V = I·R

I think if there was a way to answer in one sentence to the vast majority of liberal arguments of why the government should do X or Y, this would be the best answer from constitutional point of view:


(source)

In the famous case of United States vs. Lopez, it was argued whether the government has powers, under the Interstate Commerce Clause, to make it illegal to carry concealed firearms on school campuses. The argument that the General Solicitor (the government's lawyer) presented was that carrying guns on school campuses disrupts education, which eventually has an effect on commerce of the nation. Therefore, in an effort to preserve the national commerce, the government has a power to ban guns on the campuses.

The defense lawyer argued that the Congress has to make findings explicitly linking the banned activity to the interstate commerce, not a hypothetical that might affect interstate commerce. Furthermore, he argued, it is not within jurisdiction of the Federal Government to fight crime on campuses or protect education — that remains a State's prerogative, and when the Government tries to interfere, it is crossing into the State's jurisdiction.

Justice Kennedy asked whether the Federal Government can make it illegal to throw a firebomb into a school house.

Before the lawyer had a chance to answer, Justice Scalia said the text quoted above. Sometimes the concept of the limit on the government's powers means a limit on the government's powers to do good things as well.

Or what one considers to be a good thing.

This, then, is another argument that one can throw at the liberals. The reasons why the government should not regulate people's private lives in an effort to improve the society are:

1. It is pragmatically bad, because the government is plagued by all the problems of a central planner and cannot predict (as nobody can) how to distribute resources most effectively, how to regulate without creating perverse incentives and unintended consequences, etc. In short, when the government interferes, it makes things worse. Opposite from what it was trying to do. Therefore, distribution of resources and improvement of society is best left to private entities competing on a free market. This is an economist's argument.

2. It is a violation of people's natural rights. Even if something is a good thing, you can't violate natural law, in the form of people's natural rights, to achieve this good thing. It is naturally illegal. The function of the law is not to improve society, but to resolve conflicts. When the government attempts to do the former by interfering with people's private lives, it is not only misusing the function of the law but is in fact going against it. This is a libertarian legal philosopher's argument.

3. It is unconstitutional. The people simply have not given the government such powers in the Constitution when it was written. If people wish to do so later, they can do so by ratifying an Amendment. But until that has been done, the Constitution must be interpreted according to the original intent, because the original intent shows which powers the people and the states have clearly ceded to the government.

For instance, imagine I give you a job of cleaning my house under the arrangement that you only clean in the specific places that I told you to. Then, if you want to enter room A, you have to make sure I have given you explicit instructions to do so. If "situation has changed" and, say, there was a spill that went under the door into room A, you can try to call me and obtain my permission to enter the room A. But until I have given you an explicit permission to do so, it is unlawful for you to enter my property without a permission. The same way, under the Constitution, the government has been given a limited list of enumerated powers that the individuals and the States have delegated to it. If the government tries to do something that it was not delegated to, it is infringing the States' and the individuals' rights. This is a conservative constitutionalist's approach.

This is a good video about Justice Scalia:

[フレーム]

It’s looking very bad for Obama. This week, his presidential seal even fell off his podium. Talk about a sign....
(Obama, looking at the falling American economy — source)

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all 'right-thinking people'. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as 'bad luck'."
— Robert Heinlein, science fiction writer


“We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again. But over the last six months we’ve had a run of bad luck.”
— Barack Obama, science fiction president

[via Istapundit through arbat]

Back in the day, there was an election in Louisiana between two candidates for a governor (or a senator, I am not sure and am too lazy to look up). Much of the intelligentsia supported one of the candidates. The slogan of the intelligentsia was: “Better a crook than a racist” (this just shows you the realities of politics in Louisiana; as well as the realities of any politics, for that matter).

