This area is for general discussion on any topic. Commentators are free to start any conversation or comment on meta-issues here. The discussion forum will occasionally be archived.
Archived discussion is available for May and June/July.
How can we broaden the appeal of Libertarian thinking?
We need to improve our reach.
If we all got together, maybe we could finance a movie version of ‘The Probability Broach’, and retitle it, ‘The World that killed Washington’. The book is choc-a-bloc full of libertarian ideas, and they’d filter through to any movie audience.
Or has anyone seriously thought about a virtual world game, like ‘Second Life’, but set in a libertarian alternative, where the streets of Sydney would be the same, but all the businesses would be different? We could all live free lives in a parallel universe!
Comment by nicholas | August 10, 2007
What does everyone think of the Internet Filter being proposed? Anyone enjoying the anti-terror laws? Civil Liberties are truly going down the drain in Australia these days huh?
And what’s wrong with that? What are you, an individualist? Do you think that terrorists have civil rights, like ordinary people? Personally, I think that an all-embracing state, with video-screens as in 1984, is the only way to cut down on all crime. How do you hope to have the perfect society if you can’t watch everyone all the time?
Actually, the only part of the new laws I like is the barrier- ordinary people shouldn’t have to consort or touch a politician, id it can be avoided!
Comment by nicholas gray | August 15, 2007
An Economics Policy Question.
The Federal Govt has recently announced a much larger budget surplus for 2006-07 than previously estimated and has decided to retain the surplus and ‘invest’ it in various funds.
One alternative is to return it to the tax-payers in the form of tax cuts. But, on my understanding, the govt is resisting this move because it believes this would lead to an increase in spending in an economy already running at close to full capacity. Such a move would therefore likely be inflationary and thus result in higher interest rates.
Does the Govt’s argument have merit?
Comment by E.D. | August 25, 2007
It is technically a valid statement, but it’s a bit of a cop out and doesn’t justify it as good policy. Although it would stump some punters, which is clearly what it’s intended to do.
More to the point, government supporters are aurging that the government is keen for more tax cuts once it achieves a certain level of ‘investment’. What’s the perception of this, considering the government has had a history of cutting taxes (from record highs) and hasn’t managed the economy too badly?
Comment by Michael Sutcliffe | August 25, 2007
E.D.
The government’s argument has next to no merit. It depends on the Keynesian view that people will spend immediately rather than save.
When people talk about an economy running at full capacity and tax cuts being inflationary, they forget that monetary policy is far more influential in determining inflation.
Economists who oppose tax cuts are essentially saying government spending is more productive than consumer/business spending. And that is simply untrue. There is no net change in total spending with or without tax cuts. If there were no tax cuts, government would spend the money on pork-barrelling. If there are tax cuts, individuals can spend the money on more productive purposes.
Taxes should be cut in any circumstances, boom or depression. The main advantage of tax cuts is that it curbs government spending. Why should the government hoard taxpayers money for its own investment and consumption choices? Nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as they spend their own. The surplus should be returned to the people to utilise for productive purposes.
One commentator noted that both this govt, and the previous one, argued that govts should not own or run businesses (hence sales of Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, CSL, etc.). Yet, the govt has deposited its surplus into equity funds. Thus, albeit indirectly, it now owns businesses again!
Comment by E.D. | August 25, 2007
The latest tax cut occurred from 1 July. If the Keynesians are right, then we should see a sharp spike in retail sales for that month, and a lift in the CPI for the quarter.
Comment by E.D. | August 25, 2007
Probably the reason for not going for tax cuts is the probability of blowing it on election promises.
Politicians know the value of being sincere even when they don’t mean it.
Is there anything Australians can’t do? I just heard on the radio about a teenager who just spent half an hour on the attempt, and managed to break a government-approved porn filter, which cost millions to develop!
We should spend some of the surplus on hiring bright kids to run the government’s programs!
Comment by nicholas gray | August 27, 2007
I have a sneaking suspicion that such filters can be overcome by using a new browser, or using browser add-ons which are commonly available. Correct me if I am wrong.
Under our current monetary policy there should be no risk of consumer price inflation outside of the policy boundaries defined in the monetary policy. The question is whether the policy of holding onto money in slush funds; sorry I mean health funds etc, is going to dampen interest rate pressure.
Interest rates are the cost of credit and if you have a level of saving higher than what participants in a free market would deliver on their own then you notionally have downward pressure on the cost of credit. Not necessarily a good outcome but potentially popular with some voters. Of course credit can be imported and exported (although without a shared unit of account it must generally be hedged).
However there are a lot of variables. The government slush funds may not end up in the credit markets but instead flow intitally into the system via equity markets. This may stimulate investment in output capacity and even take away some inflationary risks down the track. However tax cuts also boost output capacity by improving incentives and lowering the trade barrier between aussie households.
It should also be remembered that any reduction in the rate at which they take money off us is not the same as an absolute cut in the amount they take of us. Unfortunately we can only wish for a slow down in the rate at which they appropriate money because other than the LDP nobody is proposing an actual reduction in the size of the tax revenue take.
You forgot the vital role of capital accumulation - unless this is covered by incentives which sort of implies better incentives are undertaken by capital and labour.
Why does no one look at the issue of Australia’s part in global warming realistically? Sure, our emissions on a per capita basis may be high, but our total emissions are absolutely dwarfed by those of China and the United States.
Our measly 21 million people really aren’t doing much as far as I’m concerned.
Comment by Dan | August 28, 2007
Here’s an extraneous thought- with all this proof of quantum tunnelling, we might soon be able to find a suitable planet, and emigrate to our very own version of Utopia! If light, as recently reported, can travel faster than light, we might be able to do the same! Freehold, here we come!
Australia contributes 1.4% to total global CO2 emissions according to the CSIRO. So logically, if man made global warming theory is true, even fairly significant reductions in Australian CO2 output will have no measurable impact on global temps unless the whole world suffers with us. Article has a few other interesting stats linking global and Australian wealth to CO2 production. http://www.csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html
Comment by Tim R | August 29, 2007
“Freehold” is the name of a planet in a book of the same name, which is libertarian-based, and gets into a war with a UN-dominated Earth. As for faster-than light travel, perhaps wormholes will offer us a way out to the stars!
Comment by nicholas gray | August 29, 2007
I can find plenty of wormholes in the idea that we will ever expand beyond this blue planet. Better to fight for freedom here than wonder about libertopia in the sky.
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | August 29, 2007
“How can we broaden the appeal of Libertarian thinking?”
Well the Ron Paul phenomenon is having a spill over effect into Australia. It spreads virally over the internet. The latest generation of voters are excited by the prospects of low taxation and small government. You really have to be in our shoes to feel the sense hopelessness that current trends in taxation, governance and control render when looking to the future.
Why bother starting a business and working hard if you have no guaranty your money will still be worth something in 30 years, or that you will be allowed to keep it?
How do you bring about real economic and constitutional reform in such a poor situation? Two in-between parties who agree on most issues and no real hope of getting a better party in to replace one of them.
Australia doesn’t even have a proper constitution. The British law which once was our constitution became void when we became a sovereign state. The whole thing is a sick joke. Australia has the potential to be what America almost was. But to realize that potential the smoke screens need to be blown away. Terrorism, global warming, Aboriginal child abuse. Cut the distractions and lets get at the real issue: We need a bill of rights, new smaller states and a new constitution.
Comment by Bob | August 30, 2007
I agree Bob. However changes like that require a lot of courage and moral will. I’m not convinced Australians have the qualities to bring that level of progress about. We get the society we deserve.
Doesn’t mean we should stop arguing for it though.
What it would need is for one of us to start up a successful drug-selling empire, and use the proceeds to equip an army that then fights for a new state (in the Kimberleys?), and the new state could be a libertarian community. Of course, a state that is born fighting runs the risk that it will become a militarised society. Maybe being a citizen will mean being in the armed forces (civil defence on a large scale).
Comment by nicholas gray | August 30, 2007
Nicholas,
Maybe the drug lord could use wormholes to bipass customs.
Is such a drug lord anything like a time lord? You could fit a rather large stash inside a tardis.
Regards,
Terje.
Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | August 30, 2007
Nick,
Although you speak jokingly, the basic premise of your argument is a good one, although slightly radical.
The problem I see with a hostile take over of our illegal defacto government is this: we have no guns, and if we did have guns we have no training, and if we did have training we’d be labeled a terrorist group which would be enough justification for the existing defacto government to send in the army.
The term ‘freedom fighters’ carries a negative connotation these days. This is no accident. And it makes a revolt against bad government all the harder to bring about.
If anyone is to fix this appalling situation it will be (indirectly) the government itself. Just as is happening in America now, our government will likely cross the line to the point where the average dim-wit bogan becomes so annoyed that they actually begin to care.
What is sort of interesting is the hut river province scenario. As far as I know they don’t pay tax nor have to get building permits despite the fact that the government’s official line on the issue is that they are not an independent nation.
If we had 10 times the land of hutt river and a decent population we would probably stand a not unreasonable chance of becoming an internationally recognized sovereign state.
*extra votes*, apportioned on the number of children you have. He had the gall to call it children centred. Clearly a (lower class, middle class and perhaps corporate) welfare and vote buying racket.
I think Australia is ripe for the picking. The cultural attitude of “get stuffed” toward government and pointless regulation is only a foot step away from the core principles of liberty.
All we need is some sex appeal. ‘Libertarianism’ is not a particularly appealing term to someone who does not understand the ideas behind it. Call it a freedom revolution and maybe you’ve got something. Unfortunately it is difficult to find something that profoundly distances libertarianism from anarchy (which always carries negative connotations) in the minds of the uneducated.
Many people are strongly opposed to any form of socialism which makes them friends of liberty, if only they would realize, as I did, that the complete opposite of socialism exists within the philosophy of liberty then we’d have many more followers.
Comment by Bob | August 30, 2007
One thing that continues to baffle me is how anyone can really be opposed to libertarianism.
I like to think of it as glue for holding together a network of communities.
If the socialists want to live like beavers with equal everything and zero creativity then they can, in their own little community, as long as what they do there doesn’t affect other communities.
Don’t ask, don’t tell. Live and let live.
Libertarianism is the very foundation of all human interaction since the dawn of time. Before we even knew it. International law as it stands is an implementation of libertarianism. We just need to bring it down to the individual level.
Comment by Bob | August 30, 2007
I think Australia is ripe for the picking. The cultural attitude of “get stuffed” toward government and pointless regulation is only a foot step away from the core principles of liberty.
Look at the reaction to Work Choices. Australians never developed a true anti-government side like the US. We have a bit of an individualist streak that’s declining, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Australians really aren’t pro-liberty people. Just below the surface Australians have a very strong desire to be kept comfortable and safe, and at various times we want the government to make it so. But by far the biggest downfall is what Aussies are willing to sacrifice to get this false sense of security.
One thing that continues to baffle me is how anyone can really be opposed to libertarianism.
People aren’t totally rational. And a lot of them want to really, really be kept comfortable, safe and free from too much responsibility, even if its responsibility to themselves.
Bob, for sex-appeal, we could hijack history- call ourselves the new Eurekans, or something.
As for being opposed to liberty, they aren’t really, but the forces of evil cleverly wrap themselves in freedom’s rhetoric- look at how the term ‘Liberal’ was mugged in America, so that instead of meaning ‘Freedom from Government’, it now means ‘Freedom BY Government’. By constantly portraying the government as the answer to any problem, we now have a pro-government attitude. We need to start highlighting the fact that government IS the problem.
Comment by nicholas gray | August 31, 2007
Haha and we could start a new country within Australia called “New Australia” and fly the Eureka Flag. Everyone welcome, hand your paper money in at the first gate, pick up your guns, amour and gold at the next gate.
As for definitions. Its not so much the definitions which have changed but the connotations.
The term ‘reform’ is now associated with ‘good’, ‘making better’, ‘getting things done’ when actually reform is almost always bad and leads to new problems, which also need ‘reforms’ to counter them.
I think there is a downward trend in legitimate interest in politics. It has become cool not to care, and not to have any political stance. (Particularly in America.) I think this is one of the biggest problems. Some people regard all political philosophies as below their level of interest, or as unimportant to them.
Sure they will mutter and groan about new legislation, but thats as far as they get. Because they don’t realize that a group to which they would affiliate, the libertarians, actually exist, as they can’t get past the mental barrier that ‘all politics are bad.’
Ron Paul, I believe, has had some success breaching this misconception and has managed to tap the uninterested punter in America. As soon as you get punters convincing other punters then you have a viral grass roots campaign. A highly resonant message like freedom in an ever darkening political sky can be quite explosive.
Comment by Bob | August 31, 2007
A quick off topic survey…
How many people here believe the official story of 9/11?
Bob - is that the version where Islamic terrorists hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings. If so it might be more expedient to ask how many people don’t believe this version.
Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | August 31, 2007
Did anyone catch George Moonbiot’s tirade against classical liberals in yesterday’s Guardian. Quite astonishing stuff.
You are right. I don’t believe the official story, and it is my opinion that anyone who has properly researched 9/11 and does believe the official story is either a moron devoid of even the most primitive understanding of physics and probability or a sufferer of psychotic denial.
Comment by Bob | August 31, 2007
Pommy, the guy doesn’t even have a clue about what he opposes. Neoliberals have mastery of the media? Have you seen the production quality of Friedman’s Free to Choose, aired on PBS initially. The guy is an idiot and should be paying more attention to Sun Tzu’s maxim “Know your enemy and know yourself” if he wants anyone but fellow wingbats to take him seriously.
