Random politics musings
News ·Sunday June 17, 2007 @ 12:37 EDT (link)
Mostly politics; you probably don't want to read if you have high blood pressure, because it's pretty much guaranteed you'll disagree with me somewhere, and you'll think it's personal, and you'll get upset, and when people get upset their blood pressure goes up, which is especially bad if it's already high; you have been warned.
Let's start with some libertarian philosophy:
The libertarian refuses to give the State the moral sanction to commit actions that almost everyone agrees would be immoral, illegal, and criminal if committed by any person or group in society. The libertarian, in short, insists on applying the general moral law to everyone, and makes no special exemptions for any person or group. ... The libertarian insists that whether or not such practices are supported by the majority of the population is not germane to their nature: that, regardless of popular sanction, War is Mass Murder, Conscription is Slavery, and Taxation is Robbery. The libertarian, in short, is almost completely the child in the fable, pointing out insistently that the emperor has no clothes.
Libertarian philosophy has a lot going for it; libertarians are fiscally conservative (you pay as you go), and socially liberal (which is where we disagree; they're usually for gay rights, unrestricted abortion, etc., but not always). They have very radical ideas about privatizing, well, pretty much everything (including emergency services and courts), but rational explanations for how things would work. Naysayers say these ideas have never been tried, but nor had many aspects of the republic that would become the United States of America before it was founded.
Ron Paul is a presidential candidate; he has a history of voting against taxes (which, of course, as a libertarian, he would see as theft), and also opposes illegal immigration (from his Wikipedia page):
Paul's desire to secure U.S. borders remains a key topic in his 2008 presidential campaign. He opposes the North American Union proposition and its proposed integration of Mexico, the United States of America, and Canada. Paul voted "yes" on the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorizes the construction of an additional 700 miles of double-layered fencing between the U.S and Mexico. Paul opposes illegal immigration as well as amnesty for illegal immigrants. He also introduced legislation that would amend the Constitution to stop giving automatic citizenship to babies who are born in the United States to non-citizen parents, which has been in effect since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.
Perhaps not quite so staunchly as Congressman Tom Tancredo, who has made illegal immigration a key component of his platform. As Tom himself says, regarding his candidacy,
It's delusional to suggest that this would not be anything but a David and Goliath situation, but after all, David won.
Which brings us to the amnesty bill, which, although shot down once, is rising like some gross zombie at the urgings of our pandering President Bush and Senator Harry Reid. If this amnesty passed it would be a tragedy for so many reasons: massive influx of a culture that's so wretched that, after destroying its own country, has to destroy ours; further deflation of the wages of the poorest Americans; increased taxation to support increased welfare and other services; more crime and drugs; eventual elimination of the two-party system; etc. etc.
There should really be two (or several) bills: the first needs to close the border, repeal the fourteenth amendment, deny services (taxpayer-funded or otherwise) to illegals, and do all necessary employment verification to make it a hostile environment for anyone trying to work here illegally, and then we can talk about work visas on an as needed basis. Tying anmesty to security is like discussing sobriety over cocktails.
And an old (June 2005; cleaning out my inbox) article tying lack of kids to happiness:
Get married, but don't have kids. According to Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick in England and something of an expert on the intersection of money and happiness, getting married adds a happiness factor that's equivalent to having $100,000 added to your household income. This is not true of having children, Oswald says. His surveys have found that adding kids to your life (or not having them at all) didn't seem to change people's happiness one way or the other. Which is good. Kids are expensive, and since most rich people just send theirs away to boarding school anyway, you could argue that the best thing for your Live Cheap, Look Rich lifestyle is not to have the little darlings in the first place.
And then a commentary on the Duggars, who at least can afford it: God does not want 16 kids: Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe? by Mark Morford.
And lest you think I'm too fond of libertarian views to the extent that corporations should be able to rape and pillage the earth (as they are now):
To defend Wal-Mart for its low prices is to claim that the most perfect form of economic organization more closely resembles the Soviet Union in 1950 than twentieth-century America. It is to celebrate rationalization to the point of complete irrationality.
from Breaking the Chain: The anti-trust case against Wal-Mart. We already have a new McDonald's down the road, and a Jiffy Lube even closer; of course, our twit of a Mayor (Will Ibershof) is elated; strip malls are popping up all over, can a Wal-Mart of our own be far behind? (fortunately the closest one right now is in Lynnwood). (Why don't I like Wal-Mart? Kills the smaller businesses, attracts a skanky crowd, they underpay and mistreat their workers, and they import most of their crap from China and it breaks shortly after you buy it.) Discussion.
Craigslist is great, but it's even better when you use listpic, which groups pictures of items by category and location; here's the link for the eastside. Just a public service announcement, nothing political to see there.
And finally, some numbers: 13256278887989457651018865901401704640 = 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0h = 26 * 5 * 19 * 12043 * 216493 *
836256503069278983442067. Article. (Hint: it's a key that helps bad people lock you out of something you already own, to deny you legitimate fair use.)
