Yearly Archives: 2008

Who Wants To Be “led?”

This entry was posted in Government on by

Mark Brady asks:

…presidential hopeful Barack Obama yesterday explained his foreign policy. He called for “America — once again — to lead”, to be “ready to engage the world”, “to lead the world anew.”
Does it ever occur to the Columbia-and-Harvard-educated Barack Obama that perhaps the world does not want to be “led” by the United States?

I’m sure it has no more occurred to him than to the current occupant, to mccain or to any of the previous presidents.
Nor has it probably occurred to him that most of us, we the people, don’t want to be “led” either. At least not by fiat.
Rather, be a good government*: do your basic job of dealing with perps who use force or fraud to get their way; deliver a judicial system that provides timely services and response times; and leave the rest of us to our lives, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness.
And, as far as leadership goes: set a good example and if you can be persuasive enough perhaps you will generate a consensus to complete certain activities. Otherwise, go away.

*Possible oxymoron acknowledged.

Economists Weep With Joy Over the Discovery of the Cause of Inflation

This entry was posted in Apple Computer Economics Humor on by

Here is the headline:

Apple Licensing May Contribute to Inflation

and here is the meat:

If it seems prices of the latest iPod and iPhone accessories are rising, you may have Apple’s licensing department to thank, according to a story in Popular Mechanics. Though the company is typically reticent to discuss the details of arrangements such as the one that allows some electronics manufacturers to place a “Made for iPod” designation on their products, managers and decision makers for both retailers and manufacturers indicate Apple’s licensing fees and specially made chips that allow gadgets to work with Apple gear can add 10% or more to the price consumers pay for an item.

Yep, licensing agreements may indeed drive up the price of these accessories.
But, contribute to inflation? Naw, not unless these accessories are part of your price index and people actually bought them at the higher prices while also buying the rest of the goods in the index at the same or higher quantities and prices.
Which would mean that people had more money than they had before which suggests that the real cause of the inflation was most likely an increase in the money supply.
All of which is to say that I thought that headline was really broken.
NB: The headline in the Popular Mechanics article linked in the above quote is much more accurate:

How the “Apple Tax” Boosts Prices on iPod & iPhone Accessories

An Early Retirement Wish for bush..

This entry was posted in bush Iraq War on Terrorism on by

From Spencer Ackerman:

Through his blindness, his incompetence, his pathetic smallness in the face of a very big enemy, Bush was the greatest gift bin Laden could have asked for. May Bush’s last years come in a CIA black site somewhere in eastern Europe, never to be acknowledged to the Red Cross, nor to Laura, to Jenna and Barbara or his grandchildren. And may his only companion in that hideous nightmare of his own creation be his cellmate, Usama bin Laden. Because today, they have lost and we have won.

I’m torn.

While they are truly deserving of each other, complete isolation might be better. Together they will have too much opportunity to enjoy camaraderie and rehash their great achievements of the first decade of the twentieth century.

.

If It Is Broken, What Do You Do?

This entry was posted in Anarchism bush Government on by

Thoreau is unhappy with the ongoing revelations of executive branch lawlessness and the failure of our supposed great system of checks and balances to reign in immoral and illegal executive branch behavior. What to do?

Yes, an argument can be made that however much Reid and Pelosi and their cohort deserve punishment, the other side deserves even more punishment. That’s assuming that you continue to accept the premises of the system, and dutifully choose between the party that commits the crimes and the party with a leadership that will not actually stop the crimes.

Well, a close look at the last 100 years might suggest that both parties have been busy both committing a wide variety of legislative crimes, coming up with ways to mask the crimes and, more importantly, committing even more crimes of a moral nature.
Thoreau than explores possible courses of action in the upcoming election season:

If nobody else is voting third party, it’s irrational for you to vote third party. However small the difference between the parties might be, if there’s any difference at all, and if those are the only viable options, then you are being completely rational by voting for the guys who promised to at least pick the undigested corn kernels out of the sh!t sandwich.

This sounds to me much like the old “I chose the lesser evil argument.” I’ve mistakenly gone down that road myself more than once. I’m reminded of this:

Moreover, if we look at the techniques of totalitarian government, it is obvious that the argument of “the lesser evil”–far from being raised only from the otside by those who do not belong to the ruling elite–is one of the mechanisms built into the machinery of terror and criminality. Acceptance of lesser evils is consciously used in conditioning the government officials as well as the population at large to the acceptance of evil as such.
Hannah Arendt, “Personal Responsibiity Under Dictatorship,” in Responsibility, pgs 36-37

If you have not read this essay previously it is time to do so now; if you have read it before, read it again (PDF).

As to the title question: we can start by withdrawing our support from a broken system lurching toward an abyss. We can follow by encouraging others to withdraw their support and to begin working together to build a new system truly built on the idea that we each have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.