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | August 31, 2007
You are right. I don’t believe the official story, and it is my opinion that anyone who has properly researched 9/11 and does believe the official story is either a moron devoid of even the most primitive understanding of physics and probability or a sufferer of psychotic denial.
I probably shouldn’t take the bait and answer you Bob, as with all them big words and your sneering sanctimonious attitude you must be real smart. Too smart to believe that ‘truther’ shit you go on with, so I assume you are just trying to got us going.
You’re right Bob. It was quite obviously secret explosives set off by aliens. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Personally I think it was clones of Elvis, but I don’t have any proof of that (unlike the rest of it). Can you help?
Comment by Robbie | August 31, 2007
I find it hard to believe that 10% of Australians are living in poverty.
Depends on where you draw the poverty line. To ACOSS and various welfare lobby organisations, inability to purchase a plasma TV and DVD player after drinking a slab each evening equates to poverty.
If poverty means not enough food, nowhere to live or no clothes to wear, it is obviously total crap.
Google are censorship happy. This much is obvious.
How can you be so one sided? Open minded about freedom but not much else. Did you take physics at high school, Jim? Do you recall Newton’s three laws?
Please do tell me how you believe a freefall collapse to be possible when the falling mass must pass through undamaged building. How do two 410 meter high buildings self destruct in 10 seconds flat without the use of explosives?
How does the most advanced anti missile defense system in the world simply lose two planes? Maybe if the US asks nicely China will put US tuned transponders on its nukes? That way NORAD can find them when there are ‘too many blips on the radar.’
What is the probability that the CIA and NORAD were both running drills for the same event (an attack on the WTC) on the same day, at the same time that it actually happened? I can assure you that the insurance company wasn’t too happy about paying out a policy to the new leaseholder of only 6 months, Larry Silverstein. Two acts of terrorism = 4.6 billion USD. Not bad for an investment of only 200 million.
Why was NORAD ordered to stand down when the planes went off course? (The standard procedure is to intercept with jets.)
Why is there an eye wittiness report of a pentagon employee informing Cheney that ‘the plane is 50 miles out’, ‘the plane is 30 miles out’, ‘the plane is 10 miles out, do the orders still stand?’
There is so much more evidence, including forensic evidence of explosives as measured in the dust from the WTCs, that it makes 9/11 truthers want to pull their hair out with frustration when they encounter the snide ‘yes, you are crazy’ average dimwit. (Which I am ashamed to say is most of you presently.)
So go ahead and live in your genocide fantasy world where millionaire CIA asset OBL is to blame. Or you can go watch a few 9/11 documentaries and read some scholarly papers and wake up to what is really going on in this world, and who the real enemies of liberty are.
We were just talking about how words have been redefined. Well theres one you didn’t even think about: conspiracy. How negative a connotation that carries, but how common conspiracy is in this day and age. Government corruption runs deep and is often interwoven with various mafia organizations and other secret organizations. Conspiracy is committed everyday. So why all the hate?
Comment by Bob | September 1, 2007
Bob, I believe you. Elvis told me what you said is true. Aliens took over the CIA and manipulated it to plant explosives to coincide with the planes crashing into the WTC. They used black helicopters too.
Comment by Robbie | September 1, 2007
Osama Bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
QED
Comment by E.D. | September 1, 2007
E.D.,
Perhaps you should review the video in which bin laden ‘claims responsibility’
It is often referred to as the ‘fat binladen tape’ because the actor in it is both fat and right handed (he writes and eats with his right hand.) The real OBL is both unfat and left handed, and denies involvement.
The problem here is the level of maturity you approach this at. I hope other issues, world events and the like are given considerably more respect. Or do you treat JFK with the same childish snide attitudes? A hostile takeover of the US government via assassination is nothing to smirk about.
Perhaps you should do some research instead of relying on Murdoch news sources for your opinions. aka Fox ‘News’
Comment by Bob | September 1, 2007
So why all the hate?
Nobody hates you Bob, but this is a place of logical argument and discussion, where we solve the worlds problems.
it is my opinion that anyone who has properly researched 9/11 and does believe the official story is either a moron devoid of even the most primitive understanding of physics and probability or a sufferer of psychotic denial. is not the way I would choose to start such a discussion if you wish to be taken seriously.
Bob, You need more than high school physics to begin to comprehend the dynamics involved in and around the movement of large masses. Trust me Bob, 20+ years in the mining industry has taught me that you have to experience it to comprehend it.
Bob, at the moment I believe the official story, because the weight of evidence still favours it. Whilst I’m aware that the CIA can be incompetent (one of today’s papers lists all its’ failures over the years, like Castro still being alive), I find it hard to accept it as actively evil- because more people would have blabbed! A group so inefficient would not have successfully kept everyone quiet.
“Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) have signed oaths declaring that, should they win the presidency in 2008, they will issue an executive order during their first month in office instructing the entire executive branch to put into practice the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a Google-like search tool will allow you to see how your tax dollars are being spent on federal contracts, grants and earmarks. All of the major presidential candidates have been invited to sign the “oath of presidential transparency” which is being promoted by a diverse coalition of 36 groups, led by Reason Foundation.”The next president should be committed to transparency and accountability,” said Adrian Moore, vice president of research at Reason Foundation. “Redesigning the federal government so that it is more accountable to taxpayers is a nonpartisan issue. Transparency will help produce a government focused on results instead of our current system, which is plagued by secrecy, wasteful spending and pork projects.”
Comment by Tim R | September 5, 2007
Whilst the oath sounds impressive, did they seal it in blood?
Q. How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Just ask all the politicians to leave the room, and it will automatically become much brighter!
Comment by nicholas gray | September 5, 2007
Walking through Belmore Park this evening near central I noticed a chalk message on the ground reading “ABOLISH FREE TRADE, NOT FREE SPEECH”.
Does anyone know of the legalities of doing such things (seeing as chalk is very easy to wash et c)?
TIM, good news!
You can go back to believing in Edgar Cayce!
For a while, I didn’t know what you were talking about, because I was looking for laetrite, not laetrile!!
When I look up laetrile, I see where you are making a mistake! Cayce often did recommend almonds to his patients as a cancer-preventative, and bitter almonds do have cyanide in them, but in the time when he was giving this advice, most almonds for sale were sweet almonds. You would be right to avoid bitter almonds, but sweet almonds are good for warding off cancer (See http://www.healingcancernaturally.).
Comment by nicholas gray | September 6, 2007
Check your wording.
You said I can go “back to” “believing” in Cayce.
I never did believe in Cayce and I’m a skeptic. This means I try to “believe” in as little as I possibly can.
I can’t remember about the laetrile. I’ll look it up.
Comment by Tim R | September 6, 2007
I know that, I was having fun. But the sweet almonds are good for cancer, based on the evidence.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 6, 2007
And something else to remember, good people.
Cayce once talked about Bimini being a place of refuge for Atlanteans fleeing their sinking islands. A while back,in the ’70s, a ’scientist’ claimed to have proved that a ‘road’ structure was just beachrock, occurring naturally. Everybody took him at his word. However, his work was never peer-reviewed. When that was done recently, his conclusion was found to be full of holes. The rocks in the road have different alignments, and do not appear to be natural. It now seems more likely that they were moved there, and the structure is artificial. Someone was building stone structures in the past around Bimini, which are now underwater.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 7, 2007
Laetrile:
Trials found no evidence but there is circumstancial evidence: that being it releases cyanide, which can kill any bloody cell. Same is true of almonds, release cyanide. Eat to prevent cancer but do more damage from the “cure”. Dumb way to prevent cancer. Better off with vit D, gamma tocopherol, toctrienols(?), selenium, and occasional fasting.
Comment by Dead Soul | September 7, 2007
Dead Soul, there is a difference between bitter almonds and sweet almonds. When tested in laboratories on animals, compounds derived from sweet almonds did prevent cancer, and did not poison from cyanide.
Federal horse racing industry subsidies have been confirmed.
Does this now mean it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that future outbreaks of equine influenza don’t occur?
Let’s take the argument to the extreme: if the computer industry were to temporarily cease for whatever reason, would the government give handouts to my friend that owns a computer store?
What if the affected industry were larger than the racing industry?
Comment by Dan | September 9, 2007
Osama’s special thanks to APEC protesters.
Osama’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri spoke on Al Jazeera TV yesterday to says thanks on behalf of Osama bin Laden to all those who demonstrated against the president of the Great Satan - America.
“This greatly assists our world –wide fundamentalist movement and to spread hatred and contempt for America, the one and only true enemy of our jihad against the West. This will move us even closer to our one goal — to destroy the West and impose a global Islamic government”
Osama wishes also to thank the Fairfax Press management and their columnists, plus the ABC and SBS, the Teachers Unions of Australia and universities. Special thanks also to the organisers of the demonstrations -the various socialist, communist and union movements like the Greens which are doing more than their fair share in moving Australia to the left with our mutual beliefs being the destruction of capitalism and by default - America and Western civilisation.
Most importantly, Osama wants to reward high school teacher Kim Peade who put on that beautiful anti - American play from Davidson High School, and also Alex Bainbridge and Simon Cunich, the Marxist organisers of the “Stop Bush Campaign”. Osama bestows on them the high order of Crossed Swords with car-bomb clusters. These friends of Osama must be very proud to be so honored. And Osama gives a heartfelt salute to Davidson High School for their very much appreciated support.
Osama says he was not happy for some time that the CIA, Israel and Halliburton got all the credit for the attack on 9/11 after he - Osama, had proudly and rightfully claimed credit on world -wide TV for the whole operation. And after seeing his Muslim friends and their leftist supporters in Europe and elsewhere, dancing in the streets as the Twin Towers came crumbling down, well he was very disappointed at the leftists for giving credit for all his hard work and planning to others.
Osama though says he understands now because the leftists have to do anything and everything they can to move us all toward an Islamic/socialist partnership where all convert to Islam, and so we can all happily share together, sharia laws, mandatory five times a day prayer sessions.
Osama is still disappointed though that the Americans get all the credit in Iraq for the civilian deaths. What is the point in slitting peoples throats, beheadings, car bombing crowds of people and trying to impose fear on the populace if America get all the credit for these civilian deaths?
Those weak stupid Americans are not of course doing any such thing, and are instead building schools and infrastructure and spreading their accursed democracy which actually gives women equal rights with no more honor killings – what barbarians these people are - no wonder we need our seventh century sharia law.
Anyway Osama says we are winning the global struggle for Islam in leaps and bounds. With most of the major cities in Europe soon having majority Muslim populations-with Mohammed quite rightly replacing Jack for most popular babies name in the UK as it has already done in most of Europe, which is the cradle of western civilization. And with London alone having already built nearly 700 mosques, well we are well on our way to that dream of a worldwide caliphate, which will indeed delight our 1.3 billion Muslim brothers worldwide.
More good news is that within only eight years, over half the soldiers in the Russian Army will be Muslim.” and with Muslims in military power we will have access to the nuclear arsenals of Russia with it’s 5,830 warheads, and massive stockpiles of bio and chemical weapons - How good is that Australian friends?
Almost forgot - Osama did say a special extra thanks to those protesters with the “Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq “signs, because if we could only get those Americans out -we can then move our Mujahedin in to the nations with the oil fields and shut down the world’s economies. You may not be able to drive your car in Australia or have a job-but remember friends, its all for the great holy cause of jihad.
If we ever did have to us our Islamic nuclear weapons on America or Australia, we may lose a few million of our own faith, but what proud Muslim would not be not be overjoyed to die for jihad and know that the whole world would soon be at peace with Sharia Law under the one true god - Allah?”
So Osama says…”Thank you again Australian friends - Keep up the good work and victory will soon be ours! O.b.L”.
Kman
Comment by Kman | September 11, 2007
Thank you for those inspiring words, Kman! A quick quiz-
Q. How many infidels does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Who needs light bulbs when you’ve got infidels to burn!!!
Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. Because she was an infidel! A muslim chicken would have crescented the road!
Comment by nicholas gray | September 11, 2007
Lol Kman.
Comment by Dan | September 11, 2007
Kman’s diatribe is spookily similar to the real one.
Some commentators are even comparing him to a lefty blogger.
Perhaps bin Laden, Hamilton, Flannery and Hicks could all get down to some palaver.
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | September 11, 2007
How would one go about finding/comparing the voting record of Members of Parliament?
I’m curious to see how often Libs and ALP vote the same way, but aph.gov.au site just seems to send me in circles (with *so many* documents… what a bureaucratic nightmare!)
The Greens’ campaign of terror has begun with attacks on my now marginal seat of Macquarie. This morning there were placards up all over my local railway station, as well as two Greens members handing out some kind of newspaper. I let them know how I felt about them. The reply I received from a middle aged man who was handing out these newspapers was “We have to do something, and if we don’t vote Greens, we are all going to die.”.
Luckily, I had to get my train (seeing as I actually HAVE a job).
Comment by Dan | September 12, 2007
Ah… the old, “If you don’t vote for me you’ll die” routine. Thereby implying that if you do vote for them, you won’t die.
Not only is it a religion, but now they offer eternal life.
Tim R., and other anarcho-capitalists- let’s all move to Somalia! If you visit the Mises Economics Blog, they have a fascinating article about customary law in Somalia. It reads as though L. Niel Smith was the country’s founding father! They only deal with crimes that have victims, everyone has something that sounds like insurance so law-breakers pay fines instead of being jailed, and there is no central government to dictate events! The author of this article thinks that the strife that we hear about is because of the attempt by the UN and the US to give them a democratic government, which seems to be something they don’t need. Read it and be amazed!
