This video comes to me thanks to Diatribe.

This is truly a great American story.

In action.

Over at Personal Responsibility Diatribe posted about a speaker being forced to stop speaking because some liberals jumped on the state and caused a ruckus. I have a found a much funnier example of how liberals just love to jump on stage and squelch those that things they dislike. In this clip a comedian actually is assaulted by a woman that object to his characterization of ‘towel head’ when characterize the head dress of some Muslims.

The best stuff is in the back half of the clip. At one point he conveys his bafflement at this liberal woman attempting to stifle his free speech. He finds it consistent that a fundamental Christian tries to stop free speech but a liberal just puzzles him.

The video can be found here and I must state unequivocally its not safe for work.

Cnet has a segment on the worst web pages for congressional representatives. Its quite alarming seeing just how ignorant some of our politicians are.

Go check it out. You will be glad you did.

This piece gives a more balanced perspective on the war in Iraq. This is the kind of coverage i want to see alot more of. Using post WW2 Germany as an example, which I think is fair, the author of the letter writes:

In Germany after World War II, we controlled our sector with approximately 500,000 troops, directly administering the area for 10 years while we rebuilt the country and rebuilt the social and political infrastructure needed to run it. In Iraq, we’ve got one-third that number of troops dealing with three times the population on a much faster timetable, and we’re attempting to unify three distinct ethnic groups with no national interest and at least three outside influences (Saudi Arabian Wahhabists, Iranian mullahs and Syrian Baathists) each eagerly funding various groups in an attempt to see us fail. And we are.

Assuming the analogy holds, I agree that more troops and taking a much slower approach seems warranted. It’s to bad there is not a enough political capital to make this a reality. I fully support doing it right in Iraq, no matter what entails. Democrats certainly dont see it this way and thats a shame because our enemies understand the importance.

Matt Laar quickly converted Estonia from a socialsim to a free market system. It should go without saying that even with a dramaitic transition the econcomy immediately began growing rapdily. He states:

It seemed common sense to me and, as I thought it had already been done everywhere, I simply introduced it in Estonia, despite warnings from Estonian economists that it could not be done. They said it was as impossible as walking on water. We did it: we just walked on the water because we did not know that it was impossible.”

One thing experts are really knowledgeable about is the impossiblity of something. Particuilarly when that something goes against their dispositions. Its much like scientists voting on facts.

A discussion over at Personal Responsibility has broken out between Darwin and I about the dangers of unscrupulous nonprofit organizations using donation money to do harm. He argues that Green Peace serves as a cautionary tale of how charitable organizations can’t be trusted with donations, and therefore the money allocated to welfare is best left in the hands of the state. That way the funds can be utilized in beneficial ways as opposed to being squandered away by morally questionable charities in the event the portion that state allocates for welfare is returned back to the taxpayer. He states:

The fact that your intuitions (llike almost everyone’s in america) about nuclear power is that it is far more dangerous and damgaing than it actual is makes my point about the dangers of private charities and social action groups. This idea, and the fact that the US uses so little nuclear power, is almost entirely the result of vigorous marketing and advertising campaigns by Greenpeace, the most successful and influential environmentalist group on the planet.

While unintentional you insult me by presuming that I’m a victim of Green Peace’s propaganda, unable to discern fact from fiction to determine my own position on nuclear energy. You seem to be arguing that those that disagree with you have been influenced by the equivocations of Green Peace. The actual details regarding Green Peace influence are pretty weak and require a frame of reference that I do not share with you. You take more stock in the ability of ‘marketing’ to influence people than I do. You might want to consider that there may be very real threats with nuclear energy, which convinced many people to be wary of it. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl both come to mind, and neither were the direct result of Green Peace’s efforts. DDT seems to have aroused the ire of people prior to the inception of Green Peace. Whatever the case, it just is not very clear how direct Green Peace work was in influencing the attitudes that brought about the policies you adamantly oppose.

If we place this in the current context of global warming one begins to wonder how you separate Al Gore’s efforts from the Green Peace’s efforts. Or how about those that argue the murderer of the electric car was oil companies. Where one exactly draws the line on causation varies as function of political affiliation more so than scientific fact. Science never answers the should.

