Thousands of TWEETS, Posts, Articles, Pages, chapters, Notes, Diagrams, drafts, sketches and Quotes from 2009 to present
The Liberal Gene
Researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults’ political leanings. According to scientists at UC San Diego and Harvard University, “ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4.” That and how many friends you had during high school. The study was…
A Study On Corruption, Without A Definition Of Corruption. Is That In Itself Corruption?
From http://dmarron.com/2010/10/31/how-corrupt-is-the-united-states/ “According to a recent study, the United States has more public sector corruption than do many other developed economies.” “Perception” is only a measure of popularity. It is not a fact of relative corruption. The problem faced by the USA is that it is too large, and our political system is insufficient for…
Recommended A Book On Philosophy? Hmmm. Maybe a Library of them.
Last weekend a friend of mine surprised me by confessing to have an interest in philosophy (which surprised me, I thought all he was interested in was traveling and fly-fishing) and recommended a book, Philosophy of Language , by Scott Soames. I am wondering, what do folks here think of Soames and of his book,…
Our Failure To Keep It.
The takeover of the administration of state by the middle class in England created a problem for politicians. WIth their new found responsibility, they were not against the king any longer, and now were against each other. Some were cognizant of the risk. Conservatism: Sentiments of freedom from totalitarianism, brotherhood of protection of the city,…
Why Not Change Our Tax Structure To Punish Extra-Market Coercion?
Paul Krugman writes: Soros, Obama, And Me What do we have in common? We’re all small business owners, according to Mitch McConnell. Obama and I make our business income off books — he sells the audacity of hope, Robin and I sell the misery of Econ 101; Soros makes his money off financial destruction directing…
A Method For Moderating Dialogs
“The Cult Of Offensive Moderation” Note: I am in the process of creating a plugin for political moderation of debates, without censorship. There is far too much censorship on debate sites and blogs. Especially censorship of in-group language. The sentiment of inclusion in Democratic Secular Humanism (our current religion in the west) is at odds…
The Child Of Democracy And Secularism Is Stillborn
(Posted in the comments section of the NYT) In response to the comments section of one of Paul Krugman’s articles: British Decline I felt that all the people that were commenting were right. They understood the failure of conservative policy. The same way that conservatives understand the failure of liberal policy. But they are working…
Anarchists and Elitism?
From The Liberty Defense League, an exceptionally intelligent posting on the weaknesses of anarchism. Some libertarian friends call for anarchy to prevail. While such a state of affairs may be offering momentary delights, we need to remember that if we stand for nothing, we will fall for anything. Anarchy is government of nothing, and is…
Privatization From Obama?
While the devil is in the details, and I have less than zero confidence in this president, he proposed a structural change in the way we ‘purchase’ infrastructure projects, that would effectively privatize the process, rather than continue the current (corrupt) process of relying upon earmarks. From The NYT: Mr. Obama … called for what…
A Political Movement Pretending To Be A Religion Replaces A Religion Pretending To Be A Political Movement
From The Left’s Unlikely Alliance with Islam By Robert Eugene Simmons Jr. [callout]First we encounter Marxism, which is a religion masquerading as a political movement. When we finally defeat Marxism the void is almost immediately filled by Islam, which is a political movement masquerading as a religion.[/callout] Most fair-minded Americans have no problem with people…
An Analysis Of Freedom #2: The Economy Of Freedom
A Little History For Context The term ‘Freedom’, and its near relation ‘Liberty’, have a long heritage. The babylonian words “ama-gi”, meaning “Return To The Mother”, written in cuneiform, are often cited by Libertarians as the first written use of ‘freedom’. That usage literally refers to giving a slave back to his mother —…
A Life Lesson – A Change In Approach – And A Thank You
Every day I read around twenty academic papers, a book, and something on the order of 300 blog postings on economics and politics, and a little philosophy. I have my own aggregator on www.roundtable.capitalismv3.com, various news readers, and I use the site Rtable.net for everything related to economics. I have a high tolerance for information,…
“Extend And Pretend”
I lost the source of this quote, but thought it captured the sentiment correctly: The government has been playing “extend-and-pretend” based entirely on the idea that pent up demand in consumers would grow until it busted out and the recovery would be on – fueled by consumers. What has happened is the exact opposite. This…
Review: Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo
“Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is A Better Way For Africa.” We know: Aid is bad. It creates corruption. It harms the economy. It makes nice happy Christians, and nice happy DSH’s (( Democratic Secular Humanists )) feel good about themselves. But it is terribly harmful for Africans and their civilization. Because…
Review: The Secret Of The West
I try to keep track of the ‘Grand Theories’. And I came across this one last week. I can’t find the book anywhere except online. I read what I could. And found this page by the author that summarizes his theory. Which is, quite simply, “stability and wealth provide the foundation for technological progress.” There…
The Reality Of Freedom #1: Freedom Requires Coercion
Whenever something is scarce, some concept of property (the exclusive use of a resource) is necessary for the development of incentives, coordination, and production — even if the difference between ‘several property’ and ‘shareholder property’, is defined differently by different groups — therefore all societies include and sanction some form of coercion. No society can…
China And Defining Freedom – Easterly VS National Review
In William Easterly’s post “Why can’t leading conservative magazine understand freedom?” he refers to a National Review article “China Teaches US Lessons About Economic Freedom“. I replied in the comments: William, I’ve read this post four times, and it’s still not very clear what you’re arguing for and against. I think you’re reading far too…
The BiPolarity Of Class
In response to The Tea Party is a Marxist movement on Half Sigma, I created this diagram. The BiPolarity Of Social Class, And The Status Competition Between Them. I”ve posted a diagram that is in progress. It’s at: http://www.capitalismv3.com//opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/BiPolarityOfClass-2010-08-29.png What I want to illustrate is the difference between people who exist in the market economy…
Hayek, Kling, Austrians And Providing The Libertarian Solution
From Arnold Kling, By way of the WSJ, By Peter Boettke: Mr. Hayek rightly warned of the dangers of central planning, Mr. Boettke says, but “he didn’t give a prescription for how to move from ‘serfdom’ back.” – Austrian Resurgence by Arnold Kling (Taken and expanded from my comments on EconLib.) Back From Serfdom? Hayek…
I’ll Counter Paul’s Prediction With One Of My Own
Paul writes: Predictions I Wish Had Been Wrong Looking for some other stuff, I found this post from October 2008 in which I predicted a level of right-wing craziness about Obama similar to that facing Bill Clinton, but worse. I really, really wish I had been wrong about that. But this is followed by interesting…