Comment by nicholas gray | September 14, 2007
That’s old news, Muslim militants took over and neighbiuring Governments ousted them.
Minerva got invaded before it started.
You are honestly probably better off owning remote land here and being up to date with technology and being able to afford trasnport to cities.
But this shows that customary law CAN work, without a state or government! Another example for libertarians to use in debates and speeches.
And the Somalis have been muslims for ages, so that can’t be right.
You might be right about the dislocation costs.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 14, 2007
What I meant was the normal Somalis got attacked by extremists.
Wall St journal article on libertarianism by a non-libertarian.
Interesting but basic.
The author comes to some embarassingly poor conclusions about libertarian thought being logically inconsistent when applied to children. I guess he was looking for a criticism and this was the best he could think of.
He doesn’t seem to understand the pre-condition of volition being necessary for human rights protections.
But otherwise it’s interesting reading.
Comment by Tim R | September 14, 2007
Nicholas, glad to hear you mention Somalia. I’ve previously read an article that discusses Somalian customary law as a case study for anarcho-capitalists. I think there was a breif period where Somalia was without an offical government.
“The most distinctive contribution of Africa to human history has been precisely in the civilized art of living reasonably peacefully without a state. -Jean-Francois Bayart (1989)”
Comment by Tim R | September 14, 2007
The author attributes to libertarianism the actions of selected individuals. It’s no more logical than defining socialism based on the actions of a Communist Party member in Outer Mongolia.
Despite all the analysis he clearly doesn’t understand libertarianism. He discusses its moral compass without realising libertarians simply view morality as a matter for individuals. That doesn’t mean they lack a moral compass, simply that they don’t want it imposed on others.
One of the criticisms of libertarianism (especially from those interested in philosophy) is the range of ideologies and motivations of those who claim to be libertarian.
I agree libertarianism isn’t a strictly defined philosophical system. However I didn’t think it was trying to be. I thought it was a political movement that emphasizes minimal government, personal and business freedom.
So I think an ideological inconsistency criticism is strange because it’s not applicable to politics. The right and left wing political parties don’t have strict philosophical guide lines for their members either. eg/ There are people that vote for the Liberal party that think abortion is murder and some that don’t. Most political discussions are utilitarian in nature. And most people are aware that there is a separation of religions (and other ideologies) from state matters.
However there is an argument that a well defined ideology may have more long term power to influence people. Because people will naturally want logical consistency and a system of understanding morality.
Like how the philosophy of Kant is partly responsible for communism.
Comment by Tim R | September 14, 2007
Tim, libertarianism is a rational political philosophy starting with the simple premise that individuals have the right to own themselves and the fruits of their labour. I don’t understand how you can state that libertarianism doesn’t have logical consistency, if anything, libertarianism is the only logically consistent political philosophy. How can you call yourself a libertarian and not believe that it is a rational philosophy?
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | September 14, 2007
Spot on Brendan; More to the point libertarianism is the only real political philosophy, the rest are societal fantasies.
In its ‘pure’ state libertarianism is anarcho-capitalistic, which is totally consistent, and which I would aim for and support if it were a practical proposition. After all, the ten commandments were a guide to living in harmony in such a society. Think of the instruction “you shall place no man between yourself and your god”. No state, no religious leaders, what does this mean? Righteous anarchy, and the only “practical” form of anarchy is capitalism.
When we get to the point of accepting that pure anarchy is not a practical proposition, that we are not perfect, that we just cant do it, then we adopt the political libertarianism principal, that we need a government, and this is where things start to loose their consistency. Once you step outside the pure philosophy, you develop different degrees of acceptance of where a government should begin and end.
“liberated from family, from the past, from tradition, from biology, and perhaps even from the earth itself”
The ending caught my eye. Surely it should be from the earth and perhaps even from biology itself? The biology thing has to be an order of magnitude above mere space colonies? Also lots of other issues with the article, but hey, could have been worse.
Comment by Tim Quilty | September 14, 2007
This is completely off-topic given the current discussion here, but:
I think that we could gain some grassroots, “true blue” support by vocally supporting a decrease in parliamentary pay, and an overhaul of the lucrative pension entitlements available to politicians.
In reality, it’s not a big deal, but this is the kind of thing that I think would hit a note with people. I can see the headlines now: “THE LIBERTY & DEMOCRACY PARTY PUTS ITS MONEY WHERE ITS MOUTH IS” or something.
Just an idle, late-night thought.
Comment by Dan | September 16, 2007
I’d rather see an increase in pay, but elimination of privileges and allowances (including travel allowances within electorate)
You say ‘Control freak’ as though that were a bad thing. Since the government supplies the water, it can control the water. If you were to buy water from non-government sources, you could use as much as you liked.
I suspect that the government would try to cut down on this and claim that all rain that fell was a natural resource which the ‘public’ owned, so I might add that to my list of things to incorporate into my novel. Instead of complaining about it, we should thank the government for giving us such rich material to satirise!!!
Comment by nicholas gray | September 16, 2007
I have to give you the following quote which is a beauty, it comes from a guy whose blog I regularly visit: -
I’m becoming more convinced every day that socialism (and Nazism, Fascism, militant Muslimism and all other isms and ideologies) appeal to manipulative people who hunger for power and dread losing control. It’s a character flaw turned into an ideology.
PATRICK JOUBERT CONLON
Brendan, I agree that libertarianism is the most logically consistent political movement, but I disagree that it’s a logically consistent philosophy in itself.
I don’t see libertarianism as a complete philsophical system. My main reason for this is the wide range of people with differing ideologies that call themselves libertarian. There are many branches and levels of libertarianism. And my other reason is that libertarianism is political, and avoids (probably wisely) issues of personal morality.
Libertarianism appeals to people with wide ranging ideologies such as religious/non religious people and those who are concerned about certain personal freedoms or business freedoms or both, people that want minimal government or even some that ultimately want no government.
This is quite different to most philosophies that are more defined in terms of personal morality like existentialism, objectivism, nihlism, or whatever. eg/ You can’t be an existentialist and believe in God.
I would say libertarians share a few main ideals such as freedom, small government and “non-initiation of force” and that the details of these are highly debatable. Perhaps although it has roots that go back hundreds of years, it is still an emerging philosophy?
The reason I was thinking about this was because of my idea that a system of personal morality has huge influencing power on human actions and therefore society change.
But in general, libertarianism skirts the issue of personal morality decisions (unlike other philosophies) simply saying it’s your choice. Libertarianism simply wants government to stay out of moral choices (as long as they don’t harm others).
So I was thinking a quicker road (possibly even a prerequisite) to a libertarian government may involve a society’s moral movement towards egoism.
If a consistent moral philosophical structure for people’s personal lives is highly important to them (my hypothesis), libertarianism isn’t currently offering that. And I’m not sure that it should. I think it’s a political movement.
But I’m fairly new to philosophy in general and I’d be happy for you to disagree about my assertion that libertarianism isn’t a well defined philosophy. I’d also be interested to hear your thoughts generally.
Comment by Tim R | September 17, 2007
The whole point of Philosophy, to judge by it’s record, is to justify, and even encourage, the violent overthrow of Western Civilisation, for no other reason than that we’ll let philosophers spout whatever they want, and you can generate publicity by causing controversy, and philosophers are not immune to publicity. Libertarianism will only become acceptable in philosophy when it produces books encouraging people to attack the state with weapons, not rhetoric. Indeed, a militant libertarianism might be what they are looking for.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 17, 2007
Tim R;
Libertarianism is a logically consistent philosophy in itself if taken to its logical conclusion; anarcho-capitalism. Unfortunately this is not really a practical option in my opinion, (we as people are not good enough to achieve this utopia) although one or two people here will probably disagree with me. They are the true Libertarians, the big L ones.
The rest of us find a spot that suits us in the libertarian quadrant of the worlds smallest political quiz, after stepping back in from anarcho-capitalism, or finding our way in from one of the other quadrants.
The point is, that we are all libertarian to some degree, with the exception of those who just like some of our ideas without self identifying as libertarian. There is no point in getting into arguments on libertarian purity as happens often in the US.
We don’t skirt the issue of personal morality. Personal morality is not a matter for the state in a free society. It is in fact immoral to interfere in the activities of consenting adults. I reiterate the quote I placed above from Patrick Joubert Conlon I’m becoming more convinced every day that socialism (and Nazism, Fascism, militant Muslimism and all other isms and ideologies) appeal to manipulative people who hunger for power and dread losing control. It’s a character flaw turned into an ideology. It couldn’t be said better.
Libertarianism is in fact a consistent philosophy, when you involve yourself with us however you are dealing with people who are trying to bring it into the political arena in order to implement it.
Jim, there is a subset of anarcho-capitalism, which I call Pansecessionism. This set of believers emphasises the right of land-owners to rule their lands as they want. By concentrating on land, and calling it a new name, it gives it a more romantic air. I’ve even come up with a slogan for us- ‘LET OWNERS RULE!’
Anarcho-Capitalism is a longer name, and has the connotation of someone who sells weapons to Anarchists. Most people think of Anarchy as violent. In this age of compressed messages, connotations matter.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 18, 2007
Why not keep a low tax nation state, seriously research non-taxation revenue measures, keep allodial title over persons, chattels & land while making provision to replace regulation and some crimes with tort law, define crimes as initiation of violence or fraud (requires the initiaiton violence to reclaim losses, voluntary military service, a large milita and privatisation of family, arbitration and contract law?
Replacing the welfare state can be done by deregulating the labour market, severely cutting taxes and gifting ordianry shares of publicly owned businesses and sale proceeds of state assets to everyone equally, making consideration for grandfathering of pension schemes.
It allows for a large degree of “anarchy” anway. Even in our social democracy, we are some way there.
If you found that donations, user or at fault party pay fees, fines etc could raise enough revenue to provide for civil order and defence, we’d be all the way there. I think there is strong but scant evidence of this in economic research - for the early wars that the US fought (which were all decisively won) were funded by roughly half by donations and privateering. The argument for public taxation and funding of the military is that free riding will not ensure an efficient level of funding is maintained. This analyses the demand for military spending as though it were an insatiable commodity like food, wine, drugs or sex. The efficient level of military spending is detemrined endogenously by careful analysis of our strategic situaiton.
If not, a low rated Gerogist tax to make up the shortfall should suffice.
Yeah I agree with you Jim.
I think it’s immoral for government to force personal moral decisions on you (unless you’re harming someone else or their property).
But in today’s world people actually want that moral decision making, or at least a guide. And I think they’ll always want a guide. Obviously it’s not the government’s job, but it’s also obvious that society has to generally realise it’s not the government’s job before a libertarian government can be achieved.
So that’s why I’m interested in the finer points of personal morality, because I think it’s the pathway to people generally becoming more and more responsible for their own lives and therefore a libertarian government, and therefore a higher standard of living and longer life for me and my loved ones.
Speaking of anarcho-capitalism. I’m certain that anarchy is something that scares the hell out of many people.
Currently people look at me with fear in their eyes if I talk about getting rid of workplace legislation or other deregulation issues. I think reductions in government are currently quite scary to some people.
Comment by Tim R | September 18, 2007
This sounds like one of those ‘health-food’ commercials! If you don’t tell them it’s anarcho-capitalism, will they imbibe our policies with a smile? “I wouldn’t eat any of that anarchic health-care policy if they paid me, but I love my Pansecessionist panaceas!”
Comment by nicholas gray | September 18, 2007
That’s a mouth full.
Comment by Tim R | September 18, 2007
Tim, you are right in the sense that libertarianism doesn’t offer a 10 commandments morality code, but I don’t really think that we need to convince people to not look to the state for their moral code. If anything, there is a very healthy sceptism amongst most of the morality of government and politicians. The Fabians did a very good job of getting people to look to the state for the provision of material goods and services like unemployment benefits, health insurance and old age pensions, but I don’t think Australians in general look to Pappa John Howard for moral guidance. We need to convince people that the state is not the best provider of goods and services, they already know where to look for their moral guidance.
As for the logical consistency of libertarianism, it grows out of the simple premises of self-ownership. If you own yourself, then your property rights over your own body preclude the violation of your property through the use of force. If you can’t be forced to another’s will, all cooperation between individuals must be voluntary transactions. If you own yourself, you own the output of your labour.
The next bit can be a bit tricky, but if you own the output of your labour, then you own the physical combination of your labour with natural goods. John Locke put this together in his labour theory of property. This defence of property is only useful so far as the owner is using the property. Thus, merely putting a fence around a bit of land does not make it yours, from a natural law point of view.
Bastiat overcame the shortcoming of this natural law theory of property by defining property in terms of value rather than utility. If we create value, we own that value. Thus, if by fencing off a piece of land, we have increased the scarcity of available unowned land, we now own the increased value of the land. We have improved the value of the land simply by making similar land more scarce. Not only that, but we have also increased the value of other people’s land. Thus we don’t really own the land, but the increased value that our actions have created, and the increased value is determined solely by other’s relationship to that property, not the inherent utility of it. Something is only worth what another will pay for it, and if you create that value, then you own it.
From these few ideas libertarianism has branched out, but all branches do come back to the ideas of self-ownership, either from a natural rights or a utilitarian perspective. Each branch is logically consistent, the only thing that prevents all libertarians being anarch-capitalists is perhaps best summed up as having different discount rates in a cost benefit analysis, in a manner of speaking.