I’m sure criticizing your position at the level of minutiae is mostly uninteresting which means I’m going to have to distill your general argument from the example. You seem to be suggesting that taxpayers should not be allowed to determine how to spend their charitable donations because of the very real risk that such money might be squandered on morally questionable organizations. I suspect you want to make the even stronger argument that the complete privatization of social welfare will lead to charitable organization vying for the taxpayer’s money in ways consistent with capitalism but completely unrelated to performing their welfare functions. In other words, they spend money on advertising as opposed to purchasing food for the poor.

I think the first argument illustrates perfectly why you trend towards technocracy. Implicit in this argument is the idea that some people may spend money in ways you would find unsatisfactory. Even if it’s the case that they are bamboozled by some amoral organization you still disapprove of the way they spend their money. To rectify the problem you use the federal government to forcibly take that money away and spend it in ways you find less disagreeable. To justify doing this you characterize their position as ‘extremely ignorant’, and ‘wrong-headed’. Such expressions explicitly mean a lack of knowledge. If pressed to answer in what capacity they lack knowledge you would no doubt respond with they lack the scientific facts surrounding nuclear energy and DDT and in so doing confirm my characterization of your position.

Free market system will have noise. By acknowledging that noise, I accept the proposition that foolish people will fritter away some of their disposable income on donations to bogus organizations. However, it’s unlikely that handing the welfare system over to the government will reduce waste. The waste will no longer be brought about by taxpayer choice and instead be dissipated by bad policy and government corruption. I believe it’s you who constantly rails against the way lobbyists are able to manipulate politicians into passing bad laws. There is no reason to believe that Green Peace’s lobbying efforts will and probably have influenced policy resulting in the squandering of tax payer’s money for their cause. Since both systems are going to have noise, that is to say money will be wasted, the question becomes which system is going to be most efficient? Which system will reduce cost while at the same time increase the capacity of the welfare system to helps those in need? The efficiency argument clearly lands on the side of free markets since time and time again the competitive forces of the free markets have proven much more capable in both innovation and adaptation than any government attempt at managing industry.

In the current system the funds donated to charitable organizations might skew somewhat to more unorthodox groups. This is because much of the social onus that affluent people feel towards lending a hand to the impoverished is alleviated by the fact that the federal government forcibly takes their money to assist the indigent. In the current system, those with more ’passion’ will experience an even stronger impetus to donate beyond that which is taxed away. Often those with such ardor lose objectivity so that they are more likely to support controversial groups that utilize a more radial rhetoric. Presumably with government minimizing its role in managing welfare, the availability of disposal income in combination with increased social responsibility will generate the impetus in those with more moderate views to support more conventional organizations. This will help drown out the radical voice as the proportion of total donated funds shifts to the moderate voice.

The strongest argument is very libertarian in nature. On some level you want to forcibly prevent those people from making decisions you disagree with. But it simply is not clear how you justify telling others how they should spend their money. Laying out justification for this is crucial because it’s the only way to make your argument work. Currently you are taking up a technocrat position by arguing that ignorant people have been manipulated by the machinations of Green Peace. I find this argument to be wholly unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the condescending tone it requires of your argument. More importantly, by seeking to make those you disagree with views illegitimate by implying some kind of brainwashing makes yourself weak to that same criticism. An advocate of banning same sex marriage can easily argue that you have been manipulated by the Northeast coast liberal agenda to believe moral relativity. If not for your liberal indoctrination, you would wholly support a ban on same sex marriage, he would argue, adding that those liberals do to much ‘evil’ in the world.

The stronger interpretation of your argument, the one that claims resources will be wasted on capitalistic endeavors in lieu of supporting charitable acts, seems to have some weight at first glance. Laissez fair policy allows private companies to indulge in extraneous endeavors independent of strictly just making the products of their native industry. Clearly this would happen in a privatized welfare industry. However, we would both agree that currently companies in this country are allowed to engage in a multitude of different business practices and instead of having a deleterious effect on production it has generated an amount of wealth greater than all of the economies of Europe combined. While it’s not clear to us how spending donation money on advertising helps the poor, that’s not for us to regulate, we just need to step back and let the markets do their work.

Check this out.