GumboFilé

Vote for Dave

2010-09-09T09:17:00.001-07:00

I'm running for Mayor of FaceBook

a crutch is of no use to a dead man

2010-01-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

Those who call the Christian religion a crutch misfire their insult, for they intend to diminish believers, yet they elevate believers at the expense of Christ and His work, for a crutch is of no use to a dead man, and such were we. Christ has done no less than raise us from the dead. There is no crutch that can do that.

How does my Heart Know?

2009-07-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Last week my younger daughter moved with her soldier husband to Germany. I don't know how, but my heart knows that she's far, far away for a long, long time.

Her sister lived in Pennsylvania three and a half of the last eight years, and that was far and long enough, but the nest wasn't yet empty, and I never felt like she wouldn't, before too long, be back in Louisiana to live. Sure enough, she's back in Baton Rouge.

It might be a long time before my younger daughter again lives near me.

Be sure you have a good umbrella

2008-10-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

I try to ignore the presidential election as much as possible because the odds that either major party candidate will do what I think he should do (or even just do what he says he will do) is about equal to the odds that I can influence the outcome of the election, which is approximately zero. However, like a moth, I am drawn to the flame. I can't say that it doesn't affect me but it's kind of like the weather: it is what it is and it's gonna be what it's gonna be, and it's about as predictable. The most effective thing we can do about either is pray.

family

2008-07-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging from Pennsylvania from my daughter's Apple IMac Book thing. It's our first visit here since she moved here two years ago. She's serving the church with a college campus ministry. We're very proud of her.

Today I called my mother back in Louisiana and she told me that my baby brother is being deployed. He's my baby brother but he'll be 44 this month. He's been a reservist since his college days. He has seven children and another on the way. He'll be deployed for a year beginning in October.

in memorium

2008-06-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Just a few of the folks I would have liked to have seen at Rosie's wedding,

Martha Frances and Joe, Aunt Gertie, John and Jane, Mrs Yeargan, Aunt Elnora and Uncle Gilbert, Uncle Buck, Ron, Lenny, JJ, Gerald, Keith, Matt, Dean, but mostly, John Edd and Sibyle, grandparents of the bride.

May we all be reunited at the last wedding.

Please add any names I left out.

a wedding toast

2008-06-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

To the bride and groom

Alec and Rosie

Lieutenant and Mrs Alec M

May you always celebrate each other

May you always overflow with holy joy

May you always be filled with Godly exuberance

May you always live sacrificial lives

May you always know Christian liberty

May you resolve now, and discover together how, by God's grace, to always live in this way

Alec M, love your wife

Rosalie M, love your husband

Ron Paul for President

2007-07-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

I'm encouraged by all the attention Ron Paul is getting. Even the negative attention is a positive indicator. It's an indication that his detractors think he has a chance. Otherwise their attacks are a waste of time. I encourage you to follow the link to find out more about Ron Paul.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/

Catching Up

2007-07-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in some time. Today I do some catch up posting.

Seven months ago my then 87 year old mother-in-law spent a week in the hospital, then three months living with us before we reluctantly allowed her to move back home, alone, 250 miles away from her only child. After three and a half months of such, with daily in-home assistance, and bi-weekly visits from my wife, she was hospitalized again for several days after which we moved her to a nursing home eight miles from our house. It's not what we wanted to do and it was a very difficult decision for my wife but we concluded that it was the best option. She can take care of herself much of the time, but her health can decline very easily and rapidly. She's been in the nursing home a week and a half. So far, so good. She has regained some strength and my wife sees her every day and she has spent almost every other day at our house.

In February I had an epidural to relieve leg pain caused by a nerve impinged by a ruptured disc. Also in February I started taking blood pressure medication.

In March I had back surgery. I had weakness in one leg due to the impinged nerve. I was back on my feet the next day. I have some minor residual numbness but I would say I'm 80-90% recovered. The leg weakness has been reversed.

Also in March I was invited to be on the yet-to-be created Grand Coteau planning commission. I'm a bit ambivalent about it but decided it would be a chance to be a voice for private property rights.

In April we had a work day at the family camp in Lake Arthur. I was still on limited activity due to the back surgery but I was able to help with laundry and run errands.