None of these ideas however make any moral framework other than do what you like so long as you respect the right of others to do what they like.
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | September 18, 2007
The libertarian moral framework that i live by is to treat others as i would wish them to treat me.
Comment by pommygranate | September 18, 2007
“The libertarian moral framework that i live by is to treat others as i would wish them to treat me.”
We’re very involved in discussion today. Anarcho-capitalism is not something I would discuss in public, we don’t want to spook the horses.
Growing up in the 60s gave me the perception of anarchists as bearded unkempt guys throwing bombs, there were no concepts of peaceful, philosophical, or moral anarchy. I am not sure where these perceptions came from but they certainly gave anarchy a bad name.
After I fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up accepting libertarianism and accepting the concept of individual sovereignty and following it to its logical conclusion it was difficult to accept it. I didn’t even have a beard.
Liberty to that extent is a long way down the track however, we have a long way to go just to move the thoughts of the public into the area of smaller government. Government has always gotten bigger not smaller so we are going against all that the public have been taught to expect.
Harold Laska probably had it right when he said, “We are slaves of custom and have begun to hug our chains. I think we have to think small for a start.
Jim, the ALS, as far as I can make it, is a forum for discussion AND advocacy. Saying that discussing anarcho-capitalism is bad for the cause and best kept behind closed doors makes us look like that bunch of bearded revolutionaries. Saying that it will scare the horses is condescending to potential libertarians, not to mention giving ammunition to statists. Building an electoral platform is something for the LDP, not the ALS.
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | September 18, 2007
Jim
What is the difference between anarchy and anarcho-capitalism?
I agree with Brendan - this is the forum to discuss such matters. The LDP is a political organisation to promote electable libertarianism.
Comment by pommygranate | September 19, 2007
Pommygranate- Traditional Anarchy was commune-minded, and leftist, in that marxian-utopian ‘withering-away-of-the-state’ idea. Nobody seems able to point to a successful example- even the kibbutzim are disappearing. The central ideal of An-Archy is to get rid of the state, but they seem to replace state with community. All land is communal.
In Anarcho-Capitalism, capitalism works best without any interference from the state. Individuals own land and nobody pays taxes.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 19, 2007
Thanks for your replies Brendan and Jim.
I’ve read an author at Mises.org that explains the derivation of property rights from the reality of owning your own body.
OK, so Australians in general don’t want the government to dictate personal morality to them. I think its correct to say that people don’t initially look to the government to determine their moral principles.
So what I should have written was: in general, people’s principles of personal morality allow them to think it’s OK for the government to violate in some ways the natural rights of others (and themselves). I’ve always previously thought of this as people thinking the government is a higher power like the days of kings and queens. Even in the US where they have the bill of rights, natural rights are violated by government.
The belief that a central government should be assigned the status of “higher power” (not be bound by the same moral code of individuals) is in my opinion one of the key differences between collectivism and individualism.
Over the last few hundred years, there has been a world wide movement towards individualism (I’d say the renaissance and the foundation of the USA were the most significant periods). And most days depending how optimistic I am, I think this trend will continue. For example, I think the information age we live in now could create such a movement. But it’s a dynamic equation with the potential to move at different rates or even go backwards.
So I think it’s important for libertarians to be aware of the forces that drive the move to increasing individualism. Forces such as political movements, business interactions, popular movies and music, scientific or technological advances and changes in personal morality. What’s the most important or fundamental influences? And how did moves toward individualism originate in the past?
Anyway, hopefully there’s a bit of food for thought in there for some readers.
It’s nice to have somewhere to discuss this type of stuff that I find so interesting.
Comment by Tim R | September 19, 2007
Pommmy, as I understand, traditionally anarchists don’t place much importance on property rights. Most anarchists are also very left wing and not exactly focused on international business.
Whereas anarcho-capitalists place a high degree of importance on enforcing natural rights law. They just think this can be done privately (private courts, police). They wish to create a society that revolves around private business.
Comment by Tim R | September 19, 2007
As for a moral code, I saw this in Game Theory once, the Tough-But-Fair principle (TBF).
First, treat the other person as nicely as you would like to be treated. THEN record the other side’s response. Then reply exactly as they last responded to you! Keep a record of their last response, and play that back at them. Everyone soons learns to treat other people decently, if they want such treatment themselves.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 19, 2007
Brendan, Pommy;
I suggest that next time you wish to waffle in my direction, you read my comments. The fact that I have discussed anarchy or anarcho-capitalism twice in this forum should clearly indicate that I consider this a place for such discussion.
No need to get snooty mate, you did say “Anarcho-capitalism is not something I would discuss in public, we don’t want to scare the horses”. The ALS is a public forum, after all, so I don’t see how I couldn’t take your statement at face value as a request to not discuss high falutin’ ideas.
Being offended is your perogative though, I don’t want to get into a stoush with you.
Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | September 19, 2007
Brendan;
I was responding to Nicholas “Anarcho-Capitalism is a longer name, and has the connotation of someone who sells weapons to Anarchists. Most people think of Anarchy as violent. In this age of compressed messages, connotations matter.”
I was agreeing with him. I then went on to say, “Growing up in the 60s gave me the perception of anarchists as bearded unkempt guys throwing bombs, there were no concepts of peaceful, philosophical, or moral anarchy. I am not sure where these perceptions came from but they certainly gave anarchy a bad name.
After I fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up accepting libertarianism and accepting the concept of individual sovereignty and following it to its logical conclusion it was difficult to accept it. I didn’t even have a beard.
Liberty to that extent is a long way down the track however, we have a long way to go just to move the thoughts of the public into the area of smaller government. Government has always gotten bigger not smaller so we are going against all that the public have been taught to expect”.
It would be difficult not to read this as anything other than a statement in support of the concept of anarchy.
You were out of line and deserved it. I don’t want a fight with you either, but I wont let that pass without comment.
Here’s another concept for a name. In my unfinished novel, one of the characters describes their motivating philosophy as Co-Liberation. As the term ‘Libertarian’ describes any ’small-government’ idea, it is really a direction more than one philosophy. The libertarians who believe in absolute private property rights could have Co-liberation as their term. It’s shorter, and ‘liberty’ is in the title.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 20, 2007
Public Transport Competition:
As a user of public transport who has to travel quite a long way, a decent portion of my wage goes towards getting to work so I can continue earning it. As a libertarian, I support less government ownership and control of businesses.
An open market in road and water based public transport would allow for competition and would naturally decrease costs for end users. Rail transport, however, is a different story. Even if CityRail’s network were cut up and sold to different companies, there wouldn’t really be any true competition. I couldn’t exactly choose to take advantage of the lower prices on the North Shore line (hypothetically) if I live in the Blue Mountains.
The NSW government subsidises a little bit under 2/3 of the cost of rail travel, and I think that even selling the whole system to a single company would streamline it compared to now in terms of workers being employed when they may not be needed and many other regards, even if the cost ends up being higher the the user (in terms of price of travel, not costs in taxes et c).
But we are still left with a monopoly (or at best, many miniature monopolies). Even Hayek said that he is in favour of “planning” that encourages competition. Monopolies, in my view, give a company as much power as a government could have if they controlled that industry and they should be avoided at all costs.
So how can we tackle the problem? Is rail simply too expensive to be a viable transport option?
Comment by Dan | September 22, 2007
Dan,
I’ve often wondered how one would go about privatising rail… outsourcing the whole thing would do nothing, and I’m not a fan of “regional monopolies” which I think is the phrase you were after. Maybe you could have competing services running on the same line, though I’ve absolutely no idea how that would work.
With regards to regional monopolies - this is how buses work out my way. The government carves up the map, and companies tender to service a particular area. They have all sorts of requirements too: X number of services must come with Y distance of z% of the population, not to mention use that stupid ticket system that’s linked into the rail and other services, and so on - and being a monopoly means they can’t set be allowed to their own prices, obviously.
The result: Horrible, horrible service… buses that are supposed to come every 15 minutes come every 45 minutes. Worse than the trains - I kid you not! I’d love to see the bus services opened up to competition… Real competition - not regional monopolies. I might have to walk an extra few steps to the main road, but I bet I’d be able to catch a bus every 5 to 10 minutes, as small independent operators compete for passengers.
Re- the rail system. Britain privatised its’ railways a while back, didn’t it? Perhaps you could ask them at samizdata.net?
However, I can imagine the government owning the lines, and licensing and scheduling private trains, just as it owns the roads, and licenses cars. We have private airlines, and the government has the Airports. The principle is the same.
Comment by nicholas gray | September 23, 2007
is this really the best way to organise discussion? why isn’t there a proper threaded discussion board?
Comment by winston | September 24, 2007
I agree winston - we need a proper board… but wordpress doesn’t have an integrated discussion board. I believe ALS has a discussion board at facebook - but that doesn’t get too many posts (since most people aren’t on facebook)
Does anyone know if there is footage of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s question time at Columbia university on the net?
Comment by Tim R | September 26, 2007
Sorry, I just notice Terje has answered my question in a fresh post.
Comment by Tim R | September 26, 2007
A Question about money supply and inflation.
In annualised terms, M3 is growing at 16.6% & broad money 15.2%. Now, if I have understood monetarism correctly (which I probably haven’t!) this high growth in the supply of money will result in a reduction of purchasing power (i.e. inflation). If this is true, then why is the CPI only growing at 2.1% to 2.8% (depending on which measure you use)?
Comment by E.D. | September 28, 2007
Correction.
The RBA just released the August figures:
Broad money - 16.6%
M3 - 17.9%
Comment by E.D. | September 28, 2007
CPI isn’t a fantastic measure of inflation.
M3 and broad money don’t affect the purchasing power of money, they affect the demand for money. Growth in currency supply is what you should look at first and foremost.
I’m worried about climate change, and you should be, too. I have no moral problems with using a fear campaign based on half-facts to convince you my position is the correct one. The sky is falling. The end is nigh. I support clean energy, but not nuclear power.
I want the government to do something about the housing shortage, but don’t even think about touching the national parks, and don’t even mention high-rise building in my presence.
I support helping the unemployed, but I keep them unemployed through minimum wage restrictions. I support unions whose goals are to keep the amount of jobs low so that people already employed can take a bigger slice of the cake.
I am in favour of ending world hunger, but I am also in favour of subsidies and tariffs to keep poorer countries out of the marketplace.
I spread my message of love and peace through vandalism and fear campaigns.
I support equality, as long as I’m the one who gets to decide what “equal” is.
Comment by Dan | September 30, 2007
Dan I just couldn’t get it to work and deleted it to save making a mess of the site. I will try again tomorrow, but if you wish to check it out in the meantime go to: - http://jimunro.blogspot.com/
All the stuff in Burma and other places makes me so angry. I wish Marx were stillborn.
I did notice some formatting issues et c in the post, but if you can get it to work you should definitely re-post it.
Comment by Dan | September 30, 2007
Has anyone else noticed what you can do with spin? The Australian has decided to downplay global warming, putting a revised forecast at the bottom of today’s page one.
The Sydney Morning Herald has decided that they spell disaster! The more we learn, the less we know….
Good to see somebody is standing up to the climate change fascists.
Comment by Perry Ferguson | October 4, 2007
Here’s another reason to read ‘The Australian’- on today’s page 12 is an interview with Naomi Wolf, who has just written a book (The End of America), trying to get her fellow Americans to rebel against the rising tide of fascism colouring American politics. Whilst not entirely convinced that Bush is a modern-day Hitler (could Bush write a book?), the use of torture is worrying.
Comment by nicholas gray | October 5, 2007
JOHN HUMPHREYS!!
I wish to object!
I read ‘Policy’ magazine, and i think of myself as a reasonable person, and I was one of those who tried to persuade you to alter the name of the party so that people wouldn’t think that it was a breakaway from the Democrazies. Contrary to the inference in your article in ‘Policy’, we were not unreasonable in doing so!
Other than that, I liked the magazine, and will recommend it to others.
Comment by nicholas gray | October 8, 2007
For those on Facebook you can add in a facebook app called “causes” which allow you to join particular causes and flag your interest in that cause. The relevant app is available here:-
“ST. PAUL, Minn., October 10, 2007—Hamline University has suspended a student after he sent an e-mail suggesting that the Virginia Tech massacre might have been stopped if students had been allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. Student Troy Scheffler is now required to undergo a mandatory “mental health evaluation” before being allowed to return to school. Scheffl
How can we broaden the appeal of Libertarian thinking?
We need to improve our reach.
If we all got together, maybe we could finance a movie version of ‘The Probability Broach’, and retitle it, ‘The World that killed Washington’. The book is choc-a-bloc full of libertarian ideas, and they’d filter through to any movie audience.
Or has anyone seriously thought about a virtual world game, like ‘Second Life’, but set in a libertarian alternative, where the streets of Sydney would be the same, but all the businesses would be different? We could all live free lives in a parallel universe!
What does everyone think of the Internet Filter being proposed? Anyone enjoying the anti-terror laws? Civil Liberties are truly going down the drain in Australia these days huh?
And what’s wrong with that? What are you, an individualist? Do you think that terrorists have civil rights, like ordinary people? Personally, I think that an all-embracing state, with video-screens as in 1984, is the only way to cut down on all crime. How do you hope to have the perfect society if you can’t watch everyone all the time?
Actually, the only part of the new laws I like is the barrier- ordinary people shouldn’t have to consort or touch a politician, id it can be avoided!