I was just thinking while reading this (I don’t know anything about this blog; it’s just the first source of that speech I found while googling) that I suppose people voting for the current president did not think in the same terms (not that McCain was a crook; I mean whatever flaw people who voted for Obama found in McCain was obviously worse that the flaws of Obama). I actually know a 22-year-old who was quite proud of the fact that her first act of political activism (nothing to be proud of ever, but never mind that) was to vote for Obama. I think it’s quite sad, to be honest.

Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.

We heard it in Jesse Jackson's "HYMIE town" remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about "them Jews" not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a "Jew" problem.

Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were "greedy cheaters" who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were "evil". Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.

In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of "The Nation", but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, "he speaks the truth" and "stands up for the black man". What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived "enemies" of the black community – white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.

The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does. First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called "sitting under". You don't merely attend a church, you "sit under" a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama "sat under" Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan – Wright's friend – to attend and help organize his "Million Man March". I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what "good" he claims to be doing. Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support. [read on]

But — hooray for the free dental insurance. (Well, I personally don’t have it, but I am happy for those that do.)

Also, this caught my attention: “Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were ‘greedy cheaters’ who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood.”

But, which shop owners (or worse yet, factory owners, CEOs, etc.) are not “greedy cheaters who cannot be trusted”? You hear from many very intelligent, educated people with good character traits that they “don’t like capitalism”. Of course, they like being able to buy bananas while living in a northern state more than once a year. And pizza (which may be made locally, but most of the things to make it, including the ingredients and the tools, were brought from other states by those huge trucks or even from overseas). And they like to be able to afford to make use of air (or bus, or taxi) travel. And of the 99% of their life that would be impossible without capitalism. And yet, the people who provide them with the goods and services are not to be trusted and the system of free exchange of goods and services is bad.

Also, recently I heard from a family member that “there shouldn’t be business-type relations within a family”. I asked her: “Do you mean that if I own a business — or, let’s make it less evil, a lab — and your husband is a specialist, and I need exactly that kind of specialist, it is bad for me to hire him and allow him to provide for his family, while I get in return his service?” She said: “Well, no, of course not. I mean relations of a simpler lomd”. So, I said: “You mean, if I need a babysitter for my kids, and my niece is looking for a summer job, it’s better for me to hire a complete stranger, and my niece to go working for complete strangers than for us to help each other out with what each one is looking for?” She didn’t think that was too evil either. Whatever example I was providing was not evil. In the end, it seemed, some kind of business-like relations in a family are fine. As long as children don’t “borrow” two dollars from their parents and then demand those back. Well, yeah, that’s just a bit stupid.

From the preface (by Albert Jay Nock) to Herbert Spencer’s The Man Versus the State:

Spencer ends The New Toryism with a prediction which American readers today will find most interesting, if they bear in mind that it was written [ninety five] years ago in England and primarily for English readers. He says:

The laws made by Liberals are so greatly increasing the compulsions and restraints exercised over citizens, that among Conservatives who suffer from this aggressiveness there is growing up a tendency to resist it. Proof is furnished by the fact that the “Liberty and Property Defense League”, largely consisting of Conservatives, has taken for its motto “Individualism versus Socialism”. So that if the present drift of things continues, it may by-and-by really happen that the Tories will be defenders of liberties which the Liberals, in pursuit of what they think popular welfare, trample under foot.

This prophecy has already been fulfilled in the United States.

And earlier:

Spencer shows that the early Liberal was consistently for cutting down the State's coercive power over the citizen, wherever this was possible. He was for reducing to a minimum the number of points at which the State might make coercive interventions upon the individual. He was for steadily enlarging the margin of existence within which the citizen might pursue and regulate his own activities as he saw fit, free of State control or State supervision. Liberal policies and measures, as originally conceived, were such as reflected these aims. The Tory, on the other hand, was opposed to these aims, and his policies reflected this opposition.
In general terms, the Liberal was consistently inclined towards the individualist philosophy of society, while the Tory was consistently inclined towards the Statist philosophy.
Spencer shows moreover that as a matter of practical policy, the early Liberal proceeded towards the realization of his aims by the method of repeal. He was not for making new laws, but for repealing old ones. It is most important to remember this. Wherever the Liberal saw a law which enhanced the State's coercive power over the citizen, he was for repealing it and leaving its place blank. There were many such laws on the British statute-books, and when Liberalism came into power it repealed an immense grist of them.
Spencer must be left to describe in his own words, as he does in the course of this essay, how in the latter half of the [19th] century British Liberalism went over bodily to the philosophy of Statism, and abjuring the political method of repealing existent coercive measures, proceeded to outdo the Tories in constructing new coercive measures of ever-increasing particularity.
This piece of British political history has great value for American readers, because it enables them to see how closely American Liberalism has followed the same course. It enables them to interpret correctly the significance of Liberalism's influence upon the direction of our public life in the last half-century, and to perceive just what it is to which that influence has led, just what the consequences are which that influence has tended to bring about, and just what are the further consequences which may be expected to ensue.

Now, the bit about repealing earlier-existing laws vs. creating new laws is interesting to me. In the earlier post called “Evolution of Liberal Reform”, I earlier quoted Arbat (translated from Russian):

All starts with the leftists finding a “Problem”. Oftentimes the Problem is not really a problem. For instance they think that asset inequality is a problem. Even though it is the main stimulus for the economy’s development. To call it a problem is similar to calling voltage difference in the electric grid a problem that needs to be corrected as soon as possible, so that there is no difference in electric potentials at all. [For those less physically inclined, replace electric grid with a ski resort and the voltage difference with the height difference between the top and the bottom of the hill.]

Having identified the Problem, leftists propose a Plan. Oftentimes the Plan involves people giving up some kind of freedom and the government, in turn, forbidding the Problem away. As a rule, the freedom is indeed taken away. It’s the only part that goes according to the Plan. The original “Problem” remains the same, but in addition to it arise a number of “unforeseen side effects”. Which are of course presented as the next set of “Problems”, which are treated with new Plans (instead of getting rid of the original plan, which caused the problems in the first place), and so on.

(Part 1 here.)

A friend of mine on the Facebook says: “My employer put in new carpets and installed auto flush toilets in the bathrooms. We still have free soda. Does this mean that recession is over?”

His friend responds: “No... Actually, it means that the recession is worse. Notice that the automated toilets flush directly into the input-pipe of the free soda machine.”

That, my friends, is what most liberal reforms are all about.

Go, Wisconsin.

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/zPxMZ1WdINs&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Another one, more accessible to the average IQ, and going to the core of the problem with liberalism:

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/lwk1aHU-pms&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Now, one mistake in the above videos is the assumptions that liberals 1) care about numbers, 2) know what the numbers mean, 3) have any semblance of distinguishing the reality from a fantasy.

The full speech from the second video (emphasis mine):

RepPaulRyan — March 21, 2010 — Madam speaker, there is a lot wrong with this bill.

We know the problems with its cost. We know it doesnt really reduce the deficit. We know that it increases health care premiums. The CBO has given us all of this information and its clear that what we have is a bill chock full of gimmicks and hidden mandates.

So I’m not going to get into all of that again.

But what I will ask is this: why has this decision become so personal to our constituents? Why are so many people swarming the Capitol over this? Why have we received 100,000 calls an hour from all over the country?

It is because health care affects every one of us. And yet, here we are, debating whether the government should have a bigger role in making those personal decisions.

So make no mistake about it. Were not just here to pass a healthcare bill. We are being asked to make a choice about the future path of this country.

The speakers to my left are correct: this is history. Today marks a major turning point in American history. This is really not a debate about prices, coverage, or choosing doctors.

This is ultimately about what kind of country we are going to be in the 21st century.

America is not just a nationality its not just a mass of land from Hawaii to Maine, from Wisconsin to Florida. America is an idea. Its the most pro-human idea ever designed by mankind.

Our founders got it right, when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature's God — not from government.

Should we now subscribe to an ideology where government creates rights, is solely responsible for delivering these artificial rights, and then systematically rations these rights?