Also in April I attended a lecture on Islam presented by the Banners program at McNeese State University in Lake Charles. The speaker deceptively represented Islam using language that also describes Christianity. The simplest and most obvious way to differentiate the two religions is in how they were, and are, spread. Islam became the dominant religion of Arabia by means of violent conquest whereas Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman world by the blood of the martyrs.

Also in April my friend Bobby Fontenot died, a casualty of the Vietnam war.

In May we went on an Alaska cruise. The day we returned my friend Keith Gates succumbed to pancreatic cancer.

This week we're going to Navarre Beach for our annual family beach rendez-vous. We also hope to visit a Lake Charles friend who is now stationed at the Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off (1/5)

2007-04-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

The problem is that we started to observe meteorology at the coldest spot in the last 10,000 years.

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TED talk Bjorn Lomborg

2007-03-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Economist Bjorn Lomborg makes a persuasive case for prioritizing the world's biggest problems, asking "If we had $50 billion to spend over the next four years to do good in the world, where should we spend it?" His recommendations place global warming at the bottom of the list. Lomborg was named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine after the publication of his controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist which challenged widely-held beliefs that the environment is getting worse. Now the Danish economist is taking on the world's biggest problems with his Copenhagen Consensus. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:27)"

http://www.ted.com/

UK Documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-03-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

According to a group of scientists brought together by documentary-maker Martin Durkin, if the planet is heating up, it isn't your fault and there's nothing you can do about it.

We've almost begun to take it for granted that climate change is a man-made phenomenon. But just as the environmental lobby think they've got our attention, a group of naysayers have emerged to slay the whole premise of global warming.

The Housing Bubble Caused Illegal Immigration

2007-03-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

Immigrants, particularly illegal Mexican immigrants, have found good jobs in industries associated with the housing bubble. Large numbers of immigrants work at jobs in the construction, landscaping, and road construction industries. Employment in the construction industry alone is currently nearly two million jobs above trend (7.7 vs. 5.9 million). Of course many of the illegal immigrants are not even counted in such statistics, but just take a look at residential, landscaping, and road construction sites and you are likely to find many non-English speaking immigrants.

Therefore immigrants have a powerful economic incentive to move to America – lavish government benefits plus good-paying jobs that are the result of the housing bubble. The boom phase of the business cycle and bubbles naturally misallocate labor from one industry to another, and in the case of the housing bubble it has been to allocate labor to the construction, mortgage and real estate industries with immigrants helping to fill the gaps in the construction industry.

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Out of Egypt - And on to Babylon - From Slavery Back to Slavery

2007-03-04T19:05:00.000-08:00

(1 Samuel 8: 10–18). Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king. He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day."

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Why Do Evangelicals Ignore Ron Paul?

2007-03-04T18:38:00.000-08:00

Somehow, evangelicals have this deluded idea that President Bush is one of them. How they came to this delusion both fascinates and escapes me. Bush is anything but one of them.

The question burning in the minds of evangelicals today is: Which Republican candidate for president will we anoint?

For his entire political career, Ron Paul has served foursquare upon the principles of constitutional (limited) government, less taxation, right to life, and personal liberty. Ron Paul is a conservative's conservative, a principled constitutionalist of the finest order. How is it, then, that Jerry Falwell and other evangelicals ignore him?

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Francis Wayland: Preacher-Economist

2007-02-11T20:18:00.000-08:00

Because he was a Baptist minister, it is no surprise that Wayland held to the absolute authority of the Bible. But he was equally an advocate of liberty, property, and peace. And because of his strong religious convictions, he made no attempt to separate God from these things. In fact, he grounded them in the will of God.

Politically, Wayland was a Jeffersonian, but said: "I do not wish to be connected with politics. Indeed, I dare not commit myself with politicians. No one knows what they will be next year by what they are this year." When speaking about liberty, he sounds like a contemporary libertarian.

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compulsory social security penalizes parenthood and childbearing

2007-02-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

The best solution is also the simplest: get the state out of the way.

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Who’s In Love With Mary Jane?

2007-01-28T22:19:00.000-08:00

"According to a 1990 study, 90 percent of all first-time [drug] offenders in federal courts were sentenced to an average of five years in prison. Violent first-time offenders, by contrast, were imprisoned less often and received an average of just four years in prison."

