Category Archives: political-economy

Not kidding about “the virtue of selfishness”

7 Replies

I guess if the Nazis had allowed the killing of the unfit individually, without coercive taxation and government mandates, then it would have been defensible according to the arbitrary bloodlust articulated by the alleged “Center for the Advancement of Capitalism”:

So in the anti-abortion advocate’s eyes, a parent’s desire to raise healthy children by squelching unhealthy fetuses while the are still in the womb is little more than a pernicious quest, but it is not considered a pernicious quest to knowingly bring severely disabled children into this world. On the contrary, such a choice is held out as an great example of upstanding morality. For example, consider this recent press release from a conservative anti-abortion advocacy group which celebrated Plain’s birth announcement:

The Palin family is a wonderful example of a family who made the right choice to embrace their child and his future. Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), commends Governor Palin, saying, “She is even more beautiful inside than out. Her proud and warm announcement of the birth of their special child revealed the depth of love and faith of this extraordinary woman. May God give America more women and statesmen like her.

“Special needs children can bring out the best in people. They draw out compassion, patience, a joy for the simple things in life in people around them,” says Wright. “In some ways, we need special needs people more than they need us.”

That is, we need the mentally retarded to teach us how to better sacrifice our lives and divest ourselves of our self-interested ways more than they need us to care for them. At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as “the worship of retardation.” Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child’s severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less.

Get that? Palin is actually guilty for not aborting her child.

I’ll say this much. Reading this cainite apologetic does open my mind up to the possibility that there are indeed certain classes of people that the world would be better off without. But just in case we start prejuding all Randians, I offer counter-evidence.

Honestly, do Randians ever offer any objective limits to their selfishness? If it is wrong to be or feel obligated not to kill a child, then why wouldn’t it also be wrong to feel obligated to pay any other debt. Wouldn’t “rationality” demand that one simply do whatever one can get away with?

I remember reading Atlas Shrugged and thinking of it as heroic. That impression has not survived. Objectivism seems to have become a rationalization for pretentious cowardice.

When Did Fear Take the Driver’s Seat in Amerika?

Leave a reply

I have Chris’s feed in my google reader, so I was led to this story in Boing Boing expecting a horror story about a school suspension.  No.  It was worse.  The police were called and a case was opened.  Because of an evil fourth grade super-villian with a broken pencil sharpener.

But then, at the bottom of that Boing Boing entry was another post that led to this interview with a man and his family terrorized and gunpoint by intruders who shot and killed their family pets.  Of course, they were police.

In America, we enjoy incredible health and prosperity (even in the middle of an economic slowdown).  Does anyone really think that this use of police power contributes an iota to this?  Why is paranoia about worst case scenarios (school violence/ drugs) allowed to justify such insane and dangerous terror tactics? (Yes, putting a fourth grader in front of an officer of the law counts.)

The quest for absolute safety means no one is.

If GOP wins, is there any chance that Palin can resist being Quayled?

4 Replies

Hope so.  If not:

Palin will be to McCain what Spiro Agnew was to Richard Nixon and Dan Quayle was to George H. W. Bush — conservative vice presidents who had virtually no impact on the moderate presidents they served. In a McCain administration, it is more likely that we would see Lieberman appointed Secretary of State than Palin being given any responsibilities more significant than office secretary. And if there is one thing this election, this party, and their convention made clear, it’s that Palin’s entire purpose is to pacify traditional conservatives on the multiple issues they still care about, so that in Republican victory, McCain and the neoconservatives can finally get to work on their only issue.

If I was a racist who wanted to spread minority unemployment and or racial segregation…

Leave a reply

I would set up a system of enforced equal pay for equal work laws.

After all, the premise of such a system is that the unequal pay is due to immoral discrimination. If such discrimination exists, then the problem for me, if I were a racist, is that the minorities are still able to mix with the alleged “master race” by bidding down their labor. Thus, immoral discriminators start socializing with their alleged “inferiors” despite themselves.

But if we can enforce equal pay for equal work, we can eliminate this fraternization once and for all. Racial segregation will increase without those who discriminate being permitted to be contaminated through contact.