Do we believe that the goal of government is to promote equal opportunity for all Americans to make the most of their lives — or do we now believe that government’s role is to equalize the results of peoples lives?

The philosophy advanced on the floor by the Majority today is so paternalistic, and so arrogant. It’s condescending. And it tramples upon the principles that have made America so exceptional.

My friends, we are fast approaching a tipping point where more Americans depend on the federal government than on themselves for their livelihoods — a point where we, the American people, trade in our commitment and our concern for our individual liberties in exchange for government benefits and dependencies.

More to the point, Madam Speaker, we have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. The European social welfare state promoted by this legislation is not sustainable.

This is not who we are and it is not who we should become.

As we march toward this tipping point of dependency, we are also accelerating toward a debt crisis a debt crisis that is the result of politicians of the past making promises we simply cannot afford to keep. Déjà vu all over again.

It is unconscionable what we are leaving the next generation.

This moment may mark a temporary conclusion of the health care debate — but its place in history has not yet been decided. If this passes, the quest to reclaim the American idea is not over. The fight to reapply our founding principles is not finished, it’s just a steeper climb. And it is a climb that we will make.

On this issue — more than any other issue we have ever seen here — the American people are engaged. From our town hall meetings, to Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, you have made your voices heard. And some of us are listening to you.

My colleagues, lets bring down this bill — and bring back the ideas that made this country great!

[stalin.jpg]http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1943/1101430104_400.jpg
(Joseph Stalin, y"sh — twice)

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images-3/hitler-time-magazine-cover.jpg
(Adolph Hitler, y"sh)

http://www.sixties60s.com/1961/time1961.jpg
(Wow, that's an unflattering painting. Anyway: John F. Kennedy)

http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/horns4.jpg
(Vladimir Putin — with some barrel distortion)

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z55/ajbar7/fashionising/time-magazine-obama.jpg
(Barack Obama)

And now... drum roll...


(Ben Bernanke, Mr. “We screwed up your economy, but it could’ve been much worse”)

By the way: that picture of Obama above? I always wondered what it reminded me of.

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/cH-K3MU7-fA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I rather prefer William Wallace’s haircut, though.

Such fun:

President Obama may have to raise taxes to pay for public health care and the growing deficit [rrreealllly?.. who could have guessed?..], an eventuality that administration officials touched lightly on Sunday as they promoted an economy emerging from recession.

With an expected deficit next year of 1ドル.8 trillion, and spending still being planned for a 1ドル trillion, 10-year health care reform, officials say something will have to be done to prevent further erosion of the economy.

"We will not get this economy back on track, recovery will be not strong and sustained, unless we ... can convince the American people that we're going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on ABC's "This Week."

Asked point blank whether it was right to suggest it is a matter of when, not if, taxes will be raised, Geithner responded, "It is absolutely right."

But the president's team circling the Sunday morning news shows was quick to note that there are signs the recession is easing despite a persistent decline in job losses in the past six months [no worries then; all signs of improving economy here].

Administration officials say they hope to see positive economic growth before the end of the year, and credit the 787ドル billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in February with preventing recession from going into depression.

The legislation — opposed by all but three Republicans in the House and Senate — was intended to help save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs. But since that time, the jobless rate has grown to 9.5 percent, higher than the administration predicted even without a stimulus package. [But that’s not because the administration’s model of the market, its prediction abilities, presence of common sense and in general the view of the Universe the administration is living in are all shit. It’s because… err… well, it would be even worse without the stimulus package, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?]

Of course, raising new taxes and increasing minimum wage will make it more likely for new jobs to appear… Rrrrright?.. I mean, if you are a business owner, and your profit becomes even lower because you need to pay new taxes and pay more to each worker than the market (i.e., competition between businesses for workers) allows, you are not going to cut jobs; you are going to hire even more people. Yep, yep…

Also, friends, in case you were wondering, this is an image of an asshole:

An interesting interview with Harry Stein about the reasons of liberals being so “tolerant” of their conservative brethren. His main point is that when a liberal hears someone is a conservative, he does not think the conservative is wrong, he thinks the conservative is evil.