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European Views of the War To Prevent Southern Independence

2007-01-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

Since the Northern press was heavily censored by the Lincoln regime, and the Southern press, regardless of how factual it may have been, is not believed by most Americans, the European journals are perhaps the only credible source of popular opinion on the war during the 1856–1865 period.

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Winners & Losers

2007-01-28T21:49:00.000-08:00

In the great game of politics, there are always winners and losers because government does not produce anything. It can only rob Peter to pay Paul.

Meanwhile, unlike the "robbery, war, and booty" of politics, every day billions of people interact peacefully in the marketplace, with each party to an exchange coming out a winner because he has exchanged something he valued less for something he valued more. As Mises put it, "The market economy involves peaceful cooperation. It bursts asunder when the citizens turn into warriors and, instead of exchanging commodities and services, fight one another." That is, of course, precisely what happens with government programs, where one group of citizens fights with another to see which group can steal more from the other.

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Powerlust

2007-01-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

I'd like to see an executive branch devoid of human beings who actually want power and want to use it. That’s an actual possibility in a monarchy (and one of its advantages), but it an almost completely unlikely outcome in a republic governed specifically by those who aspire to political power.

Progressivism, in its 19th and 20th century versions (and most assuredly in its looming 21st century version as well) is a violent creed that demands the bending the individual human will for the convenience of and to the purpose of the collective. The individual only has value insofar as he or she is part of and participates in the great march of Progress. It may not be as overtly brutal or murderous as fascism or communism, but Progressivism is just as totalitarian, just as reliant on force, just as enamored of the state, and just as focused on the creation of a new kind of human being and a new kind of humanity (and the necessary destruction of the old).

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The Living Reality of Military-Economic Fascism

2007-01-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

In sum, the military-supply firms exemplify a fundamentally corrupt type of organization. Their income comes to them only after it has first been extorted from the taxpayers at gunpoint — hence their compensation amounts to receiving stolen property. They are hardly unwitting or unwilling recipients, however, because they are not drafted to do what they do. No wallflowers at this dance of death, they eagerly devote strenuous efforts to encouraging government officials to wring ever greater amounts from the taxpayers and to distribute the loot in ways that enrich the contractors, their suppliers, and their employees.

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Can We Achieve Peace in the Middle East?

2007-01-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses.

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Visible Subsidies and Invisible Destruction

2007-01-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

In the 1880's, American industry (in real terms) produced a 7 percent rate of return on invested capital. Today, the figure is 4 percent. Suppose that firms retain all of this return and reinvest it. Then they will grow at a 7 percent rate in 1880 and at a 4 percent rate in 2007. Although industry does not retain all of its earnings, the large drop in profitability suggests that a vast slowdown in the growth rate has come about because of the state. Changes in taxes coincide with this slower growth and confirm it. Suppose that the tax rate in 1880 was nil, and that the tax rate today is 30 percent. Then the after-tax return of a 7 percent rate today is reduced to 4.9 percent. A 40 percent tax rate reduces the return to 4.2 percent. As the state absorbs returns and diverts that wealth to waste, both taxes and slower growth reflect that diversion.

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The Federal War on Gold

2007-01-28T20:24:00.000-08:00

Keep in mind that the Framers had implemented a gold standard so that the American people would be forever protected from the destructiveness of inflation. It was the gold standard – that is, the requirement that the federal government redeem all its paper notes and bills in gold – that had operated as a restraint on government’s ability to print ever-increasing amounts of paper money. The gold standard’s positive effect on capital markets was also one of the primary reasons that the United States rather quickly became one of the most prosperous nations in history.

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Kill the FCC and auction off the spectrum

2007-01-20T16:39:00.000-08:00

If the FCC had been in charge of the Web, we'd still be waiting for its standards engineers to approve of the first Web browser.

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Confessions of an Ex-Conservative

2007-01-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to imagine a truly libertarian platform finding any sort of traction with the American people at this point in time. We’re too conditioned to believe in the virtue of benevolent government; too fearful of bogeymen in our age of terrorism; too addicted to the promise of government succor; too intoxicated by the seductive lure of the FED’s easy money. We won’t surrender these things easily. We get what we deserve, ultimately.

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Speaker Pelosi – Minimum Wage Queen

2007-01-20T16:28:00.000-08:00

Increased minimum wage is a stealth tax increase. It adds up to billions in additional taxes.

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Why do so many foods include high fructose corn syrup?

