You know, the "Social Darwinism" guy. Although Will Durant (in The Story of Philosophy) says he's really a Social LaMarckist. And in the case of Society, I'd say that's pretty true. And also kinder than "the survival of the fittest". It implies that we are capable of learning as we grow older, and passing that knowledge on to our children.
I think Spencer's greatest quote is "the effect of shielding men from (...searching Freedom's Nest...)..." AH! "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."
Oops! I linked the wrong book up there. Will Durant's book is this one.
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Check out the audio at ARI.
The Ayn Rand Institute is getting guys on the air on the Thom Hartmann show for some great debates about the value of Free Markets. Don't worry, you'll think your guy won.
Here's something to think about
Apologists for terrorism against Israel have claimed that Palestinian
terrorists are merely Israel's--not America's--enemies.
But Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi demonstrated, once again, that
this claim is false. "President Bush has become Islam's biggest
enemy," he stated last week.
Another terrorist organization, the Palestinian Authority, which
President Bush entrusts with carrying out the "road map to peace," has
recently broadcasted from the mosques of Gaza the following call:
"Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like
them--and those who stand by them. They are all in one trench against
the Arabs and the Muslims." And just a few months ago Hezbollah leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah exhorted his Palestinians followers "to take
suicide bombings worldwide."
It is only a matter of time before Hamas and other Palestinian terror
groups will begin to systematically attack Americans--as they have
been attacking Israelis. Should America wait until that happens--as
America waited for September 11 to happen--before acting against its
terrorist enemies?
If we want to win this war with as few American casualties as
possible, we must turn our attention to what Palestinian terrorists
are really saying and doing. Then we will clearly see that Israel's
enemies are America's enemies too--and that by supporting Israel,
America would be acting in its own defense.
David Holcberg
Ayn Rand Institute
terrorists are merely Israel's--not America's--enemies.
But Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi demonstrated, once again, that
this claim is false. "President Bush has become Islam's biggest
enemy," he stated last week.
Another terrorist organization, the Palestinian Authority, which
President Bush entrusts with carrying out the "road map to peace," has
recently broadcasted from the mosques of Gaza the following call:
"Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like
them--and those who stand by them. They are all in one trench against
the Arabs and the Muslims." And just a few months ago Hezbollah leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah exhorted his Palestinians followers "to take
suicide bombings worldwide."
It is only a matter of time before Hamas and other Palestinian terror
groups will begin to systematically attack Americans--as they have
been attacking Israelis. Should America wait until that happens--as
America waited for September 11 to happen--before acting against its
terrorist enemies?
If we want to win this war with as few American casualties as
possible, we must turn our attention to what Palestinian terrorists
are really saying and doing. Then we will clearly see that Israel's
enemies are America's enemies too--and that by supporting Israel,
America would be acting in its own defense.
David Holcberg
Ayn Rand Institute
Friday, August 29, 2003
That's what I'm sayin'!
From The Angry Economist, "Media Concentration":
I will go out on an economical limb and say that a corporation never makes a "profit". Everything that comes into a company is owed to someone. Perhaps it's not paid out immediately, but no matter, an identifiable individual owns every bit of money. Employees get their salaries, salesmen get their commissions, suppliers get their accounts payables, banks get their interest, founders get their entrepreneurial income.
I will go out on an economical limb and say that a corporation never makes a "profit". Everything that comes into a company is owed to someone. Perhaps it's not paid out immediately, but no matter, an identifiable individual owns every bit of money. Employees get their salaries, salesmen get their commissions, suppliers get their accounts payables, banks get their interest, founders get their entrepreneurial income.
The Angry Economist is great!
I was trying to pay attention as Stephen den Beste rambled on about his old job making...whatever, when my eyes wandered over to his links, where I saw The Angry Economist. So I snuck out that way, while Steve was pointing at an exploded view of an oscilloscope, and discovered....
The guy's great! Don't miss the archives.
Here's a quote from "Where is the Freedom?":
...[M]any people still think economic intervention is necessary, and not just a power play on the part of the influence-makers. Hopefully, as more people understand economics, they will tell their government "No, don't do that for me -- I can do it better for myself."
Amen.
The guy's great! Don't miss the archives.
Here's a quote from "Where is the Freedom?":
...[M]any people still think economic intervention is necessary, and not just a power play on the part of the influence-makers. Hopefully, as more people understand economics, they will tell their government "No, don't do that for me -- I can do it better for myself."
Amen.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Free Progressivism maybe?
