Tuesday, January 6
New Blog Location
I have really enjoyed using Blogger as the home of my blog, it is a wonderful site and has really helped me learn many of the tools of blogging. The new blog is powered by WordPress, which is a great open source project that provides many tools not readily available in blogger.
Friday, January 2
Moral Clarity in Gaza
The amazing thing about this commentary, is that it is often applicable to conflicts between Israel and any of the terrorist organizations over there.Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.
This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage -- or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb -- will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.
Monday, December 8
Canada Considers Massive 'Internet Tax'
Michael Geist describes the situation in detail.
Basically, a few policy groups are asking the legislature for some laws that have applied to media content before the Internet, to be applied to Internet content. It makes intuitive sense to me until I realize that the government should have no right to regulate media content in the first place.
Wednesday, November 5
Final Victory in the War of Ideas?
- On some social issues (homosexuality, immigration, and other types of xenophobia) the conservatives will moderate significantly over the next 10 years.
- Conservative aversion to changes to the patent law may reduce as changes in the software industry make those changes more evidently necessary.
- On environmental issues, the conservatives will drop the issue of whether global warming is an issue, and focus on policies that help the market incorporate environmental cost into their decision making (carbon tax or 'cap-n-trade' vs. arbitrary per-company pollution controls).
To justify 'spreading the wealth around,' one has to accept that wealth does not belong to the individual who creates it. Is wealth created by the social environment that created the person, or is it the creative and motivated character of the person that creates both the wealth and the social environment? If you claim that the social forces created the person's character, than it becomes one social duty to do everything possible to forcibly improve the social environment. That can and will be used to permit government control of anything that affects the social environment, words, print, businesses that compete with government programs, etc. If you deny the basic premise that a person owns the product of their work, then you deny the basic freedom that a person even owns his/her self.
Long Live the King
Friday, October 17
Capitalism 2.0?
One of the basic tenents of philosophy is that while one cannot prove the existence of others, the act of proof is sufficient evidence to assume one’s own existence (I think, therefore I am). The only person, object or force in all of reality that must exist is you yourself.Given that, freedom is not a luxury, or a benefit we receive from benevolent governments. Freedom is a fact of nature.Capitalism recognizes that nature and attempts to harness it for the best possible outcome. To deny freedom is to reverse the basics of philosophy, holding each person more accountable for the well being of others than that of those they directly care about.Please don’t misunderstand me. There must be discussion about the proper law society uses to hold people accountable. Peaceful coexistence requires standards of behavior. If those standards are called ‘regulation,’ then fine. But if you deny the basic reality that Freedom is natural and required for life, then expect disaster.
Tuesday, October 7
Craiglist Crime Syndicate
Wednesday, October 1
Competitive Alternatives
Tuesday, September 30
Bankruptcy, Not Bailout
- The implicit backing of the federal government for Freddie and Fannie encouraged them to take on far more risk than a free market would have allowed.
- "Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending."
- "The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government."
- "If financial institutions cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will happen."
- "Further, the current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street's hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80 cents."