I myself had an experience of being asked “So, you are a conservative?” in the same tone as “So, your sister is a prostitute?”

I also remember how my rabbi once heard from someone that he would never even consider Orthodox Judaism as having any truth and would not even research or think about it, because Orthodox Judaism apparently limits one’s freedoms, disregards scientific evidence, is outdated, and in general it is close-minded to believe all the things that Orthodox Jews believe, which is why this person would not waste time learning even a little about them. My rabbi’s response was: “So… you closed your mind to stay open-minded?”

You get the same ‘tude in other illuminated places. In this Gizmodo article, the author makes fun of an Orthodox couple who sued a building owner for placing a motion-sensitive light near their apartment and refusing to allow them to pay for it being replaced with a normal light (or something or other). Now, some of the criticism is about people pushing their religious views on others, but most of it is about how ridiculous the idea of not turning light one day a week seems to everyone, how superstitious and outdated. (More particularly, the idea that turning light constitutes creating fire or building something is even more ridiculous to them.)

When one person was accused of disrespecting other people’s beliefs, he answered: “I am all for respecting other people’s religious beliefs, but not crazy superstitions such as these.”

So, with liberals being appaled at someone being a conservative (I am not even talking about being a libertarian — that’s not just a reason for disgust, but grounds for calling 911 and screaming: “There is a devil in my living room”) it’s the same thing.

There is a degree of accepted disagreement within their zone of comfort (e.g., you may disagree with me that Obama is the best candidate and Hillary is not — fine, I disagree with you but respect your opinion), but outside of this zone, you have drifted out of the definition of a normal human being, and no facts, arguments or supporting evidence help. You are either evil (if you are a conservative), nuts (if you are an Orthodox Jew not merely believing in G-d and wearing a white scarf on “Sabbath”, but actually practicing Jewish Law) or both (if you are a politically conservative Jew, who does not like Obama and eats properly shechted chicken on Shabbos with his sons who are circumcised and daughters who are dressed modestly).

An interesting article on Voz Iz Neias: “What Obama taught me”.

Holocaust, schmolocaust.

Aren't those pesky Jews ever going to go away? Yes, denying the Holocaust is "hateful." But let's get a grip. Palestinians "endure . . . daily humiliations." Their lot's "intolerable." Israel "devastates Palestinian families." No wonder our president shunned wicked Israel during his trip - sending a clear, if unspoken, message that Jews are now fair game.

"America's strong bonds with Israel are . . . unbreakable." Yup. And they're issued by Chrysler.

Hamas is a legitimate, recognized voice of the Palestinians. Rocket attacks against civilians, suicide bombings and kidnappings really work.

Iran can have nukes.

Our president's acceptance of "peaceful nuclear power" for Tehran was coded language for "no pre-emptive military action."

Jordan doesn't matter.

So much for one Arab country's attempts at human decency. If you want attention from our president, you've got to be a desert gangbanger.

My wife wondered why Obama didn't make his speech in Indonesia, the world's most-populous Muslim state, where he would've been welcomed proudly as a home-boy. Obama just reinforced the stereotype that Muslim equals Arab.

Democracy isn't for everybody.

We're done peddling that particular drug.

What are my personal thoughts about our president’s speech? They are fully expressed in this video:

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/ihW2j17esZc&hl=en&fs=1&]

A response of a conservative and a liberal to what Obama is doing to the market:

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/89ZgzWujEgQ&hl=en&fs=1]

A perfect example of a messed up method of thinking representative of a certain political philosophy (click to enlarge):


(source )

What’s a sign of a you-know-which political/economical philosopher? He thinks he knows better than a whole country of people what they really need.

“Who needs a new iPod? You need a new iPod? Are you kidding? No you don’t. What you really need is a big marble ball in the middle of a city and a park around it. To create which we will tax you, taking your iPod money away.”

