Capitalism going to work on improving the lives of over a billion people.
The rest of the gallery can be found here. It’s an awesome collection of photos. To see capitalism begin the process of pulling so many people out of poverty make me proud to be a human but also an American. This county has defended and perfected this awesome system over the last 200 years.
Darwin writes in an email:
It’s funny to me that you totally distrust government to do anything effectively, but trust the individuals in the governement to tell the truth and not be bribed way more than I do, whereas I think politicians lie and take bribes and get influenced by lobbyists all the time, but I still trust the government as a tool for positive change. I wonder why that is.
You are much more skeptical of people than I am. That’s why you want government. To assuage your skepticism.
In regards to expressing its coercion I want the government to be effective otherwise the more ineffective the better. However I would be more inclined to use the word inefficient when characterizing governments. Efficient political systems use the state’s monopoly on coercion to kill lots of people. Mao, Hitler, Stalin are the 20th centuries greatest hits and they all had efficient governments. My iconoclastic personality pretty much guarantees my death in an efficient government.
Our inefficient government is precisely why I don’t worry about things like bribes. Surely bribes might influence legislation in the short term, but over the long period if their truly is no political support for the legislation there is no way that legislation will persist. But you see that’s the key. Without popular support legislation can’t survive. I think you, among most people have tendency to ignore the political support of legislation you deem as bad so you think that legislation has passed simply because of ‘bribes’. It turns out many people were in favor of that legislation you just don’t actively look for those that disagree with your view so your not aware of them.
I would like to note, that in general I favor policies that make government more inefficient.
I oppose finance reform when that reforms most obvious outcome is to help protect those already in office. By making it more difficult to stay in office, the more inefficient government becomes.
The constitutional rights should be equally applied to all individuals. Certain groups enjoy efficiencies by having the state silence certain kinds of criticism. This facilities the expression of their viewpoint over others.
In all three points you have argued against these things. You support gun control. You support the McCain Feingold campaign finance reform. You support the 9th circuit protecting homosexuals from Christian criticism. The most damming of the three is the first one. You willingly give the government more efficient means to flex its coercive power just to reduce gun violence. Perceived problems like homosexuals need defense from Christians, guns can kill people, corporations care only about their share holders, rich people don’t need all their wealth, poor people need to be given infrastructure and lobbyists corrupt legislators are met with demands of making government more efficient to manage these problems.
One contemporary example of a more efficient government is Venezuela. For the sake of the poor common man, Chavez is one political figure who has embraced the notion of making government more efficient. He has taken over the private oil companies to make sure evil corporate profits are returned to the people instead of channeled into the pockets of rich fat cats. To protect free speech he has granted extra rights to his political party by shutting down news stations that are critical of his parties’ policies. He has indicated the elimination of term limits to insure he has enough time to implement all the policies needed to help the poor.
I have no doubt that once a critical mass in efficiency is obtained Chavez will begin the wholesale slaughter of dissenting citizens. An efficient government is inherently untrustworthy.
Personally, I like my government inefficient. The harder it is for politicians to force their will, the less likely I’ve been murdered.
Via Instapundit, a New York Time has an article about the difficulties Home Dept has had in verifying that products that claim to be green friendly are in fact good for the environment. It’s hard not to think the underlying theme is that state regulation needs to be implemented to insure the veracity of company claims that their products are eco-friendly.
Of interest to me is this passage:
Home Depot is working with Scientific Certification Systems, a private company based in Emeryville, Calif., that audits and certifies company claims, to develop new broad-based standards. They will grade a product based on its environmental record over its entire life cycle — including the sustainability of its production process, its efficiency and longevity and how it can be recycled when it is no longer useful.
Unsurprising, the markets have already responded to the preponderance of dubious claims companies are making about the eco-friendly quality of their products. Also unsurprising will be the increasing political pressure to have the state regulate companies making eco-friendly claims. What will be surprising to supporters of this policy will be retailers getting behind this policy. By using government to force companies to back up their claims of eco-friendliness they no longer need to pay private companies to perform the verification.