2007-01-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

The mechanism is the incredibly high tariff on sugar produced in other countries. The U.S. government would rather force manufacturers to use inferior and hazardous high fructose corn syrup, which can be created from corn – a crop grown in the U.S. – than allow them to use more natural sugar from places that seem rather obvious.

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Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

2007-01-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

What they want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.

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NASA's Moondoggle

2007-01-20T15:29:00.000-08:00

Spending $100 billion on spaceships to get, say, $50 billion in resources would be irrational – unless, of course, you're in government and are not held accountable.

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Law is not a product of the state

2007-01-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

This article is excerpted from the first 5 chapters of Murray Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty"

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Eco-Intimidation Bypasses Scientific Debate

2007-01-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

Consider the more insidious and subtle tactics of the San Francisco-based As You Sow Foundation.

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The New York Times Pushes the Doctrine of Class Warfare

2007-01-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

Like a traffic light, The New York Times alternates between Red and Green. The Reds want to abolish the individual
’s pursuit of happiness on the grounds that it results in exploitation, monopolies, and depressions. The Greens want to abolish it on the grounds that it results in acid rain, destruction of the ozone layer, and global warming.

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A Strange Way to Promote Freedom

2007-01-14T18:42:00.000-08:00

Apparently there is nothing force cannot accomplish.

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War Is a Conservative Entitlement Program

2007-01-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

Indeed, the whole Bush war-making operation is an expression of a couple of features of liberalism that conservatives have been scoffing at for decades. One is the entitlement mentality. Let’s face it folks, war has become the conservatives’ favorite entitlement program. We are entitled to a war of our own choosing. Why? Because we were attacked on 9-11. (Besides, isn’t good for the old economy?)

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A Christian Against the State

2007-01-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

Review of a book by a Christian and for Christians that makes no apologies for the state, its legislation, its regulations, and its wars.

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Minimum Wage and Common Sense

2007-01-10T21:21:00.000-08:00

The problem with the minimum-wage solution is that it leads to negative consequences that are equal to—or sometimes worse than—the problem that the policy sought to remedy. Studies over the past forty years indicate that a legally determined minimum wage leads to fewer available jobs, especially for the very people the legislation wants to help.

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Restoring the Culture

2007-01-10T20:46:00.000-08:00

Culture is what people do instead of government (and, conversely, government is what people do instead of culture). Like bad money driving out good, statism advances at the expense of authentic, organic culture.

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Post-Modernism

2007-01-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

Many ideologues (Antonio Gramsci being the most famous) consciously promoted the deconstruction of Western culture for the purpose of rendering it more susceptible to the advances of statism. With malice aforethought, they tore asunder the cultural underpinnings of the Western world and left it with nothing.

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Statism, Post-Modernism, and the Death of the Western World

2007-01-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without creating a civilization in-between.

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The State Is Not the Nation

2007-01-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

While the State is a pernicious and coercive collectivist concept, the "nation" may be and generally is voluntary. The nation properly refers, not to the State, but to the entire web of culture, values, traditions, religion, and language in which the individuals of a society are raised. It is almost embarrassingly banal to emphasize that point, but apparently many libertarians aggressively overlook the obvious. Let us never forget the great libertarian Randolph Bourne's analysis of the crucial distinction between "the nation" (the land, the culture, the terrain, the people) and "the State" (the coercive apparatus of bureaucrats and politicians), and of his important conclusion that one may be a true patriot of one's nation or country while – and even for that very reason – opposing the State that rules over it.

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the return of Christian government

2007-01-06T22:28:00.000-08:00

We aggressively seek Christian government

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It Was Worse Than Taft Imagined

2007-01-06T22:09:00.000-08:00

One of the first American statesmen who openly criticized the postwar trials in Germany (which had a less-publicized counterpart in Tokyo for defeated Japanese leaders) was Robert Taft. In a controversial address given at Kenyon College in October 1946, Taft noted that the "Nuremberg Trials violate the fundamental principle of American law that a man cannot be tried under an ex post facto statute." Furthermore, the proceedings that were going on showed "a spirit of vengeance."

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one of the greatest abuses of eminent domain in our country’s history

2007-01-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

H.M. Cliser owned a filling station. He had lived with his wife for 35 years in the house that his father had built. After Clisler was handcuffed and forced into the back of a police car, his wife and children refused to leave the porch of their house, even after the police had boarded it up. They all eventually moved in with family. Cliser appealed his eviction until he died at age 75.

