices and cybernetic telekinesis and cool shit like that? I was just recently watching an episode of NOVAscienceNOW that was discussing how close we are to recreating eardrums and other body parts and the prospects of nanotech and cybernetics giving us technological telekinetic abilities in a future not-too-distant.

But I guess I will just take the positives from the movie, be glad I saw it and watch NOVA for the futuristic technology....

Reporting health care hoaxes to the White House

There was a fury amongst conservative and libertarian groups recently when the White House put together a campaign to have Americans send in information about health care reform that didn't jive with their views.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

First, I should state me annoyance with those of my fellow libertarians that blew this whole thing out of proportion (I was less annoyed with the conservatives, because their nonsense does not reflect back on me). Implications were made by many individuals that the government was getting people to tattle on their neighbours, family and friends, drawing comparisons to Orwellian policies. While I cannot guarantee that the government was not proceeding toward such a program, there was certainly no proof or logic to suggest that it was. The White House has a tough task of selling the people on its plan, and certainly would want to keep on top of all the arguments against it, so as to rebut them and persuade people to accept the initiative.

But we mustn't overlook the very fact that there is too much disinformation to keep track of. (I actually believe a lot of it is not disinformation, but in fact valuable information for the people, but that is a moot point, at least in this post.) Why are there so many points of contention being raised by the various people in opposition? Why does the White House need to concern itself with every chain letter and blog post? Why can't the people tell real information from disinformation?

The answer to these questions and more: the draft of the proposed bill posted by the Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pension Committee is a 615-page PDF! (summary) This excludes all the other pages that are adopted into the bill from other acts, where amendments and revisions are made. Compare this to Ron Paul's "Audit the Fed" Bill, HR 1207 which is less than a page and for which the amendments to existing law apply to only one paragraph of the US Code. That is a bill you can read.

The government knows the health care bill is unreadable! It knows that ordinary citizens cannot tell truth from fact because they wouldn't even know where to start. And it knows that the people are dissatisfied with the current system. All it needs to do is offer an alternative, and put forth some arguments against opposing points. These arguments needn't be rational or honest, because the people will not be reading the bill, and the media will validate their existing viewpoints according to the viewership, not challenge them. All they need to do is keep together a coalition of the majority--that is, those who are dissatisfied with the current system--who will cheer for reform. As Hayek wrote in Road to Serfdom, "It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program...than on any positive task."

While I'm glad that the White House has ended its appeal for so-called tattling, it doesn't address the real issue of unintelligible legislation. The real solution here is to have bills that people can read.

Or better yet, the government could just get out of the way and let the free market operate.

Compassion and law

The term "compassion" is thrown around a lot in politics, and proves to be one of the most asinine arguments I am faced with. We are a compassionate society, someone will argue, and must therefore do this, this and this.....(Of course, when they say we, they really mean the government.) What these people do not understand is that government is not compassion, it is force.

You exercise compassion when you give from your own pocket to charity, when you give your own time to someone in need of assistance and when you compel others to do the same. The law eliminates the option of compassion. If you are happy to give money to help some group of needy people, but the government taxes your money and distributes money to that same group, you have not exercised compassion. More importantly, all those people who wished to give different amounts of money or to help different causes (and even those who didn't wish to help anyone at all) have been harmed by the law that compels them to share in your so-called philanthropy.

What is forgotten is that your compassion for one group necessarily means you cannot show compassion to another group. Those who decide to not pay their taxes because the government does not use the money as they wish will be threatened with the loss of property, jail and even death. Just as you wouldn't see it as compassionate to demand charitable donations at gunpoint, it is not compassionate to position the government apparatus against anyone to achieve your ends.

And due to widespread economic ignorance, people also fail to understand how not giving is a laudable use of money. When someone hoards money, they take themselves out of the consumer pool for certain goods and services, which drives costs down, making things more affordable for those in the market. If the money is saved, it drives up supply of available credit, which drives down the interest rate, making credit more affordable for those at the bottom who may rely on it to get through a tough time. By investing, the money is turned into productive capacity that can create jobs. This is a far more pleasing method, at least in my view, to create jobs than to institute government bureaucracies to rob the wealth of the people and then distribute it politically. And finally if the money is spent, that results in someone else saving, hoarding or investing, precipitating a cycle that promotes affordable goods and services and job growth. Bureaucracy robs from the productive wealth of society and hurts everyone.

The World Question

I would highly recommend that you all visit the Edge.org World Question Center. Every year, some of the most renowned intellectuals in the world are offered a chance to respond to a question that challenges and excites the mind. Such questions have included:

What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?
What is your dangerous idea?
What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?
What questions have disappeared?

What will change everything in our lifetimes? Interstellar viruses? Programming embryos? Electro-magnetic pulse wiping out all computer processors?

I was considering having a look through the whole list of answers and trying to ascertain any political biases that play into the respondents' answers. Pinker: liberal. Shermer: libertarian. And so-on....

I considered looking through the answers to see how many answers proposed a positive change versus a negative change. Global climate change, electromagnetic pulse: negative. Universal broadband coverage, personal energy production: positive.

Instead, I've just let myself get lost in the tapestry of ideas put forth on the site and hope that you will find something to excite your mind as well.