An Economics Policy Question.
The Federal Govt has recently announced a much larger budget surplus for 2006-07 than previously estimated and has decided to retain the surplus and ‘invest’ it in various funds.
One alternative is to return it to the tax-payers in the form of tax cuts. But, on my understanding, the govt is resisting this move because it believes this would lead to an increase in spending in an economy already running at close to full capacity. Such a move would therefore likely be inflationary and thus result in higher interest rates.
Does the Govt’s argument have merit?
It is technically a valid statement, but it’s a bit of a cop out and doesn’t justify it as good policy. Although it would stump some punters, which is clearly what it’s intended to do.
More to the point, government supporters are aurging that the government is keen for more tax cuts once it achieves a certain level of ‘investment’. What’s the perception of this, considering the government has had a history of cutting taxes (from record highs) and hasn’t managed the economy too badly?
E.D.
The government’s argument has next to no merit. It depends on the Keynesian view that people will spend immediately rather than save.
When people talk about an economy running at full capacity and tax cuts being inflationary, they forget that monetary policy is far more influential in determining inflation.
Economists who oppose tax cuts are essentially saying government spending is more productive than consumer/business spending. And that is simply untrue. There is no net change in total spending with or without tax cuts. If there were no tax cuts, government would spend the money on pork-barrelling. If there are tax cuts, individuals can spend the money on more productive purposes.
Taxes should be cut in any circumstances, boom or depression. The main advantage of tax cuts is that it curbs government spending. Why should the government hoard taxpayers money for its own investment and consumption choices? Nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as they spend their own. The surplus should be returned to the people to utilise for productive purposes.
One commentator noted that both this govt, and the previous one, argued that govts should not own or run businesses (hence sales of Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, CSL, etc.). Yet, the govt has deposited its surplus into equity funds. Thus, albeit indirectly, it now owns businesses again!
The latest tax cut occurred from 1 July. If the Keynesians are right, then we should see a sharp spike in retail sales for that month, and a lift in the CPI for the quarter.
Probably the reason for not going for tax cuts is the probability of blowing it on election promises.
Politicians know the value of being sincere even when they don’t mean it.
Is there anything Australians can’t do? I just heard on the radio about a teenager who just spent half an hour on the attempt, and managed to break a government-approved porn filter, which cost millions to develop!
We should spend some of the surplus on hiring bright kids to run the government’s programs!
I have a sneaking suspicion that such filters can be overcome by using a new browser, or using browser add-ons which are commonly available. Correct me if I am wrong.
Under our current monetary policy there should be no risk of consumer price inflation outside of the policy boundaries defined in the monetary policy. The question is whether the policy of holding onto money in slush funds; sorry I mean health funds etc, is going to dampen interest rate pressure.
Interest rates are the cost of credit and if you have a level of saving higher than what participants in a free market would deliver on their own then you notionally have downward pressure on the cost of credit. Not necessarily a good outcome but potentially popular with some voters. Of course credit can be imported and exported (although without a shared unit of account it must generally be hedged).
However there are a lot of variables. The government slush funds may not end up in the credit markets but instead flow intitally into the system via equity markets. This may stimulate investment in output capacity and even take away some inflationary risks down the track. However tax cuts also boost output capacity by improving incentives and lowering the trade barrier between aussie households.
It should also be remembered that any reduction in the rate at which they take money off us is not the same as an absolute cut in the amount they take of us. Unfortunately we can only wish for a slow down in the rate at which they appropriate money because other than the LDP nobody is proposing an actual reduction in the size of the tax revenue take.
You forgot the vital role of capital accumulation - unless this is covered by incentives which sort of implies better incentives are undertaken by capital and labour.
I hate to break in, but can anyone tell me what this is: -
http://www.schwerin.de/www/show.php3?id=475&_ps_change_pid=kalender&_ps_newurl=http%3A%2F%2Falsb
Sorry that was a stuff-up
Should have been: -
http://www.schwerin.de/www/show.php3?id=475&_ps_change_pid=kalender&_ps_newurl=http%3A%2F%2Falsblog.wordpress.com%2Ftag%2Fevents%2F
It looks to be advertising the Alsblog website meeting.
Startseite means something like start menu or page.
Termine & Veranstaltungen means dates and meetings.
and the website is the website of a state capital city in Germany i believe.
Sorry but thats all i can deduce from the website and information provided.
Thanks Perry,
I ran into it and was curious.
Why does no one look at the issue of Australia’s part in global warming realistically? Sure, our emissions on a per capita basis may be high, but our total emissions are absolutely dwarfed by those of China and the United States.
Our measly 21 million people really aren’t doing much as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s an extraneous thought- with all this proof of quantum tunnelling, we might soon be able to find a suitable planet, and emigrate to our very own version of Utopia! If light, as recently reported, can travel faster than light, we might be able to do the same! Freehold, here we come!
That internet porn filter has so far cost 84 million dollars! if I’ve interpreted this article correctly. Unbelievable. http://techdirt.com/articles/20070827/013237.shtml
Australia contributes 1.4% to total global CO2 emissions according to the CSIRO. So logically, if man made global warming theory is true, even fairly significant reductions in Australian CO2 output will have no measurable impact on global temps unless the whole world suffers with us. Article has a few other interesting stats linking global and Australian wealth to CO2 production.
http://www.csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html
“Freehold” is the name of a planet in a book of the same name, which is libertarian-based, and gets into a war with a UN-dominated Earth. As for faster-than light travel, perhaps wormholes will offer us a way out to the stars!
I can find plenty of wormholes in the idea that we will ever expand beyond this blue planet. Better to fight for freedom here than wonder about libertopia in the sky.
“How can we broaden the appeal of Libertarian thinking?”
Well the Ron Paul phenomenon is having a spill over effect into Australia. It spreads virally over the internet. The latest generation of voters are excited by the prospects of low taxation and small government. You really have to be in our shoes to feel the sense hopelessness that current trends in taxation, governance and control render when looking to the future.
Why bother starting a business and working hard if you have no guaranty your money will still be worth something in 30 years, or that you will be allowed to keep it?
How do you bring about real economic and constitutional reform in such a poor situation? Two in-between parties who agree on most issues and no real hope of getting a better party in to replace one of them.
Australia doesn’t even have a proper constitution. The British law which once was our constitution became void when we became a sovereign state. The whole thing is a sick joke. Australia has the potential to be what America almost was. But to realize that potential the smoke screens need to be blown away. Terrorism, global warming, Aboriginal child abuse. Cut the distractions and lets get at the real issue: We need a bill of rights, new smaller states and a new constitution.
I agree Bob. However changes like that require a lot of courage and moral will. I’m not convinced Australians have the qualities to bring that level of progress about. We get the society we deserve.
Doesn’t mean we should stop arguing for it though.
What it would need is for one of us to start up a successful drug-selling empire, and use the proceeds to equip an army that then fights for a new state (in the Kimberleys?), and the new state could be a libertarian community. Of course, a state that is born fighting runs the risk that it will become a militarised society. Maybe being a citizen will mean being in the armed forces (civil defence on a large scale).
Nicholas,
Maybe the drug lord could use wormholes to bipass customs.
Is such a drug lord anything like a time lord? You could fit a rather large stash inside a tardis.
Regards,
Terje.
Nick,
Although you speak jokingly, the basic premise of your argument is a good one, although slightly radical.
The problem I see with a hostile take over of our illegal defacto government is this: we have no guns, and if we did have guns we have no training, and if we did have training we’d be labeled a terrorist group which would be enough justification for the existing defacto government to send in the army.
The term ‘freedom fighters’ carries a negative connotation these days. This is no accident. And it makes a revolt against bad government all the harder to bring about.
If anyone is to fix this appalling situation it will be (indirectly) the government itself. Just as is happening in America now, our government will likely cross the line to the point where the average dim-wit bogan becomes so annoyed that they actually begin to care.
What is sort of interesting is the hut river province scenario. As far as I know they don’t pay tax nor have to get building permits despite the fact that the government’s official line on the issue is that they are not an independent nation.
If we had 10 times the land of hutt river and a decent population we would probably stand a not unreasonable chance of becoming an internationally recognized sovereign state.
We’ve been through this before recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva
I was inspired to look this up after hearing Evan Thornley’s insipid plan to give votes to electors with children under the age of 18.
*extra votes*, apportioned on the number of children you have. He had the gall to call it children centred. Clearly a (lower class, middle class and perhaps corporate) welfare and vote buying racket.
Between Nick Gray and Bob we could have our own libertarian Waco!
I think Australia is ripe for the picking. The cultural attitude of “get stuffed” toward government and pointless regulation is only a foot step away from the core principles of liberty.
All we need is some sex appeal. ‘Libertarianism’ is not a particularly appealing term to someone who does not understand the ideas behind it. Call it a freedom revolution and maybe you’ve got something. Unfortunately it is difficult to find something that profoundly distances libertarianism from anarchy (which always carries negative connotations) in the minds of the uneducated.
Many people are strongly opposed to any form of socialism which makes them friends of liberty, if only they would realize, as I did, that the complete opposite of socialism exists within the philosophy of liberty then we’d have many more followers.
One thing that continues to baffle me is how anyone can really be opposed to libertarianism.
I like to think of it as glue for holding together a network of communities.
If the socialists want to live like beavers with equal everything and zero creativity then they can, in their own little community, as long as what they do there doesn’t affect other communities.
Don’t ask, don’t tell. Live and let live.
Libertarianism is the very foundation of all human interaction since the dawn of time. Before we even knew it. International law as it stands is an implementation of libertarianism. We just need to bring it down to the individual level.
I think Australia is ripe for the picking. The cultural attitude of “get stuffed” toward government and pointless regulation is only a foot step away from the core principles of liberty.
Look at the reaction to Work Choices. Australians never developed a true anti-government side like the US. We have a bit of an individualist streak that’s declining, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Australians really aren’t pro-liberty people. Just below the surface Australians have a very strong desire to be kept comfortable and safe, and at various times we want the government to make it so. But by far the biggest downfall is what Aussies are willing to sacrifice to get this false sense of security.
One thing that continues to baffle me is how anyone can really be opposed to libertarianism.
People aren’t totally rational. And a lot of them want to really, really be kept comfortable, safe and free from too much responsibility, even if its responsibility to themselves.
But Bob, ride the wave while you can!
Bob, for sex-appeal, we could hijack history- call ourselves the new Eurekans, or something.
As for being opposed to liberty, they aren’t really, but the forces of evil cleverly wrap themselves in freedom’s rhetoric- look at how the term ‘Liberal’ was mugged in America, so that instead of meaning ‘Freedom from Government’, it now means ‘Freedom BY Government’. By constantly portraying the government as the answer to any problem, we now have a pro-government attitude. We need to start highlighting the fact that government IS the problem.
Haha and we could start a new country within Australia called “New Australia” and fly the Eureka Flag. Everyone welcome, hand your paper money in at the first gate, pick up your guns, amour and gold at the next gate.
As for definitions. Its not so much the definitions which have changed but the connotations.
The term ‘reform’ is now associated with ‘good’, ‘making better’, ‘getting things done’ when actually reform is almost always bad and leads to new problems, which also need ‘reforms’ to counter them.
I think there is a downward trend in legitimate interest in politics. It has become cool not to care, and not to have any political stance. (Particularly in America.) I think this is one of the biggest problems. Some people regard all political philosophies as below their level of interest, or as unimportant to them.
Sure they will mutter and groan about new legislation, but thats as far as they get. Because they don’t realize that a group to which they would affiliate, the libertarians, actually exist, as they can’t get past the mental barrier that ‘all politics are bad.’
Ron Paul, I believe, has had some success breaching this misconception and has managed to tap the uninterested punter in America. As soon as you get punters convincing other punters then you have a viral grass roots campaign. A highly resonant message like freedom in an ever darkening political sky can be quite explosive.
A quick off topic survey…
How many people here believe the official story of 9/11?
Everyone.
Bob - is that the version where Islamic terrorists hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings. If so it might be more expedient to ask how many people don’t believe this version.
Did anyone catch George Moonbiot’s tirade against classical liberals in yesterday’s Guardian. Quite astonishing stuff.
Here.
Terje,
You are right. I don’t believe the official story, and it is my opinion that anyone who has properly researched 9/11 and does believe the official story is either a moron devoid of even the most primitive understanding of physics and probability or a sufferer of psychotic denial.
Pommy, the guy doesn’t even have a clue about what he opposes. Neoliberals have mastery of the media? Have you seen the production quality of Friedman’s Free to Choose, aired on PBS initially. The guy is an idiot and should be paying more attention to Sun Tzu’s maxim “Know your enemy and know yourself” if he wants anyone but fellow wingbats to take him seriously.
You are right. I don’t believe the official story, and it is my opinion that anyone who has properly researched 9/11 and does believe the official story is either a moron devoid of even the most primitive understanding of physics and probability or a sufferer of psychotic denial.
I probably shouldn’t take the bait and answer you Bob, as with all them big words and your sneering sanctimonious attitude you must be real smart. Too smart to believe that ‘truther’ shit you go on with, so I assume you are just trying to got us going.
For help go to http://jimunro.blogspot.com/2007/05/conspiracy.html
10% poverty in Australia?
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,10166,22332336-462,00.html?from=public_rss
I find it hard to believe that 10% of Australians are living in poverty. Can this be right?
Jim,
Look not to logic and reasoning for answers, but to direct evidence. Perhaps you should weigh your opinions against the laws of physics?