By the way, how much wage discrimination do you think exists in professions among people of different races who have a ten-year job history? It would be enlightening to find out.

Here’s a question about history: What policy did white labor unions in South Africa endorse to protect their jobs from competition from other races, once they saw that racist laws were ending?

Palin as a new Eve (mini-rant)

2 Replies

I’m pretty sick of questions about whether Palin should be a ruler or whether she is compromising her motherhood by running for office and “neglecting” her children.

First thing.  Nothing in Genesis 1 or 2 dictates that every man must or should marry and have children.  In fact, it is perfectly compatible with Genesis 1 and 2 that some men should never marry or have kids.  And the same with women, not every woman is supposed to be a domestic.  That is not what Genesis 1 or 2 establishes.

Second thing, there are a thousand ways to raise kids, and the modern nuclear family with the stay at home Mom is only one of them.  Women have worked outside on the homestead for thousands of years.  For most of human history “cooking” for a household meant raising and slaughtering animals as well as growing food.  I like the bourgeois way of life and think it is a gift, but it is not one that all families are granted either in higher or lower classes.  So the idea that Sarah is obligated to stay home and while her husband is sole economic provider is simply garbage.  You may know a couple that would be better off if they split the household needs in bourgeois fashion, but you have no business putting that on strangers from Alaska.

(Oh, and the fact that one daughter fell into the sin of fornication means exactly nothing as some sort of proof against Sarah’s responsibilities.  It will prove nothing against Obama’s character either if it happens to him at some point.)

What we do have in Genesis is a man and a woman both given dominion over the whole earth.  This represents humanity as a whole, but it usually isn’t experienced by other individuals.  Most of us have a pretty small piece of it.  But here is someone raised up like Esther (but for much better reasons and without the gross harem issues) to be at the right hand of the President who already is the queen of one of the world’s last wildernesses.  It is an awesomely primal story we see playing out.

I can see lots of ways it could end in tragedy.  But I also see lots or reasons for hope.  And for once there is a chance for change, which until Palin was selected was something this election was entirely missing.

Is there a country somewhere that has a free market?

1 Reply

I’m not trying to be political.  I’m just minding my own business watching a video podcast when suddenly it is shoved in my face:

Analysts have said that Dell could face several obstacles to selling or outsourcing its plants, including incentive deals with local and state governments in the United States. Absorbing higher U.S. labor costs also could be a disincentive to Asian manufacturers.

It is not clear how the sale or outsourcing of Dell’s Forsyth plant would affect the $37 million in local incentives and up to $268 million in state incentives that it is eligible to receive.

Deborah Barnes, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Commerce, said it is possible that the state incentives for Dell could be transferred to the new owner or operator of the Forsyth plant.

Those incentives, which come from the state Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) program, are paid to the company that employs the workers, Barnes said. Dell has received about $1.5 million from that program to date. Dell also has received more than $2 million from the N.C. Revenue Department and more than $80,000 from the William S. Lee Act.

She said that a new company would have to meet the same incentive standards as Dell — minimum levels of full-time employees, and salary and benefit requirements.

Why are we arguing over corporate tax cuts in this election when we have loads of corporate welfare programs?  We tax people to support corporations to pay people so they can be taxed to support corporations.  Are we insane?

Republicans campaigning for Obama

12 Replies

No, I don’t mean the ones who might vote for him.  I’m talking about the RNC which is simply campaigning for Obama every night it meets.

(For the record, I think Obama is an insane choice for a President–especially with Cheney as a running mate–and I can’t believe anyone intelligent can vote for him.  I’m not going to bore anyone by explaining why.)

But I do know this: he is getting a lot of traction saying that we have been going in the wrong direction for eight years.  He’s getting traction because, in general, he’s totally and obviously correct and everyone knows it.

And yet we’re supposed to believe, as far as I can tell from the RNC, that everything is just fine and we need more of it.

In my opinion, delusions about the future are much more credible than delusions about the present and past.  I don’t see how Obama can fail to look more believable in this kind of contest.  People are going to get desperate and gamble with a magician rather than die slowly to the chants of GOP cheerleaders.

PS. I know his name is Biden, but I’ve correctly identified him above.