John Mace had sold water that he bottled from a spring on his property. When he refused to leave his property, the police piled all of his furniture and his belongings in his yard and then burned his house down in front of him to let him know there was no chance of return.

Lizzie Jenkins was five months pregnant when the police dragged her from her home, piled her belongings in horse-drawn wagons, and pulled her chimney down so that she would have no source of heat for the upcoming winter.

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Worried About Low Gas Prices?

2007-01-06T21:46:00.000-08:00

The last thing Democrats want is for oil companies to discover new oil deposits and build more refineries. Such scurrilous endeavors should be taxed to the hilt to prevent a glut of low-priced gasoline and heating oil at any time in the foreseeable future.

The Democrats also want to raise taxes on oil INVENTORIES, believe it or not – a move which would cause companies to reduce the amount of oil they keep in storage. If that happens prices will go through the roof if there’s even a modest disruption.

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What the State Actually Cares About

2007-01-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

The state naturally is an organization whose members’ acts are designed to keep the state going with its powers intact so as to maintain the benefits that flow to members of the state. While free market organizations also wish to survive and benefit their members, the difference is that they can’t lawfully achieve those aims without benefiting society; while the state can’t achieve its aims without harming society.

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The State Is a Gang

2007-01-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

The state is like a gang; the biggest difference being that the state is far worse than any gang because it is far more powerful. Political theorists make a big deal out of the fact that the state allows us to punch a ballot every so often. This means we get to choose between the north side gang and the south side gang, or between the red gang and the blue gang. Since the gangs are in cahoots, this choice makes little difference.

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Infinite Regression

2007-01-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

Here’s a pro-state argument we are all intimately familiar with:

Bad people like to use force to prey on good people.
Good people require a government to protect them from bad people.
This government, in order to be the final arbiter, must possess overwhelming force.

The logical madness is clear. Since bad people like using force to prey on good people, and the government is the greatest concentration of force in society, it stands to inevitable reason that bad people will use the government to prey on good people.

This is the central problem of Infinite Regression: who will watch the watchers? There is, of course, no rational or political answer

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Institutionalized Learning

2007-01-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

"It’s very useful for some people that our form of schooling tells children what to think about, how to think about it, and when to think about it," concludes former multiple-year New York City (and state) PUBLIC SCHOOL Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto. "It isn’t very healthy for families and neighborhoods, cultures and religions. But then school was never about those things any-way."

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Conventional Wisdom

2007-01-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

Issues as grave as war and peace demand a thorough debate by a population given as much relevant information as possible, not a country governed by a tyranny of conventional wisdom, not an opinion elite satisfied with viewing enemies as comic book villains.

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The Best Racket Around

2007-01-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

If anything reveals the duplicitous and dishonest nature of government, it’s the way it treats money.

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What To Do About Venezuela

2007-01-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

Buy their oil and leave them alone, says Charley Reese.

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The Criminality of the State

2007-01-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

"Democratic" State practice is nothing more or less than State practice. It does not differ from Marxist State practice, Fascist State practice, or any other. Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: you get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you. A citizenry which has learned that one short lesson has but little more left to learn.

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A New Perspective on Friedman

2007-01-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

As Friedman's free-market credentials are examined, is difficult to consider him a free-market economist at all. Friedman’s theoretical concessions to the egregious ideal of "perfect competition" would permit a great deal of governmental trust-busting, and his neighborhood-effect concession to a government intervention could permit a virtual totalitarian state.

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High-Yield Farmers Are Saving Wildlife

2006-12-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

"Producing the world’s current agricultural output organically would require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There wouldn’t be much room left for the rainforest.”

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Society without a State

2006-12-28T22:12:00.000-08:00

In Rothbard's view, "the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized and socially legitimated channel for all manner of antisocial crime – theft, oppression, mass murder – on a massive scale, then surely the abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but favor the good in man and discourage the bad."

"Enough [is] said here...to indicate that an anarchist system for settling disputes would be both viable and self-subsistent: that once adopted, it could work and continue indefinitely. How to arrive at that system is of course a very different problem, but certainly at the very least it will not likely come about unless people are convinced of its workability, are convinced, in short, that the state is not a necessary evil."