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://www.youtube.com/v/kQy6s--ZGbs&hl=en&fs=1]
(click on the video to watch a bigger version)

When I hear the words “public good”, I reach for my gun.

The greatest public good is to be left alone and not be taxed (except for protection), controlled and “governed” by politicians. Let the public good be managed by the public itself (did someone say “democracy”?) and by entrepreneurs — who are the real government of our society. Not the boys and girls who get salary for brainwashing the masses.

Besides the fact that the idea that bailing out press — of all industries — is the last example of “public good” I can imagine. The greatest public good would be to pierce this snake’s head with a sharp stake.

One of arbat’s commentors writes:

Calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” he warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” he said. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, he said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

And why didn’t Americans elect the person who said the above their President? Oh wait, they did — it’s a speech by Obama himself.

I just had an idea — there are two of them out there: Barack Obama and Borat Obama. One of them, of course, is a [time traveller]. Borat sits in Washington and works on economic policy, while Barack travels around New Mexico and makes speeches.

In case you have no idea what it is he is going on about, compare the quote in italic from above with these charts:

http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/wapoobamabudget1.jpg

In gray is evil conservatives’ spending. In red — you-know-who’s:

http://www.heritage.org/Press/ALAChart/images/ALC_46_300px.jpg

And finally, I love this figure:

http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/obamacuts.jpg

Greg Mankiw comments:

To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of 100,000ドル called everyone in the family together to deal with a 34,000ドル budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By 3ドル over the course of the year — approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other 33,997ドル? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year.

Nu, nu. I hope I don’t have to tell you that it’s your money, folks.

Keep remembering this: whenever the government “finances” or “stimulates” something, it does it with your money. Not just money out of your paycheck. The extra money you pay for products which did not become cheaper, because their manufacturers were taxed and did not invest extra money in product development. In those products that you cannot afford. In extra you pay for house, for your amenities. In all that civilization advances on which you missed out — about which, of course, you don’t know since they are not there.

So, I guess, in one sense it’s not so bad. It’s like living in 19th century without toilet paper. It sucks, but you don’t know it does, since you don’t know what you’re missing.

I hope you enjoy those stones.

Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
— Albert Einstein

When writing “Europe”, I mean Russia first of all. But it applies equally well at one point or another to any other European country — with the possible exception of Britain.

(Speaking of Britain, yesterday I may have found a possible burial place of one of my previous gilgulim. The one after Rambam.)

And finally, let me leave you with a question of the week: is it really a good idea to start a war with CIA? I don’t mean if you’re KGB or FSB or Chinese government. I mean if you’re a not overly bright or overly honest politician, who (being a member of a certain party) possibly may have a lot to hide about yourself.

Some fun reading for the seekers of truth out there.

I loved this part so much, I will devote a separate post to it. I actually did not know there is a monument to foolishness with initiative, but in fact there is. Of all places, in North Korea.

I think if Barack Obama asked, they would let him in as a special guest, to tour the country.

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319916]

http://www.privatejetsmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/al-gore-hypocrite-290x214.jpg

Recently I wrote a post, in which I said:

There is a Russian saying: “A fool without initiative is better than a fool with initiative.” At least the first fool doesn’t do anything — he is just being an idiot quietly. The second one wracks havoc with his well-intentioned idiocy.

So, after that, I was washing hands in our new building’s bathroom and noticed that the water becomes progressively hotter as you have it on (the water turns on itself when your hands approach the faucet; if you want to wash your hands with cold water only, it’s not an option). To the point that if you wash the hands for too long, it becomes intolerably hot. And, of course, if you just washed hands quite thoroughly, and someone walks to the same faucet right after you, he is greeted with a flow of scalding liquid.