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200611/911-Acceleration-Study-Proves-Explosive-Demolition.pdf
You’re right Bob. It was quite obviously secret explosives set off by aliens. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Personally I think it was clones of Elvis, but I don’t have any proof of that (unlike the rest of it). Can you help?
I find it hard to believe that 10% of Australians are living in poverty.
Depends on where you draw the poverty line. To ACOSS and various welfare lobby organisations, inability to purchase a plasma TV and DVD player after drinking a slab each evening equates to poverty.
If poverty means not enough food, nowhere to live or no clothes to wear, it is obviously total crap.
Robbie,
I challenge you to watch the following documentary:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003&hl=en
If it’s all complete crap then what are you afraid of? Do you trust your own judgment?
Google has removed the version at that link.
Try this one:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-8129564295534231536&q=9%2F11+mysteries&total=404&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Is Google in on the conspiracy too Bob.
Jim,
Why don’t you review the evidence first?
Google are censorship happy. This much is obvious.
How can you be so one sided? Open minded about freedom but not much else. Did you take physics at high school, Jim? Do you recall Newton’s three laws?
Please do tell me how you believe a freefall collapse to be possible when the falling mass must pass through undamaged building. How do two 410 meter high buildings self destruct in 10 seconds flat without the use of explosives?
How does the most advanced anti missile defense system in the world simply lose two planes? Maybe if the US asks nicely China will put US tuned transponders on its nukes? That way NORAD can find them when there are ‘too many blips on the radar.’
What is the probability that the CIA and NORAD were both running drills for the same event (an attack on the WTC) on the same day, at the same time that it actually happened? I can assure you that the insurance company wasn’t too happy about paying out a policy to the new leaseholder of only 6 months, Larry Silverstein. Two acts of terrorism = 4.6 billion USD. Not bad for an investment of only 200 million.
Why was NORAD ordered to stand down when the planes went off course? (The standard procedure is to intercept with jets.)
Why is there an eye wittiness report of a pentagon employee informing Cheney that ‘the plane is 50 miles out’, ‘the plane is 30 miles out’, ‘the plane is 10 miles out, do the orders still stand?’
There is so much more evidence, including forensic evidence of explosives as measured in the dust from the WTCs, that it makes 9/11 truthers want to pull their hair out with frustration when they encounter the snide ‘yes, you are crazy’ average dimwit. (Which I am ashamed to say is most of you presently.)
So go ahead and live in your genocide fantasy world where millionaire CIA asset OBL is to blame. Or you can go watch a few 9/11 documentaries and read some scholarly papers and wake up to what is really going on in this world, and who the real enemies of liberty are.
We were just talking about how words have been redefined. Well theres one you didn’t even think about: conspiracy. How negative a connotation that carries, but how common conspiracy is in this day and age. Government corruption runs deep and is often interwoven with various mafia organizations and other secret organizations. Conspiracy is committed everyday. So why all the hate?
Bob, I believe you. Elvis told me what you said is true. Aliens took over the CIA and manipulated it to plant explosives to coincide with the planes crashing into the WTC. They used black helicopters too.
Osama Bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
QED
E.D.,
Perhaps you should review the video in which bin laden ‘claims responsibility’
It is often referred to as the ‘fat binladen tape’ because the actor in it is both fat and right handed (he writes and eats with his right hand.) The real OBL is both unfat and left handed, and denies involvement.
The problem here is the level of maturity you approach this at. I hope other issues, world events and the like are given considerably more respect. Or do you treat JFK with the same childish snide attitudes? A hostile takeover of the US government via assassination is nothing to smirk about.
Perhaps you should do some research instead of relying on Murdoch news sources for your opinions. aka Fox ‘News’
So why all the hate?
Nobody hates you Bob, but this is a place of logical argument and discussion, where we solve the worlds problems.
it is my opinion that anyone who has properly researched 9/11 and does believe the official story is either a moron devoid of even the most primitive understanding of physics and probability or a sufferer of psychotic denial. is not the way I would choose to start such a discussion if you wish to be taken seriously.
If you wish to debate in this manner, I would suggest that you go to: - http://graemebird.wordpress.com/ .
Bob, You need more than high school physics to begin to comprehend the dynamics involved in and around the movement of large masses. Trust me Bob, 20+ years in the mining industry has taught me that you have to experience it to comprehend it.
I bet you guys don’t even know about world trade center 7.
A third building fell that day, at 5:20 pm. No plane hit it, it underwent a freefall collapse. Symmetrically falling into its own footprint.
NIST has offered and retracted 5 explanations for this.
Molten steel was found below all three world trade center building collapses.
Go on, google: WTC 7
I dare you.
My comment here, which would have been about 54 has disappeared. I think it may be in a filter somewhere as it gave a link to GMB.
JFK was assassinated 44 years ago, is that right? Must be the slowest takeover in history.
Advocates for Self Government has published a new brochure. Although American oriented, it’s got a lot of good stuff that we can use in Australia.
http://www.theadvocates.org/discover-liberty-low-res.pdf
Thanks David I enjoyed that. I get “The Liberator Online” from them, however I haven’t seen this.
Bob, at the moment I believe the official story, because the weight of evidence still favours it. Whilst I’m aware that the CIA can be incompetent (one of today’s papers lists all its’ failures over the years, like Castro still being alive), I find it hard to accept it as actively evil- because more people would have blabbed! A group so inefficient would not have successfully kept everyone quiet.
Bob, this website promotes most of the theories you are putting forth. Enjoy:
http://www.911myths.com/index.html
And by promote, I mean debunk
I notice on the news tonight that both Howard and Rudd are claiming underdog status in the forthcoming election, to try to get an advantage.
Would it help our candidates, if John Humphries were to do the same.
Noticed this at reason.org: Any thoughts?
“Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) have signed oaths declaring that, should they win the presidency in 2008, they will issue an executive order during their first month in office instructing the entire executive branch to put into practice the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a Google-like search tool will allow you to see how your tax dollars are being spent on federal contracts, grants and earmarks. All of the major presidential candidates have been invited to sign the “oath of presidential transparency” which is being promoted by a diverse coalition of 36 groups, led by Reason Foundation.”The next president should be committed to transparency and accountability,” said Adrian Moore, vice president of research at Reason Foundation. “Redesigning the federal government so that it is more accountable to taxpayers is a nonpartisan issue. Transparency will help produce a government focused on results instead of our current system, which is plagued by secrecy, wasteful spending and pork projects.”
Whilst the oath sounds impressive, did they seal it in blood?
Q. How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Just ask all the politicians to leave the room, and it will automatically become much brighter!
Walking through Belmore Park this evening near central I noticed a chalk message on the ground reading “ABOLISH FREE TRADE, NOT FREE SPEECH”.
Does anyone know of the legalities of doing such things (seeing as chalk is very easy to wash et c)?
I may have to buy some chalk
“Free trade and free speech go hand in hand”
etc..hope you get some good one-liners.
TIM, good news!
You can go back to believing in Edgar Cayce!
For a while, I didn’t know what you were talking about, because I was looking for laetrite, not laetrile!!
When I look up laetrile, I see where you are making a mistake! Cayce often did recommend almonds to his patients as a cancer-preventative, and bitter almonds do have cyanide in them, but in the time when he was giving this advice, most almonds for sale were sweet almonds. You would be right to avoid bitter almonds, but sweet almonds are good for warding off cancer (See http://www.healingcancernaturally.).
Check your wording.
You said I can go “back to” “believing” in Cayce.
I never did believe in Cayce and I’m a skeptic. This means I try to “believe” in as little as I possibly can.
I can’t remember about the laetrile. I’ll look it up.
I know that, I was having fun. But the sweet almonds are good for cancer, based on the evidence.
And something else to remember, good people.
Cayce once talked about Bimini being a place of refuge for Atlanteans fleeing their sinking islands. A while back,in the ’70s, a ’scientist’ claimed to have proved that a ‘road’ structure was just beachrock, occurring naturally. Everybody took him at his word. However, his work was never peer-reviewed. When that was done recently, his conclusion was found to be full of holes. The rocks in the road have different alignments, and do not appear to be natural. It now seems more likely that they were moved there, and the structure is artificial. Someone was building stone structures in the past around Bimini, which are now underwater.
Laetrile:
Trials found no evidence but there is circumstancial evidence: that being it releases cyanide, which can kill any bloody cell. Same is true of almonds, release cyanide. Eat to prevent cancer but do more damage from the “cure”. Dumb way to prevent cancer. Better off with vit D, gamma tocopherol, toctrienols(?), selenium, and occasional fasting.
Dead Soul, there is a difference between bitter almonds and sweet almonds. When tested in laboratories on animals, compounds derived from sweet almonds did prevent cancer, and did not poison from cyanide.
I was looking for images of Wayne Root for a post I am doing and found among his photos this: -
http://images.google.com/images?q=Wayne+Allyn+Root&gbv=2&ndsp=20&svnum=10&hl=en&start=60&sa=N
The one on the top left. This guy will stop at nothing to get publicity.
Federal horse racing industry subsidies have been confirmed.
Does this now mean it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that future outbreaks of equine influenza don’t occur?
Let’s take the argument to the extreme: if the computer industry were to temporarily cease for whatever reason, would the government give handouts to my friend that owns a computer store?
What if the affected industry were larger than the racing industry?
Osama’s special thanks to APEC protesters.
Osama’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri spoke on Al Jazeera TV yesterday to says thanks on behalf of Osama bin Laden to all those who demonstrated against the president of the Great Satan - America.
“This greatly assists our world –wide fundamentalist movement and to spread hatred and contempt for America, the one and only true enemy of our jihad against the West. This will move us even closer to our one goal — to destroy the West and impose a global Islamic government”
Osama wishes also to thank the Fairfax Press management and their columnists, plus the ABC and SBS, the Teachers Unions of Australia and universities. Special thanks also to the organisers of the demonstrations -the various socialist, communist and union movements like the Greens which are doing more than their fair share in moving Australia to the left with our mutual beliefs being the destruction of capitalism and by default - America and Western civilisation.
Most importantly, Osama wants to reward high school teacher Kim Peade who put on that beautiful anti - American play from Davidson High School, and also Alex Bainbridge and Simon Cunich, the Marxist organisers of the “Stop Bush Campaign”. Osama bestows on them the high order of Crossed Swords with car-bomb clusters. These friends of Osama must be very proud to be so honored. And Osama gives a heartfelt salute to Davidson High School for their very much appreciated support.
Osama says he was not happy for some time that the CIA, Israel and Halliburton got all the credit for the attack on 9/11 after he - Osama, had proudly and rightfully claimed credit on world -wide TV for the whole operation. And after seeing his Muslim friends and their leftist supporters in Europe and elsewhere, dancing in the streets as the Twin Towers came crumbling down, well he was very disappointed at the leftists for giving credit for all his hard work and planning to others.
Osama though says he understands now because the leftists have to do anything and everything they can to move us all toward an Islamic/socialist partnership where all convert to Islam, and so we can all happily share together, sharia laws, mandatory five times a day prayer sessions.
Osama is still disappointed though that the Americans get all the credit in Iraq for the civilian deaths. What is the point in slitting peoples throats, beheadings, car bombing crowds of people and trying to impose fear on the populace if America get all the credit for these civilian deaths?
Those weak stupid Americans are not of course doing any such thing, and are instead building schools and infrastructure and spreading their accursed democracy which actually gives women equal rights with no more honor killings – what barbarians these people are - no wonder we need our seventh century sharia law.
Anyway Osama says we are winning the global struggle for Islam in leaps and bounds. With most of the major cities in Europe soon having majority Muslim populations-with Mohammed quite rightly replacing Jack for most popular babies name in the UK as it has already done in most of Europe, which is the cradle of western civilization. And with London alone having already built nearly 700 mosques, well we are well on our way to that dream of a worldwide caliphate, which will indeed delight our 1.3 billion Muslim brothers worldwide.
More good news is that within only eight years, over half the soldiers in the Russian Army will be Muslim.” and with Muslims in military power we will have access to the nuclear arsenals of Russia with it’s 5,830 warheads, and massive stockpiles of bio and chemical weapons - How good is that Australian friends?
Almost forgot - Osama did say a special extra thanks to those protesters with the “Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq “signs, because if we could only get those Americans out -we can then move our Mujahedin in to the nations with the oil fields and shut down the world’s economies. You may not be able to drive your car in Australia or have a job-but remember friends, its all for the great holy cause of jihad.
If we ever did have to us our Islamic nuclear weapons on America or Australia, we may lose a few million of our own faith, but what proud Muslim would not be not be overjoyed to die for jihad and know that the whole world would soon be at peace with Sharia Law under the one true god - Allah?”
So Osama says…”Thank you again Australian friends - Keep up the good work and victory will soon be ours! O.b.L”.
Kman
Thank you for those inspiring words, Kman! A quick quiz-
Q. How many infidels does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Who needs light bulbs when you’ve got infidels to burn!!!
Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. Because she was an infidel! A muslim chicken would have crescented the road!
Lol Kman.
Kman’s diatribe is spookily similar to the real one.
Some commentators are even comparing him to a lefty blogger.
Perhaps bin Laden, Hamilton, Flannery and Hicks could all get down to some palaver.
How would one go about finding/comparing the voting record of Members of Parliament?
I’m curious to see how often Libs and ALP vote the same way, but aph.gov.au site just seems to send me in circles (with *so many* documents… what a bureaucratic nightmare!)
The Greens’ campaign of terror has begun with attacks on my now marginal seat of Macquarie. This morning there were placards up all over my local railway station, as well as two Greens members handing out some kind of newspaper. I let them know how I felt about them. The reply I received from a middle aged man who was handing out these newspapers was “We have to do something, and if we don’t vote Greens, we are all going to die.”.
Luckily, I had to get my train (seeing as I actually HAVE a job).
Ah… the old, “If you don’t vote for me you’ll die” routine. Thereby implying that if you do vote for them, you won’t die.
Not only is it a religion, but now they offer eternal life.
I am now taking comments and suggestions for http://www.stopthegreens.org.au/.
Let me know here, or send me an email (doogee@gmail.com).
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/push-to-ban-outdoor-smoking/2007/09/13/1189276899578.html
Enough is ENOUGH!
Tim R., and other anarcho-capitalists- let’s all move to Somalia! If you visit the Mises Economics Blog, they have a fascinating article about customary law in Somalia. It reads as though L. Niel Smith was the country’s founding father! They only deal with crimes that have victims, everyone has something that sounds like insurance so law-breakers pay fines instead of being jailed, and there is no central government to dictate events! The author of this article thinks that the strife that we hear about is because of the attempt by the UN and the US to give them a democratic government, which seems to be something they don’t need. Read it and be amazed!
That’s old news, Muslim militants took over and neighbiuring Governments ousted them.
Minerva got invaded before it started.
You are honestly probably better off owning remote land here and being up to date with technology and being able to afford trasnport to cities.
I don’t think the social dislocation is worth it.
But this shows that customary law CAN work, without a state or government! Another example for libertarians to use in debates and speeches.
And the Somalis have been muslims for ages, so that can’t be right.
You might be right about the dislocation costs.
What I meant was the normal Somalis got attacked by extremists.
http://opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010591
Wall St journal article on libertarianism by a non-libertarian.
Interesting but basic.
The author comes to some embarassingly poor conclusions about libertarian thought being logically inconsistent when applied to children. I guess he was looking for a criticism and this was the best he could think of.
He doesn’t seem to understand the pre-condition of volition being necessary for human rights protections.
But otherwise it’s interesting reading.
Nicholas, glad to hear you mention Somalia. I’ve previously read an article that discusses Somalian customary law as a case study for anarcho-capitalists. I think there was a breif period where Somalia was without an offical government.
The article was written by Prof. Frank Dun, available at, http://www.voluntaryist.com/forthcoming/kritarchy.php
“The most distinctive contribution of Africa to human history has been precisely in the civilized art of living reasonably peacefully without a state. -Jean-Francois Bayart (1989)”
The author attributes to libertarianism the actions of selected individuals. It’s no more logical than defining socialism based on the actions of a Communist Party member in Outer Mongolia.
Despite all the analysis he clearly doesn’t understand libertarianism. He discusses its moral compass without realising libertarians simply view morality as a matter for individuals. That doesn’t mean they lack a moral compass, simply that they don’t want it imposed on others.
My comment referred to the Opinion Journal article.
One of the criticisms of libertarianism (especially from those interested in philosophy) is the range of ideologies and motivations of those who claim to be libertarian.
I agree libertarianism isn’t a strictly defined philosophical system. However I didn’t think it was trying to be. I thought it was a political movement that emphasizes minimal government, personal and business freedom.
So I think an ideological inconsistency criticism is strange because it’s not applicable to politics. The right and left wing political parties don’t have strict philosophical guide lines for their members either. eg/ There are people that vote for the Liberal party that think abortion is murder and some that don’t. Most political discussions are utilitarian in nature. And most people are aware that there is a separation of religions (and other ideologies) from state matters.
However there is an argument that a well defined ideology may have more long term power to influence people. Because people will naturally want logical consistency and a system of understanding morality.
Like how the philosophy of Kant is partly responsible for communism.
Tim, libertarianism is a rational political philosophy starting with the simple premise that individuals have the right to own themselves and the fruits of their labour. I don’t understand how you can state that libertarianism doesn’t have logical consistency, if anything, libertarianism is the only logically consistent political philosophy. How can you call yourself a libertarian and not believe that it is a rational philosophy?
Spot on Brendan; More to the point libertarianism is the only real political philosophy, the rest are societal fantasies.
In its ‘pure’ state libertarianism is anarcho-capitalistic, which is totally consistent, and which I would aim for and support if it were a practical proposition. After all, the ten commandments were a guide to living in harmony in such a society. Think of the instruction “you shall place no man between yourself and your god”. No state, no religious leaders, what does this mean? Righteous anarchy, and the only “practical” form of anarchy is capitalism.
When we get to the point of accepting that pure anarchy is not a practical proposition, that we are not perfect, that we just cant do it, then we adopt the political libertarianism principal, that we need a government, and this is where things start to loose their consistency. Once you step outside the pure philosophy, you develop different degrees of acceptance of where a government should begin and end.
this is where the ‘inconsistency lies.
“liberated from family, from the past, from tradition, from biology, and perhaps even from the earth itself”
The ending caught my eye. Surely it should be from the earth and perhaps even from biology itself? The biology thing has to be an order of magnitude above mere space colonies? Also lots of other issues with the article, but hey, could have been worse.
This is completely off-topic given the current discussion here, but:
I think that we could gain some grassroots, “true blue” support by vocally supporting a decrease in parliamentary pay, and an overhaul of the lucrative pension entitlements available to politicians.
In reality, it’s not a big deal, but this is the kind of thing that I think would hit a note with people. I can see the headlines now: “THE LIBERTY & DEMOCRACY PARTY PUTS ITS MONEY WHERE ITS MOUTH IS” or something.
Just an idle, late-night thought.
I’d rather see an increase in pay, but elimination of privileges and allowances (including travel allowances within electorate)
Looks like water restrictions are here to stay (NSW):
http://www.smh.com.au/news/drought/water-nazis-suck/2007/09/15/1189277055445.html
“Temporary measures have a habit of becoming permanent”. I hope whoever first said that got credit for it.
I found a beauty that applies here: - It’s a control freak thing. I wouldn’t let you understand. S.H. Underwood
You say ‘Control freak’ as though that were a bad thing. Since the government supplies the water, it can control the water. If you were to buy water from non-government sources, you could use as much as you liked.
I suspect that the government would try to cut down on this and claim that all rain that fell was a natural resource which the ‘public’ owned, so I might add that to my list of things to incorporate into my novel. Instead of complaining about it, we should thank the government for giving us such rich material to satirise!!!
I have to give you the following quote which is a beauty, it comes from a guy whose blog I regularly visit: -
I’m becoming more convinced every day that socialism (and Nazism, Fascism, militant Muslimism and all other isms and ideologies) appeal to manipulative people who hunger for power and dread losing control. It’s a character flaw turned into an ideology.
PATRICK JOUBERT CONLON
Brendan, I agree that libertarianism is the most logically consistent political movement, but I disagree that it’s a logically consistent philosophy in itself.
I don’t see libertarianism as a complete philsophical system. My main reason for this is the wide range of people with differing ideologies that call themselves libertarian. There are many branches and levels of libertarianism. And my other reason is that libertarianism is political, and avoids (probably wisely) issues of personal morality.
Libertarianism appeals to people with wide ranging ideologies such as religious/non religious people and those who are concerned about certain personal freedoms or business freedoms or both, people that want minimal government or even some that ultimately want no government.
This is quite different to most philosophies that are more defined in terms of personal morality like existentialism, objectivism, nihlism, or whatever. eg/ You can’t be an existentialist and believe in God.
I would say libertarians share a few main ideals such as freedom, small government and “non-initiation of force” and that the details of these are highly debatable. Perhaps although it has roots that go back hundreds of years, it is still an emerging philosophy?
The reason I was thinking about this was because of my idea that a system of personal morality has huge influencing power on human actions and therefore society change.
But in general, libertarianism skirts the issue of personal morality decisions (unlike other philosophies) simply saying it’s your choice. Libertarianism simply wants government to stay out of moral choices (as long as they don’t harm others).
So I was thinking a quicker road (possibly even a prerequisite) to a libertarian government may involve a society’s moral movement towards egoism.
If a consistent moral philosophical structure for people’s personal lives is highly important to them (my hypothesis), libertarianism isn’t currently offering that. And I’m not sure that it should. I think it’s a political movement.
But I’m fairly new to philosophy in general and I’d be happy for you to disagree about my assertion that libertarianism isn’t a well defined philosophy. I’d also be interested to hear your thoughts generally.
The whole point of Philosophy, to judge by it’s record, is to justify, and even encourage, the violent overthrow of Western Civilisation, for no other reason than that we’ll let philosophers spout whatever they want, and you can generate publicity by causing controversy, and philosophers are not immune to publicity. Libertarianism will only become acceptable in philosophy when it produces books encouraging people to attack the state with weapons, not rhetoric. Indeed, a militant libertarianism might be what they are looking for.
Tim R;
Libertarianism is a logically consistent philosophy in itself if taken to its logical conclusion; anarcho-capitalism. Unfortunately this is not really a practical option in my opinion, (we as people are not good enough to achieve this utopia) although one or two people here will probably disagree with me. They are the true Libertarians, the big L ones.
The rest of us find a spot that suits us in the libertarian quadrant of the worlds smallest political quiz, after stepping back in from anarcho-capitalism, or finding our way in from one of the other quadrants.
The point is, that we are all libertarian to some degree, with the exception of those who just like some of our ideas without self identifying as libertarian. There is no point in getting into arguments on libertarian purity as happens often in the US.
We don’t skirt the issue of personal morality. Personal morality is not a matter for the state in a free society. It is in fact immoral to interfere in the activities of consenting adults. I reiterate the quote I placed above from Patrick Joubert Conlon I’m becoming more convinced every day that socialism (and Nazism, Fascism, militant Muslimism and all other isms and ideologies) appeal to manipulative people who hunger for power and dread losing control. It’s a character flaw turned into an ideology. It couldn’t be said better.
Libertarianism is in fact a consistent philosophy, when you involve yourself with us however you are dealing with people who are trying to bring it into the political arena in order to implement it.
Jim, there is a subset of anarcho-capitalism, which I call Pansecessionism. This set of believers emphasises the right of land-owners to rule their lands as they want. By concentrating on land, and calling it a new name, it gives it a more romantic air. I’ve even come up with a slogan for us- ‘LET OWNERS RULE!’
Anarcho-Capitalism is a longer name, and has the connotation of someone who sells weapons to Anarchists. Most people think of Anarchy as violent. In this age of compressed messages, connotations matter.
Why not keep a low tax nation state, seriously research non-taxation revenue measures, keep allodial title over persons, chattels & land while making provision to replace regulation and some crimes with tort law, define crimes as initiation of violence or fraud (requires the initiaiton violence to reclaim losses, voluntary military service, a large milita and privatisation of family, arbitration and contract law?
Replacing the welfare state can be done by deregulating the labour market, severely cutting taxes and gifting ordianry shares of publicly owned businesses and sale proceeds of state assets to everyone equally, making consideration for grandfathering of pension schemes.
It allows for a large degree of “anarchy” anway. Even in our social democracy, we are some way there.
If you found that donations, user or at fault party pay fees, fines etc could raise enough revenue to provide for civil order and defence, we’d be all the way there. I think there is strong but scant evidence of this in economic research - for the early wars that the US fought (which were all decisively won) were funded by roughly half by donations and privateering. The argument for public taxation and funding of the military is that free riding will not ensure an efficient level of funding is maintained. This analyses the demand for military spending as though it were an insatiable commodity like food, wine, drugs or sex. The efficient level of military spending is detemrined endogenously by careful analysis of our strategic situaiton.
If not, a low rated Gerogist tax to make up the shortfall should suffice.
Yeah I agree with you Jim.
I think it’s immoral for government to force personal moral decisions on you (unless you’re harming someone else or their property).
But in today’s world people actually want that moral decision making, or at least a guide. And I think they’ll always want a guide. Obviously it’s not the government’s job, but it’s also obvious that society has to generally realise it’s not the government’s job before a libertarian government can be achieved.
So that’s why I’m interested in the finer points of personal morality, because I think it’s the pathway to people generally becoming more and more responsible for their own lives and therefore a libertarian government, and therefore a higher standard of living and longer life for me and my loved ones.
Speaking of anarcho-capitalism. I’m certain that anarchy is something that scares the hell out of many people.
Currently people look at me with fear in their eyes if I talk about getting rid of workplace legislation or other deregulation issues. I think reductions in government are currently quite scary to some people.
This sounds like one of those ‘health-food’ commercials! If you don’t tell them it’s anarcho-capitalism, will they imbibe our policies with a smile? “I wouldn’t eat any of that anarchic health-care policy if they paid me, but I love my Pansecessionist panaceas!”
That’s a mouth full.
Tim, you are right in the sense that libertarianism doesn’t offer a 10 commandments morality code, but I don’t really think that we need to convince people to not look to the state for their moral code. If anything, there is a very healthy sceptism amongst most of the morality of government and politicians. The Fabians did a very good job of getting people to look to the state for the provision of material goods and services like unemployment benefits, health insurance and old age pensions, but I don’t think Australians in general look to Pappa John Howard for moral guidance. We need to convince people that the state is not the best provider of goods and services, they already know where to look for their moral guidance.
As for the logical consistency of libertarianism, it grows out of the simple premises of self-ownership. If you own yourself, then your property rights over your own body preclude the violation of your property through the use of force. If you can’t be forced to another’s will, all cooperation between individuals must be voluntary transactions. If you own yourself, you own the output of your labour.