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Duke and the Politics of Rape

2006-12-28T20:45:00.000-08:00

The Cultural Revolution of the 1960s urged individuals to give up their "sexual inhibitions" and to enter into sexual relations with each other on a basis of mutual pleasure – and nothing else. Sex was not to be an apparatus by which couples strengthened the whole of their relationship, but rather something that stood on its own.

Now, men did not need to be encouraged to follow such a sexual viewpoint, but the effect upon women was greater. Whatever one might think of calls for feminine modesty and the like, the zeitgeist of the Sexual Revolution was that women should have the same sexual habits as men. That such a way of thinking would run into reality should not surprise anyone, but any person who objected by saying that such a loose standard of sexuality would demean women was accused of…demeaning women.

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A Mission for Further Economic Ruin

2006-12-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

How did we come to be having trouble exporting our own cheap crap, while all the good stuff seems to be made overseas – the dead reverse of the way things were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when "made in America" was the call-sign of quality, and hardly anyone overseas could compete with the high-tech efficiency and productivity made possible by America's unrivaled encouragement of those with a gift for accruing and investing entrepreneurial capital?

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There’s a Bureaucrat in Your Trash

2006-12-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

Hopkinton has mandatory curbside recycling. But the town government still worries that you might be throwing away things that you should be placing into that oh-so-earth-friendly green bin. So to address this pressing issue, they have commissioned the Hopkinton Recycling Officer to pick through your trash, just to make sure you’re on the straight and narrow. What’s the problem with that? You don’t have anything to hide, now do you?

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Ballot Box Folklore: Reflections on the myth of the majority

2006-12-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

That the ballot box contains a bona fide expression of the will of the people is a myth as fantastic as any attributed to the ancients in a more innocent age. It is a myth comparable to the genie in the bottle offering the liberator three fantastic wishes. But this myth is a key feature of an outrageous hoax perpetrated on a deluded people by clever opportunists ambitious for power over them.

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The State Is Worse Than Worthless

2006-12-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

It is clear that the world’s system of states does not have a method of policing genocides, despite the fact that the states claim to be in the business of protecting citizens. Each gang (state) more or less respects the turf of the other gangs. In this way, each gang holds on to its power – the most important aim of the gang.

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No Room at the Inn, The Economic Lessons of Bethlehem

2006-12-25T09:59:00.000-08:00

At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society.

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Law-Enforcement Socialism

2006-12-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

Outside of some small academic and activist circles, most Americans reject the radical ideology of socialism as it pertains to the economy as a whole. Hardly anyone believes that the state should maintain the means of production and that private enterprise should be abolished. Most people understand the folly of divorcing all industry from private property ownership and running an economic sector completely through central management.

It is interesting, then, that most people still believe in total socialism when in comes to providing services of security and justice.

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Just Say No to (Corporate) Welfare

2006-12-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

Here’s what farmer John Phipps has to say about the subsidies: “My government is basically saying I am incompetent and need help.” Phipps got $120,000 in subsidies despite the fact that he grossed nearly $500,000, putting his farm in the nation’s top 3 percent.

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now we're wondering if we didn't create a monster

2006-12-23T07:10:00.000-08:00

I speak for the collective: We had to figure out ways to tone down our natural skepticism in order to put on a united face. We knew it would mean pushing the science harder than it should be. Now we're wondering if they realize how uncertain our projections of future climate are.

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One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

2006-12-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

Why not spend available resources on saving people from those deadly diseases that are taking lives right now rather than on over-preparation for a hypothetical epidemic that is highly uncertain?

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Ozone and Radon: The Real Story

2006-12-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

Who is held responsible for lying to the public? The answer is, nobody is ever held responsible for such lies.

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Renewable Electricity 'Creating' Jobs, Destroying Wealth

2006-12-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

It is easy to invent policies that create lots of jobs--just make delivery trucks illegal and create work for human porters. Hire people to shatter windows in homes and businesses, and you will create a boon in the glass-making industry. However, it wastes the skills and services of a labor force that could have produced things that people really wanted.

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Report Critiques Net Neutrality Assumptions

2006-12-21T21:25:00.000-08:00

If content providers are willing to pay for enhanced quality, there is no good reason for regulators to deter them.