I wandered at that point what every programmer has wondered numerous times while working with Windows OS: is this a bug or a feature? (Somehow this statement always sounds better in Russian — perhaps because “bug” and “feature” are pronounced in English, with heavy Russian accent.) Is this someone making a mistake in plumbing, or is this purposefully designed so that people don’t wash their hands for too long, wasting too much water? In other words, is this a work of a fool without initiative or a fool with initiative?

At the time, I dismissed the second alternative as unlikely. It turns out, I could be right on target with it. Gizmodo reports in “Inflatable Shower Curtain: Be Green or Be Suffocated” —

Sure, there are other methods of conserving water in the shower, but none of them put your life on the line like the inflatable shower curtain from designer Elisabeth Buecher.

My approach to design can sometimes appear shockingly radical but I have got different reasons to legitimize that. An alarm clock is not what we can call a pleasurable object. It is often even painful to be awoken by it. However it is a necessary object, which regulates our lives and the society. That's what I call the "design for pain and for our own good".

Some of my designs seem to constrain people, acting like an alarm clock, awaking people to the consciousness of their behavior and giving them limits. People often need an external signal to behave more. In France the government added thousands of new radars on the roads to fight excessive speed. And it worked: there are far less people killed on the roads of France today. I call it "design of threat and punishment" and I use it as an educational tool.

Yeah, she’s not fooling around here. If you don't wrap things up in a timely fashion the curtain will inflate until you are a naked, shivering prisoner in your own shower. By the looks of things, if you aren't careful the damn thing could completely cut off your air supply. Personally, I would rather go with the Eco-Drop Shower — the philosophy is the same but it's far less deadly.

All I can say is that I am glad I don’t live in France. No, it has nothing to do with the fascist approach to drivers. I am just happy I don’t live in France. Well, yet. If the current government (and the particular group of overgrown children that supports it) has its way, this country will be turned into one giant iPhone. I.e., France.


In other news: “The Pirate Google Bay Gives the Finger to Record Companies, Studios”. Warms your heart, doesn’t it? Well, it warms mine. Every single victory over copyright fascism does.

(Lithuania in 13th–15th centuries)

As everyone knows, everything that the nations can do, Jews can do better. (Except basketball.)

In the same way, everything that the Europeans can do, Americans can do better. (Except culture. And cooking.)

This includes negative things. Like slavery.

By Philip Chaston, from London:

Once I was born a British citizen, and enjoyed the suzerainty of a long-standing liberal democracy. I knew my liberties as they were embedded in common law and understood the rights and privileges which were my birthright. This was a common culture that was shared in many forms by my fellow pupils at school, by my family and by those who desired to make this country their home.

In 1997 I was still a citizen. Now I am a subject: not a subject of the Crown but the subject of a new beast, one that stretches from Whitehall to Brussels. Roger Scruton has defined a subject as follows:

Subjection is the relation between the state and the individual that arises when the state need not account to the individual, when the rights and duties of the individual are undefined or defined only partially and defeasibly, and where there is no rule of law that stands higher than the state that enforces it.

This is a contentious argument, but our rights are overdetermined and overdefined on paper, arbitrary in exertion, incompetent in execution. Moreover, the European Union under the Treaty of Lisbon confers the authority of a bureaucratic state based upon a law no higher than itself, which can annul and strike out all rights, as power overrides law.

In practice, bureaucratic accretions, quangos and the vomit of regulation have encouraged a culture of subjection. This may have roots prior to New Labour but it acquired its final flowering under this pestilent regime, and discarded the final brakes upon its power: demanding that we are subject to them, civil servants in name, masters in form. ID cards, databases, surveillance and dependency.

The final transition can never be dated. It is not in the interests of the Tories to row back on such change, as they will lose the power that they have looked upon so enviously for a decade. So, when I vote in 2010, I will know that we are each capable of acting responsibly as a citizen, but we are now viewed as subjects, to be feared and controlled.

Sounds familiar? Especially the part in bold.

By the way, I do hope you enjoy paying your new tax when buying things online.

