Vox Populi: While the economic value of anything depends on sellers and buyers agreeing on that value as civil equals in the absence of force, modern government is about nothing if not tampering with civil equality. By endowing some in society with power to force others to sell cheaper than they would, and forcing others yet to buy at higher prices — even to buy in the first place — …
Category: politics
The ruling class
Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters – speaking the “in” language– serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats.
The politics of Hit-Girl
The politics of Hit-Girl For a long time the left has controlled the gates for movies, books, and comics, in part because of the government control of television. Lately, however, I have been seeing more and more politically incorrect stuff. As you probably figured out if you watched the movie Kick Ass, Hit-Girl is a conservative, what with being home schooled and all It is a great movie. In the …
“ethicsâ€
The Washington post complains about unethical science in China. Zhao is turning his attention to a topic Western researchers have shied away from because of ethical worries: Zhao plans to study the genes of 1,000 of his best-performing classmates at a top high school in Beijing and compare them, he said, “with 1,000 normal kids.†Politically incorrect science is “unethical†Today western science is stagnant for the same reasons as …
Palin still in charge
Looks like Republican party activists listen to Palin, and rank and file republicans listen to party activists. The next test of Palin’s power is Lisa Murkowski against Joe Miller.
It is the past that changes
The future is certain, it is the past that changes. Moveon had a web page demonizing General Petraeus as General Betray Us Obama appoints General Petraeus in charge of Afghanistan, whereupon the page not only instantly disappears from Moveon.org, but also instantly disappears from Google’s cache. When the past changes, Google’s spiders are quicker of the mark than they are for normal updates, suggesting human intervention to correct the past …
If Jews bleed, it does not lead
The biggest story of the last few days has been Israel’s interception of peace activist ship to Gaza, in which they killed nine peace activists. Here is a picture of some peace activists holding down a soldier at knifepoint, with what appears to be a pool of blood on the bulkheads. When the the picture gets carried at all in the mainstream media, the knife and the blood gets cropped. …
The past is always changing
We have always been at war with Eastasia
Someone in Academia received an order like that given to Comrade Winston Smith, and all of Academia fell into line, and remains in line to this day, a thousand megaphones attached to one microphone.
Mission accomplished
Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010. But has everything goes to hell in a handbasket, it will all be blamed on free markets, despite …
How to fix the financial crisis
Proposed reforms, both left and right, are unlikely to have any effect on the continuing massive misappropriation from the financial system. It is absurd that people are discussing obscure details of the credit swap market. To fix the financial crisis, we have to revoke, or at least denounce and denigrate, Marie Curie’s Nobel prize. When they gave a Nobel prize to Marie Curie for being female, that did not hurt …