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Beyond Taxes and Regulation

2006-12-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

Policymakers should rise above the net neutrality debate and focus on what America truly requires from the Internet: getting affordable broadband access to those who need it.

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Sports arena schemes socialize costs and privatize profits

2006-12-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

No taxpayer is safe if a Task Force is meeting somewhere. If a new arena would be such a money-maker, some developer is likely on the verge of putting one up, post haste, to reap the benefits, right? Well, no. A task force determined that taxpayers would have to foot some of the money to make a new arena building a reality. Plus, the $405 million price tag doesn’t include land, infrastructure or parking.

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Most religions, at some point, have been spread by the sword

2006-12-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

We ignore, at our peril, the quiet revulsion felt by ordinary Muslims who don’t express their feelings with beheadings and car bombs.

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Statism, Post-Modernism, and the Death of the Western World

2006-12-20T10:44:00.000-08:00

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without creating a civilization in-between.

– Oscar Wilde

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Is the dangerous claptrap of "Left Behind" all there is?

2006-12-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

When was the last time in recent history that Christians have made a large scale contribution to the culture at large? Historically, Christians contributed significantly in many areas of scientific advancement, the humanities, and literature. In terms of Evangelical Protestantism our most recent significant pop-culture contribution appears to be the fictional Left Behind novels. Unfortunately, its pop theology is rather dubious to say the least and the practical implications that flow from it are the exact opposite of cultural progress. Rather than progress, this type of popular Christian fiction leads to paranoia, militarism, and escapism. It seems that in the quest for cultural advancement, many Christians are being, well, left behind.

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The high priests of climate change are trampling dissent

2006-12-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

The debate about the science of global warming has been taken over by the politicians and their placemen. There are many attempts to suppress dissenting voices. This is appalling. Since when has science proceeded by enforced consensus, other than when controlled by the church or state? Too often the dissenters have proved right.

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What next?

2006-12-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

"despite all of the dire warnings about our increased intake of trans-fats over the last 20 years, heart disease in America has been in swift decline ... So, if they're killing us, they're not doing a very good job."

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Stifling debate by intimidation

2006-12-19T19:32:00.000-08:00

"One would think [that] 500 years after Copernicus and 400 years after Galileo, western governments would understand the tremendous societal damage that can be done when government attempts to intimidate and stifle scientific research and debate."

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The Global Alarmist Inquisition

2006-12-19T19:25:00.000-08:00

Snowe and Rockefeller imply that speech about global warming and climate policy is illegitimate unless conducted within the pages of scientific journals such as Science or Nature, or unless it uncritically parrots the editorial policies of such journals.

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Politics Is Anti-Truth

2006-12-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

It's not that truth cannot be discovered, or isn’t already known. Rather, it seems obvious that truth, if known, is disregarded if inconvenient. It doesn’t matter.

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How to garner attention for your latest social study

2006-12-19T19:06:00.000-08:00

Did you know that grieving for your loved ones costs U.S. employers $37.6 billion a year? Of course, that’s only for human loved ones; grieving for non-humans (i.e., pets) costs us an additional $2.4 billion a year. March Madness – that’s basketball March Madness not some obscure disease for hat makers – costs us $3.8 billion annually and Sick-Building Syndrome another $15 billion. Obesity? $21.7 billion a year. But that’s just in California.

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Raskin?s Wager

2006-12-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

Default on anarchy until proven otherwise.

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In Washington higher taxes are always the solution

2006-12-19T11:34:00.000-08:00

As many others have done, Virginia's Democratic Senator-elect Jim Webb recently complained of an "ever-widening divide" in America, claiming "the top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980". Those same figures have been repeatedly echoed in all major newspapers. Yet the statement is clearly false.

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Diversity, Yes; Force, No

2006-12-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

Prior to the first federal minimum wage bill passed on the 1930s, there was virtually no difference between black and white teenage (i.e., unskilled) unemployment, at a time when many assume that racism was more prevalent than today. After the minimum age bill is passed, however, we see an increase in black teenage unemployment relative to whites, since as employers are now forced to pay a wage that is higher than the value of many workers' marginal revenue product, they no longer incur a market penalty for allowing racism to dictate their market decisions.

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Losing It

2006-12-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

Unless you stipulate that the behavior of all those climate models is wrong, you are forced to conclude that future warming will be modest and there really isn't anything you can do about it. Anyone who refuses to acknowledge this is in denial, which, of course, explains the frustration and hyperbole of the mob, now calling for assault and murder.