I will quote fully the newest post about copyright idiocy from Mises.org:

Another great institution is being taken down by the copyright terrorists. This one is beyond-belief hilarious/ridiculous/evil because of course we not only own the full rights. We have put the book into Creative Commons and are desperately trying to give the book away to the world.

Observe the insanity!

Dear Ludwig von Mises Institute,
We have removed your document "America's Great Depression, by Murray Rothbard" because our text matching system determined that it was very similar to a work that has been marked as copyrighted and not permitted on Scribd.

Like all automated matching systems, our system is not perfect and occasionally makes mistakes. If you believe that your document is not infringing, please contact us at copyright@scribd.com and we will investigate the matter.

As stated in our terms of use, repeated incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your Scribd.com account and prohibit you from uploading material to Scribd.com in the future. To prevent us from having to take these steps, please delete from scribd.com any material you have uploaded to which you do not own the necessary rights and refrain from uploading any material you are not entitled to upload. For more information about Scribd.com's copyright policy, please read the Terms of Use located at http://www.scribd.com/terms

Sincerely,

Jason Bentley
Director of Customer Care
jason@scribd.com

I guess this means that the Mises Institute will no longer use Scribd. Who needs this nonsense? And now everyone who ever linked this, embedded it, or sent it to friends is made to look like an idiot, and all the time we wasted getting this on the scribd in the first place is completely wasted.

Oh what a lovely world the copyright police are creating for us! How much better off we are having our own "intellectual property" rammed down our own throats!

Meanwhile, copyright may be unconstitutional. But nobody cares about that particualr document anymore. Almost every single thing that the government is praised for and that it and people working for it consider its main job is unconstitutional. Constitution? Pshh...

More on copyright.

http://gtmarket.ru/files/brain-drain.jpg

Nah, just kidding. In your dreams.

About two and a half weeks ago, some brave genius nicknamed Anonymous wrote the following as a comment to my post in which I said that I hope Obama’s efforts will fail:

I used to say the exact same thing when it came to the Bush Administration and the conservative congress. However, there is one big difference between our view ... mine has come to pass and has been proven correct and yours is just speculation.

Bad grammar, style and punctuation aside, let us now see what results the plans of Bush-haters — also known in zoological taxonomy as Homo liberalis — have given birth to. Wall Street is certainly looking happy:

Top bankers have been leaving Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others in rising numbers to join banks that do not face tighter regulation, including foreign banks, or start-up companies eager to build themselves into tomorrow’s financial powerhouses. Others are leaving because of culture clashes at merging companies, like Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, and still others are simply retiring early.

So, regulations are working out well then. Arbat comments: some of the bankers leaving these firms are actually the same ones who voted for Democrats who had promised to regulate these banks. I don’t know whether this is a comment on the character or intellect of Homo liberalis, so I won’t say much further.

But — you may ask — what do I care? I am not a banker. I am simple tax payer. Well, it may just absolutely shockingly turn out that “Exodus of Top Bankers [is] Bad News for the Taxpayer”:

The message couldn’t be clearer: no seasoned investment banker worth their salt wants to work for the government if they can help it. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, who now shares in the prosperity of Goldman Sachs and Bank of America via the recent bailout packages, the bankers who packed their bags and jumped ship last week are arguably some of the most seasoned professionals the industry has to offer.

[...]

The exodus suggests that there is far too much bureaucratic oversight going on at the big banks right now. Silly schemes such as 90 percent taxation for higher-paid employees at government-aided firms ought to be quickly put to rest. Otherwise banks will continue to lose the very employees they need to steer them through this crisis, and enable taxpayers to get a quick and handsome return on investment.

Instead, we’ll be left with a range of new privately-owned financial houses staffed with the best finance has to offer — which the taxpayer reaps no reward from.

So, the liberals buy the banks out with the taxpayers’ money and then regulate them to death, while the only people who can possibly steer the boat away from the shoals are leaving it as quickly as possible. And this is bad for taxpayers? I am absolutely flabbergasted. Nobody could have ever seen this coming.