Why pay for something when you can get the government to force someone else to pay for, all the while looking like a responsible corporate citizen for supporting policy that ‘protects’ the environment.
America: the paragon of capitalism. The wealthy truly are selfish.
Reading about a list of the top 22 voices in music I came across Celine Dion. One of the first passages reads:
Dion became a young star in francophone Canada after her manager and current husband, René Angélil, mortgaged his home to finance her first record.
I thought about this gentleman who took a phenomenal risk putting up his house to finance, a then unknown, Celine Dion. This turned out to be a smart decision. Some would argue that since he is not the talent, he is undeserving of his riches, and therefore the state is justified in redistributing those riches to someone it deems more worthy. Why is having the acumen to see talent, and the ability to nurture it until it can sustain itself consider less worthy of wealth than the actual talent itself?
The investor or producer provide the infrastructure necessary to make the talent generate wealth. This is the same thing as the shop owner or principal investigator whose development of a method and acquisition of the tools enables journeyman access to the resources needed for them to produce their monumental work. It most certainly is the case that the corporation that owns the manufacturing plant multiplies the value of a worker’s labor. Yet, we find whole groups of people eager to take away the resources of the producers, investors, principal investigators and factory owners all because of the foolish perception that these people contribute very little creating wealth and yet reap so much of what is created. To do so is to eliminate the incentive to develop the infrastructure needed to produce all these great things.
Those to stupid to see the importance of the role of the producer should refrain from using the state to tell rich producers how create more wealth.
Apparently in Oakland, the city has banned the use of the phrase ‘Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values’ on anything the city produces. This rule change came about after one lesbian complained that such language hurt her feelings. When this rule was taken to the courts, the 9th circuit agreed with Darwin, certain groups in this country enjoy extra rights then those found in the constitution. In a chunk of awesome irony, this case cited a previous case in which Darwin defended giving extra rights to some groups of people over others.
Bonus: George Will also takes time to explain why federal campaign reform was such a bad idea. One might think of George Will as the anti-Darwin. George in favor of liberal Democracy. Darwin in favor of totalitarian socialism.
One more reason we need to rapidly pass strong laws to severely reduce our carbon output. Letting our economy bring unprecedented wealth to more people is imperiling our children’s future. Scientists have voted and have formed a consensus on the veracity of global warming. It’s beyond debate.
Update: Mankind could do with a little more perspective:
Gazing out at the Grand Canyon from the North Rim, you can’t help but feel that Al Gore’s hand-wringing over climate change is a little silly. The Grand Canyon took a billion or more years to build up, and scientists say it took a mere 750,000 or so years for the river to carve the canyon. In geologic terms, that’s a flash flood. From our perspective now, the Grand Canyon is a national treasure, but it’s really a poster child for nature’s poor land-use practices. How’s that for an inconvenient truth?
Craptastic computer are now available for as low as 72 dollars. I look forward to my Dad calling to brag about how cheap his computer is only to have the next three years be filled with constant complaining about how his computer is unreliable and barely functional. The amount he will spend in labor will far outstrip the saving he makes in by a crapy quality computer.
Why are the authorities upset? It’s puzzling to me that the authorities respond so negatively to an unlicensed 15 year old performing two surgeries. His work was supervised by an expert. In this case, the expert was his father a trained and certified surgeon. The state uses experts when it favors them, but discounts their utility when they are not favorable. But that might suggest something arbitrary about experts.
Much of the content on this site deals with how the state use my tax money. Since the whole process of tax collection is generally amicable some become forgetful that tax collection at it’s core is coercive act. This story should serve as a reminder that the state is the only entity capable of explicitly forcing you to do what it wants. These people refuse to pay and state comes to force them to pay their taxes.
Missing from show down between the state and the couple refusing to pay:
