Category Archives: political-economy

This needs to happen about a billion more times.

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I walked into Gamestop to trade in the two used DS games, and the clerk asked me if I wanted cash or a store credit. When I replied “cash” the clerk asked for my driver’s license. When I asked why, he told me that they are technically a pawn shop, and when giving cash for a trade-in they must report the recipient’s driver’s license number to the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service.

So, I changed my selection to “store credit,” whereupon the clerk promptly asked me for my name and telephone number. When I asked why . . . you guessed it . . . he replied that, as a pawn shop, he had to report that information to the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service. He said that they needed to track these things.

Outraged, I replied that they do NOT need to track these things and that they already track way too many things. I told him that it was nobody’s business but his and mine that I was selling used video games.

I reminded him that I cannot even buy cold medicine at the drug store without reporting the transaction to the government.

via History News Network.

The GOP suicide pact is still in force

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Jeb Bush says the GOP must “leave Reagan behind” but can’t bring himself to recommend the same regarding Bushes 41 and 43.

Neither can the GOP, apparently. Now the party stalwartly entrenched in the meaningless minority turns to Bush trough dwellers and ignoramae (is that the Latin plural feminine accusative for ignoramus?) to lead the party message out of the darkness. Especially guaranteed to keep the GOP in deep doo-doo is Dana Perino, famous for never having heard about the Cuban Missile Crisis as she explained away Bush’s winsome wars.

Jeb says the GOP must put Reagan behind us. Perhaps the better advice is to put the GOP behind us.

via LewRockwell.com Blog: GOP Death Wish, Continued.

Am I the only one to see a parallel between the GOP’s total disconnect from reality and the disconnect demonstrated by our economic overlords?  Everyone knows that the bailouts are all driven by corruption and that trillion dollar deficits are about to cause disaster in the economy, but our leaders keep going forward (whether under Bush or Obama makes no difference).  And everyone knows the GOP needs to leave Bush behind but the party apparatus is oblivious.  Just as we give the people who caused the crisis authority to do the same to fix the crisis, so we ask people who destroyed the GOP how to fix it.

Pure madness. With Obama out-Bushing Bush, this is the perfect time for the GOP to make a comeback by throwing Bush under the bus (late, I know, but I suspect the Obama economy would shorten memories and grudges).  But it seems that McCain’s idiotic campaign was a taste of things to come (McCain would have had a serious chance if he had opposed the bailout rather than that “I’m suspending my campaign” ploy to back it).

C. S. Lewis v. Patrick Henry on why we are too good or too bad for tryranny

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I don’t have time to analyse the problem, but look at the quotes and see if you recognize how they are opposed to one another:

First, Lewis:

I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.

That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen, Filmer would be right, and partiarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused. (C.S. Lewis, “Membership,” from The Weight of Glory, pp. 168-7)

And now a much shorter statement from Patrick Henry:

Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

See the problem?

Islam, the West, and the role of the US in the next Christendom

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YouTube – Muslim Demographics.

Obviously, statistics can be misused and “facts” can be alleged that are exaggerated.  The video inserted above is hardly “sober.”

But then, academic pretensions can be no less manipulative and are no less likely to promote deception.  I think the demographic story here is more true than not, at the very least.

Which leads me to some thoughts:

  • Western Europe is history.  Not so sure about Eastern Europe (and I thought the statement about Russia was rather weaker than the rest; so I want to look into it).
  • This means we will get to see what Islamic culture does to an economy.  My thinking is that, as oil production declines in the MidEast (if that happens) and we see more Islamic economies without oil revenues, we are going to see economies that are even less robust than they are now. It will be a continent-wide object lesson.
  • Opposition to Mexican, Central-, and South-American immigration is a death wish for Evangelical Christians.  Having poverty South of the border may mean lots of discomfort, but the alternatives are far worse.  We need to actively dismantle immigration barriers.  Now.
  • This video doesn’t say anything about the spread of Christianity in South America, Africa, and China.  Inasmuch as viewers are led to believe that Christianity is declining, it is misleading.  Christianity is not declining.  A new Christendom is being born.
  • The US, which does have a viable demographic growth with immigration, has a chance of actually continuing as a force in this new world (by grace alone; certainly it doesn’t deserve such a privilege!)–especially in the South and in the West.  If I was thinking about where to be strategically located right now in the US, I would think that Los Angeles is the best place to be.  California as a political entity will go bankrupt and be replaced, but L. A. will probably continue and be an influence for good and bad.

Two personal bombshells that reinforce my libertarian/Reconstructionist geek cred

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I am reading book, written by one of my favorite political columnists, and enjoying it immensely. Naturally, I want to write a big long review and know I’ll never have time. So here are a couple of revelations that shocked and awed me.

It all goes back to Ayn Rand (or to Nietschze)

I thought I knew all about Rothbard’s problems with the Ayn Rand Cult, but there was stuff here that was new and some that was totally breathtakingly unexpected.  I should have figured that Rand, through Nathaniel B-Rand-en as he renamed himself (all incorporating themselves into Her Rationality’s first typewriter brand name), had used counseling as a weapon.  There would be show trials for nonconformists where all private information was used as evidence.  Rothbard had been fooled into submitting to Branden’s treatment as a cure for his travel phobia.  His betrayal and the resulting emotional turmoil must have been immense.  But what was totally new to me is that one of the doctrines (!) that Rand accused Rothbard of believing was in free will!  This was later than 1950.  She became a doctrinaire preacher of free will by the time she wrote Atlas Shrugged, but before she thought that anyone who believed in free will was “insane.”  The impact of Thus Spake Zaruthustra on her thinking was greater than I ever knew (or that any Randian would admit to).

Rushdoony and the Implosion of the Volcker Fund

I was surprised that Rushdonny had this kind of influence.  After reading this I found it mentioned on the web:

The Volcker Fund collapse in 1972 [I think 1962 is what he meant] and destroyed a whole basis of libertarian scholarship. The president was a follower of R.J. Rushdoony, who at the time was a pre-milleniallist Calvinist, later converting to postmillenialism. He has sent me a Rushdoony book, which I blasted. Combined with other reviews, he became convinced that he was surrounded by an atheist, anarchist, pacifist conspiracy to destroy Christianity. so he closed down the Volcker Fund in early 1962. It was a great tragedy. L14S was supposed to be established with the $17 million from the Volcker Fund to be an endowed think-tank, publishing books, sponsoring students, funding research, and holding conferences.

If those two snippets of information are as fascinating to you as to me, then you have found a home on this blog.

Eventually, I will review this at my Goodreads site, and probably write more here.

Obama and the Birth Certificate accusations

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I’ve been recently asked what I think about the birth-certificate-related allegations that have been made regarding President Obama.  Here’s my present take:

  1. I’m afraid the allegations are false and kooky.
  2. I don’t know if one can avoid sounding kooky even if th allegations were true.  So I don’t see any reason to pursue them.
  3. I think the Constitutional crisis that would be involved in enforcing the Constitution against a popularly elected sitting president would far exceed the Constitutional crisis involved in looking the other way.  Just because I hate our present government (and did so before the election) doesn’t mean I don’t think there are far worse things that could happen in North America.  Not interested in blood running in the streets over this one.

So I’m staying away.  Frankly, it frightens me the way some “conservatives” are addressing this.  The principle may be conservative but the results would be anything but.  Don’t see any happy ending that can come from this.

What matters is that you own it: inequality does not justify Obamanomics

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I’ve mentioned, I think, certain cases where the “free market’s” alleged promise to reward the worthy has been lauded beyond reality.  In my opinion it is a mistake to try to defend the free market against government interference (i.e. theft, fraud, kidnapping, threatening) in the name of the “fairness” of the outcomes in a free-market (which is really redundant anyway) situation.

Does this mean that it is OK for the government (or anyone else) to take from someone and give to others?

Of course, not.

Lets take a look at all the married couples who want children and divide them up between those who have children and those who don’t.  Obviously, in very few cases is the difference due to a different ethical commitment.  Lots of married couples have the children they want while a few others cannot get pregnant through no fault of their own (yeah I know their may be other kinds of married couples in an age of legalized abortion and dual-career families, but lets just take the case of the couples that always wanted and failed to conceive).

So we all acknowledge that those families with children are not to be credited with some greater moral effort than another group of families that are all childless.

Does this justify Obama using an executive order to draft a certain number of children from the families with the most and assigning them for adoption by the families without any children? (Of course, it would be an unconstitutional usurpation of powers, but that means nothing.  At most the Supreme Court might flip a coin and decide that Congress has to approve).

Bottom line is that it doesn’t matter whether you deserve anything, whether eight children or none–the President should butt out of even addressing the situation.  It is not up to him, the Congress, the army, or any number of opinion polls to settle “child-per-family-fairness.”  The government can go to hell.  Get away from our families.

We all know this is true and yet we act like other possessions are different.  It is wrong to take babies away from families to give to childless couples, but it is OK to take the excess money some have to help families without money.  Well, this won’t convince secular readers, but for God this is all the same issue:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20.17).

So we don’t need to pretend that the outcomes are the result of some infallible process (“hard work” “competition,” “survival of the fittest,” etc).  It doesn’t matter (and none of that would be reliably true anyway).  We don’t have to insist that anyone is more worthy than anyone else because of what he has (again, not true).  We don’t have to dispute over the role of luck or inheritance or anything else (which is usually immense).

The ethics don’t depend on any of this:  Hands off.

Eventually the Watchdog thinks he’s earned the right to be a Wolf for a moment

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Recently I was reminded of this scene from Episode 1 of Season 1 in Angel:

I think this is the constant temptation of people who think they are “defending” the establishment.  They eventually get to the point where they believe that the society they claim to protect owes them some sustenance.  They’ve done so much good for us.  Surely it is reasonable to demand our blood.

What sparked my memory of this scene was this quotation:

If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am)… By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring.

And if the establishment has through hubris rigged it’s own decline from power, then it can double up on hubris and claim that strip mining society of what it has left in order to stay in power is justified by the “importance” of the establishment to the protection of society.

Do you doubt this is what David told himself while he was taking Bathsheba?

Why would Paulson or Geithner think any differently?