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The Gore Who Stole Christmas

2006-12-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

Though the debate is highly politicized and emotionally charged, good science is beginning to drive out bad. A sampling of recent issues of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, shows that peer-reviewed studies dispute virtually all the tenets behind climate alarmism.

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Withdrawal From Iraq Now Will Be Less Painful Than Years From Now

2006-12-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

Except when the survival of the nation is at stake, all military missions must be judged according to a cost-benefit calculation. Iraq has never come close to being a war for America's survival. It was an elective war -- a war of choice, and a bad choice at that.

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A Nation Worlds Apart

2006-12-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

What liberals are screaming about now regarding an American military-based imperialism that is forcing an American democracy on a sovereign nation is the reason why Southerners remember the Civil War 141 years later. American imperialism began when the blue uniforms crossed the Mason-Dixon.

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The Nonviolent Eucharist

2006-12-17T17:28:00.000-08:00

‘Suppose someone gave a war and the Christians refused to kill or harm one another’

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Pro-Life Killers

2006-12-17T17:27:00.000-08:00

The estimates of the number of Iraqi dead range from a “low” of 30,000, provided by President Bush, to a high of 650,000, provided by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

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Lou Dobbs Thinks You're a Fool

2006-12-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

Dobbs manages to say that he supports American individualism, individual rights, capitalism, free markets, and a good work ethic, but that these must be upheld by policies of price and wage controls, corporate taxes, subsidies, government control of education, protectionist tariffs and trade agreements, and mass democracy.

Huh?

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The Dupes Of Hazard

2006-12-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

King Canute is said to be the poster child for futility, sitting on the seashore, as the legend goes, commanding that the waves retreat.

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Global Warming and The Emergent Ignorant Class

2006-12-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t bother me. I really do not care that most people routinely substitute emotion for data and don’t know the difference. However, when their stupidity reaches the point that it begins to affect my personal freedom, then I have to act

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Why the State Loves War

2006-12-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

For a minority ruling group that's coercively siphoning off resources and lowering the take-home pay and living standards of the majority of the population, war, argues Salerno, has the advantage of directing the attention of the majority to an outside enemy, a foreign state, a foreign ideology.

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Jefferson Davis Was Right

2006-12-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

Jefferson Davis, one of America's greatest statesmen, said that a question settled by violence would inevitably arise again, though at a different time and in a different form.

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Second Amendment Lessons From Iraq

2006-12-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

What Americans mistakenly do is transfer their beliefs regarding distrust of government onto others. The vast majority of people around this world believe government to be a good, not evil, force in their lives." Well put. Even a well-armed populace can be oppressed if it doesn’t have the will to rebel. I might add that even in the United States, detractors of the Second Amendment, and even many of its supporters, tend to trust government too much and see it as a force for good as long as their side is in power.

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'Sock It to the Left!': The Rise of the Spite Right

2006-12-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

Ann Coulter, for example, cracks that if "liberal" jurists "interpreted the Second Amendment the way they interpret the First Amendment, we'd have a right to bear nuclear arms by now." And what exactly does that deserve – other than a rim shot? This: If conservatives "interpreted the Second Amendment the way they interpret the First Amendment," even the National Guard wouldn't have guns.

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More Deaths by Government

2006-12-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ruwart estimates 4.7 million people have died in the last 40 years, while waiting for FDA approval. Nor would it do to leave out the statist banning of DDT, which greatly increased malaria deaths.

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An Extreme Threat to Liberty – Centrism

2006-12-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

The electoral process has somehow made it so that no matter how much centrist policies devastate the American economy and the freedom of its people, the problems can be blamed on partisanship and the recommended solution is always more compromise. The danger is ever-increasing despotism and fiscal recklessness in the name of centrism.

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Benefit Consumers: End Cable Monopolies

2006-12-12T22:03:00.000-08:00

From the time cable lines began replacing TV antennas four decades ago, municipalities have required cable firms to obtain franchises under the assumption that cable service was a “natural monopoly” in need of taming. This local regulation, which was never justified, has become destructive now that there are assorted technologies and service providers that consumers could choose from if given the chance.

Evidence abounds that franchising by cities and townships costs consumers.

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