The next bit can be a bit tricky, but if you own the output of your labour, then you own the physical combination of your labour with natural goods. John Locke put this together in his labour theory of property. This defence of property is only useful so far as the owner is using the property. Thus, merely putting a fence around a bit of land does not make it yours, from a natural law point of view.
Bastiat overcame the shortcoming of this natural law theory of property by defining property in terms of value rather than utility. If we create value, we own that value. Thus, if by fencing off a piece of land, we have increased the scarcity of available unowned land, we now own the increased value of the land. We have improved the value of the land simply by making similar land more scarce. Not only that, but we have also increased the value of other people’s land. Thus we don’t really own the land, but the increased value that our actions have created, and the increased value is determined solely by other’s relationship to that property, not the inherent utility of it. Something is only worth what another will pay for it, and if you create that value, then you own it.
From these few ideas libertarianism has branched out, but all branches do come back to the ideas of self-ownership, either from a natural rights or a utilitarian perspective. Each branch is logically consistent, the only thing that prevents all libertarians being anarch-capitalists is perhaps best summed up as having different discount rates in a cost benefit analysis, in a manner of speaking.
None of these ideas however make any moral framework other than do what you like so long as you respect the right of others to do what they like.
The libertarian moral framework that i live by is to treat others as i would wish them to treat me.
“The libertarian moral framework that i live by is to treat others as i would wish them to treat me.”
That only works out if they have the same tastes
We’re very involved in discussion today. Anarcho-capitalism is not something I would discuss in public, we don’t want to spook the horses.
Growing up in the 60s gave me the perception of anarchists as bearded unkempt guys throwing bombs, there were no concepts of peaceful, philosophical, or moral anarchy. I am not sure where these perceptions came from but they certainly gave anarchy a bad name.
After I fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up accepting libertarianism and accepting the concept of individual sovereignty and following it to its logical conclusion it was difficult to accept it. I didn’t even have a beard.
Liberty to that extent is a long way down the track however, we have a long way to go just to move the thoughts of the public into the area of smaller government. Government has always gotten bigger not smaller so we are going against all that the public have been taught to expect.
Harold Laska probably had it right when he said, “We are slaves of custom and have begun to hug our chains. I think we have to think small for a start.
Think small but dream big.
Jim, the ALS, as far as I can make it, is a forum for discussion AND advocacy. Saying that discussing anarcho-capitalism is bad for the cause and best kept behind closed doors makes us look like that bunch of bearded revolutionaries. Saying that it will scare the horses is condescending to potential libertarians, not to mention giving ammunition to statists. Building an electoral platform is something for the LDP, not the ALS.
Jim
What is the difference between anarchy and anarcho-capitalism?
I agree with Brendan - this is the forum to discuss such matters. The LDP is a political organisation to promote electable libertarianism.
Pommygranate- Traditional Anarchy was commune-minded, and leftist, in that marxian-utopian ‘withering-away-of-the-state’ idea. Nobody seems able to point to a successful example- even the kibbutzim are disappearing. The central ideal of An-Archy is to get rid of the state, but they seem to replace state with community. All land is communal.
In Anarcho-Capitalism, capitalism works best without any interference from the state. Individuals own land and nobody pays taxes.
Thanks for your replies Brendan and Jim.
I’ve read an author at Mises.org that explains the derivation of property rights from the reality of owning your own body.
OK, so Australians in general don’t want the government to dictate personal morality to them. I think its correct to say that people don’t initially look to the government to determine their moral principles.
So what I should have written was: in general, people’s principles of personal morality allow them to think it’s OK for the government to violate in some ways the natural rights of others (and themselves). I’ve always previously thought of this as people thinking the government is a higher power like the days of kings and queens. Even in the US where they have the bill of rights, natural rights are violated by government.
The belief that a central government should be assigned the status of “higher power” (not be bound by the same moral code of individuals) is in my opinion one of the key differences between collectivism and individualism.
Over the last few hundred years, there has been a world wide movement towards individualism (I’d say the renaissance and the foundation of the USA were the most significant periods). And most days depending how optimistic I am, I think this trend will continue. For example, I think the information age we live in now could create such a movement. But it’s a dynamic equation with the potential to move at different rates or even go backwards.
So I think it’s important for libertarians to be aware of the forces that drive the move to increasing individualism. Forces such as political movements, business interactions, popular movies and music, scientific or technological advances and changes in personal morality. What’s the most important or fundamental influences? And how did moves toward individualism originate in the past?
Anyway, hopefully there’s a bit of food for thought in there for some readers.
It’s nice to have somewhere to discuss this type of stuff that I find so interesting.
Pommmy, as I understand, traditionally anarchists don’t place much importance on property rights. Most anarchists are also very left wing and not exactly focused on international business.
Whereas anarcho-capitalists place a high degree of importance on enforcing natural rights law. They just think this can be done privately (private courts, police). They wish to create a society that revolves around private business.
As for a moral code, I saw this in Game Theory once, the Tough-But-Fair principle (TBF).
First, treat the other person as nicely as you would like to be treated. THEN record the other side’s response. Then reply exactly as they last responded to you! Keep a record of their last response, and play that back at them. Everyone soons learns to treat other people decently, if they want such treatment themselves.
Brendan, Pommy;
I suggest that next time you wish to waffle in my direction, you read my comments. The fact that I have discussed anarchy or anarcho-capitalism twice in this forum should clearly indicate that I consider this a place for such discussion.
Jim,
No need to get snooty mate, you did say “Anarcho-capitalism is not something I would discuss in public, we don’t want to scare the horses”. The ALS is a public forum, after all, so I don’t see how I couldn’t take your statement at face value as a request to not discuss high falutin’ ideas.
Being offended is your perogative though, I don’t want to get into a stoush with you.
Brendan;
I was responding to Nicholas “Anarcho-Capitalism is a longer name, and has the connotation of someone who sells weapons to Anarchists. Most people think of Anarchy as violent. In this age of compressed messages, connotations matter.”
I was agreeing with him. I then went on to say, “Growing up in the 60s gave me the perception of anarchists as bearded unkempt guys throwing bombs, there were no concepts of peaceful, philosophical, or moral anarchy. I am not sure where these perceptions came from but they certainly gave anarchy a bad name.
After I fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up accepting libertarianism and accepting the concept of individual sovereignty and following it to its logical conclusion it was difficult to accept it. I didn’t even have a beard.
Liberty to that extent is a long way down the track however, we have a long way to go just to move the thoughts of the public into the area of smaller government. Government has always gotten bigger not smaller so we are going against all that the public have been taught to expect”.
It would be difficult not to read this as anything other than a statement in support of the concept of anarchy.
You were out of line and deserved it. I don’t want a fight with you either, but I wont let that pass without comment.
Nice one Jim.
Here’s another concept for a name. In my unfinished novel, one of the characters describes their motivating philosophy as Co-Liberation. As the term ‘Libertarian’ describes any ’small-government’ idea, it is really a direction more than one philosophy. The libertarians who believe in absolute private property rights could have Co-liberation as their term. It’s shorter, and ‘liberty’ is in the title.
Public Transport Competition:
As a user of public transport who has to travel quite a long way, a decent portion of my wage goes towards getting to work so I can continue earning it. As a libertarian, I support less government ownership and control of businesses.
An open market in road and water based public transport would allow for competition and would naturally decrease costs for end users. Rail transport, however, is a different story. Even if CityRail’s network were cut up and sold to different companies, there wouldn’t really be any true competition. I couldn’t exactly choose to take advantage of the lower prices on the North Shore line (hypothetically) if I live in the Blue Mountains.
The NSW government subsidises a little bit under 2/3 of the cost of rail travel, and I think that even selling the whole system to a single company would streamline it compared to now in terms of workers being employed when they may not be needed and many other regards, even if the cost ends up being higher the the user (in terms of price of travel, not costs in taxes et c).
But we are still left with a monopoly (or at best, many miniature monopolies). Even Hayek said that he is in favour of “planning” that encourages competition. Monopolies, in my view, give a company as much power as a government could have if they controlled that industry and they should be avoided at all costs.
So how can we tackle the problem? Is rail simply too expensive to be a viable transport option?
Dan,
I’ve often wondered how one would go about privatising rail… outsourcing the whole thing would do nothing, and I’m not a fan of “regional monopolies” which I think is the phrase you were after. Maybe you could have competing services running on the same line, though I’ve absolutely no idea how that would work.
With regards to regional monopolies - this is how buses work out my way. The government carves up the map, and companies tender to service a particular area. They have all sorts of requirements too: X number of services must come with Y distance of z% of the population, not to mention use that stupid ticket system that’s linked into the rail and other services, and so on - and being a monopoly means they can’t set be allowed to their own prices, obviously.
The result: Horrible, horrible service… buses that are supposed to come every 15 minutes come every 45 minutes. Worse than the trains - I kid you not! I’d love to see the bus services opened up to competition… Real competition - not regional monopolies. I might have to walk an extra few steps to the main road, but I bet I’d be able to catch a bus every 5 to 10 minutes, as small independent operators compete for passengers.
More bullshit from the Greens:
http://greens.org.au/Election/
“Climate change? Change the climate! ”
I’m really starting to get sick of these people.
Re- the rail system. Britain privatised its’ railways a while back, didn’t it? Perhaps you could ask them at samizdata.net?
However, I can imagine the government owning the lines, and licensing and scheduling private trains, just as it owns the roads, and licenses cars. We have private airlines, and the government has the Airports. The principle is the same.
is this really the best way to organise discussion? why isn’t there a proper threaded discussion board?
I agree winston - we need a proper board… but wordpress doesn’t have an integrated discussion board. I believe ALS has a discussion board at facebook - but that doesn’t get too many posts (since most people aren’t on facebook)
Is it hard to start one up? I can’t imagine it would be - even the free ones are pretty good.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22482175-2703,00.html
Does anyone know if there is footage of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s question time at Columbia university on the net?
Sorry, I just notice Terje has answered my question in a fresh post.
A Question about money supply and inflation.
In annualised terms, M3 is growing at 16.6% & broad money 15.2%. Now, if I have understood monetarism correctly (which I probably haven’t!) this high growth in the supply of money will result in a reduction of purchasing power (i.e. inflation). If this is true, then why is the CPI only growing at 2.1% to 2.8% (depending on which measure you use)?
Correction.
The RBA just released the August figures:
Broad money - 16.6%
M3 - 17.9%
CPI isn’t a fantastic measure of inflation.
M3 and broad money don’t affect the purchasing power of money, they affect the demand for money. Growth in currency supply is what you should look at first and foremost.
I think I’ve got comments going into moderation
The Enviro-Leftist Manifesto:
I’m Dan, and I’m an environmentalist left winger.
I’m worried about climate change, and you should be, too. I have no moral problems with using a fear campaign based on half-facts to convince you my position is the correct one. The sky is falling. The end is nigh. I support clean energy, but not nuclear power.
I want the government to do something about the housing shortage, but don’t even think about touching the national parks, and don’t even mention high-rise building in my presence.
I support helping the unemployed, but I keep them unemployed through minimum wage restrictions. I support unions whose goals are to keep the amount of jobs low so that people already employed can take a bigger slice of the cake.
I am in favour of ending world hunger, but I am also in favour of subsidies and tariffs to keep poorer countries out of the marketplace.
I spread my message of love and peace through vandalism and fear campaigns.
I support equality, as long as I’m the one who gets to decide what “equal” is.
Dan I just couldn’t get it to work and deleted it to save making a mess of the site. I will try again tomorrow, but if you wish to check it out in the meantime go to: - http://jimunro.blogspot.com/
All the stuff in Burma and other places makes me so angry. I wish Marx were stillborn.
I did notice some formatting issues et c in the post, but if you can get it to work you should definitely re-post it.
Has anyone else noticed what you can do with spin? The Australian has decided to downplay global warming, putting a revised forecast at the bottom of today’s page one.
The Sydney Morning Herald has decided that they spell disaster! The more we learn, the less we know….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=485336&in_page_id=1811
Good to see somebody is standing up to the climate change fascists.
Here’s another reason to read ‘The Australian’- on today’s page 12 is an interview with Naomi Wolf, who has just written a book (The End of America), trying to get her fellow Americans to rebel against the rising tide of fascism colouring American politics. Whilst not entirely convinced that Bush is a modern-day Hitler (could Bush write a book?), the use of torture is worrying.
JOHN HUMPHREYS!!
I wish to object!
I read ‘Policy’ magazine, and i think of myself as a reasonable person, and I was one of those who tried to persuade you to alter the name of the party so that people wouldn’t think that it was a breakaway from the Democrazies. Contrary to the inference in your article in ‘Policy’, we were not unreasonable in doing so!
Other than that, I liked the magazine, and will recommend it to others.
For those on Facebook you can add in a facebook app called “causes” which allow you to join particular causes and flag your interest in that cause. The relevant app is available here:-
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2318966938&b&ref=pd
If you do install the app then you may want to join the cause called “Australians for Lower Taxes”.
n.b. There is also a cause called “Liberty & Democracy Party (Australia)” for those that align with the LDP.
http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8475.html
“ST. PAUL, Minn., October 10, 2007—Hamline University has suspended a student after he sent an e-mail suggesting that the Virginia Tech massacre might have been stopped if students had been allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. Student Troy Scheffler is now required to undergo a mandatory “mental health evaluation” before being allowed to return to school. Scheffl