More from "A New Name for an Old Whig", by Samuel Gregg:
It is perhaps improbable that a single phrase that captures all the ideals and transcends all the difficulties outlined above will ever be coined. After all, we are seeking an expression which, in Hayek’s words, ‘[pieces] together the broken fragments of a tradition’81 that encapsulates Burke’s political reflections, Smith’s economics, Tocqueville’s constitutionalism, Hume’s scepticism, Ferguson’s evolutionism, and Acton’s view of history.
It is perhaps improbable that a single phrase that captures all the ideals and transcends all the difficulties outlined above will ever be coined. After all, we are seeking an expression which, in Hayek’s words, ‘[pieces] together the broken fragments of a tradition’81 that encapsulates Burke’s political reflections, Smith’s economics, Tocqueville’s constitutionalism, Hume’s scepticism, Ferguson’s evolutionism, and Acton’s view of history.
For Shame
I am ashamed to admit that I haven't read, though I own, the appropriate essays by Burke and Acton on Whiggism.
Whiggarchy! Isonomy! Fraternity!
Excuse me! Just Googling myself here.
Another obligatory explanation of the term "Old Whig". Here's more than you wanted to know.
An exerpt:
The designation Old Whig was first coined by Edmund Burke in his An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. The canon to which Burke ascribed—the doctrine of the ‘ancient Whigs’6—was partly a product of the 17th century political conflict between Crown and Commons that culminated in England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. United by a horror of arbitrary power, the Whigs, according to John Locke, fought for freedom of men under government . . . to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society . . . and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man [as well as the principle that] whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth is bound to govern by established laws promulgated and made known to the people and not by extemporary decrees.
Another obligatory explanation of the term "Old Whig". Here's more than you wanted to know.
An exerpt:
The designation Old Whig was first coined by Edmund Burke in his An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. The canon to which Burke ascribed—the doctrine of the ‘ancient Whigs’6—was partly a product of the 17th century political conflict between Crown and Commons that culminated in England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. United by a horror of arbitrary power, the Whigs, according to John Locke, fought for freedom of men under government . . . to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society . . . and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man [as well as the principle that] whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth is bound to govern by established laws promulgated and made known to the people and not by extemporary decrees.
Mop up in Iraq?
Just in case nobody has seen Glenn Reynolds' link to this article, TechCentralStation has a great article by a former Green Beret on the mop up in Iraq.
[edit: the title is new as of 5/2010]
[edit: the title is new as of 5/2010]
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Natural Spirituality
Whoever continually strives to achieve a clearer and clearer vision of reality and his or her place in it--whoever is pulled forward by a passion for such clarity--is, to that extent, leading a spiritual life. ...
Nathaniel Branden, The Art of Living Consciously.
Thanks to The Light of Reason.
Nathaniel Branden, The Art of Living Consciously.
Thanks to The Light of Reason.
I was gonna ask: Does Stephen den Beste know everything? Here's a sociological tour de force from the master of the Clueless.
Scroll down.
Scroll down.
Or, rather:
Folks, check out Free Market Communism.
My answer:
Dude, they take tax money from me to do that. They call it Public-Private Partnership.
Folks, check out Free Market Communism.
My answer:
Dude, they take tax money from me to do that. They call it Public-Private Partnership.
Dude, they take tax money from me to do that. Check out Free Market Communism.
They call it Public-Private Partnership.
They call it Public-Private Partnership.
Townhall.com has three articles worth reading today: Thomas Sowell on the Lincoln Memorial tribute to Martin Luther King; Bruce Bartlett on the high cost of outsourcing to foreign countries; and Doug Bandow on U.S. military priorities.
Monday, August 25, 2003
The Ayn Rand Institute has an Op-Ed out encouraging us to make it known that we are celebrating the Mind on Labor Day. Entrepreneurship, inventiveness and perspicuity in business matters are essential to societal progress.
Anybody know what Walter Cronkite said the other day. Jason Lewis (live streaming here 5-8PM weekdays) pointed this out. Real dog bites man stuff:
I believe that most of us reporters are liberal, but not because we consciously have chosen that particular color in the political spectrum. More likely it is because most of us served our journalistic apprenticeships as reporters covering the seamier side of our cities - the crimes, the tenement fires, the homeless and the hungry, the underclothed and undereducated.
We reached our intellectual adulthood with daily close-ups of the inequality in a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. So we are inclined to side with the powerless rather than the powerful.
Then he says some pious things about accurate reporting. Jason pointed out that, having seen the daily close-ups, the reporters then go home to their middle class (or ritzy, for some) neighborhoods where capitalism is succeeding and write their gripes about the few places it's not. It succeeds where it's not banned folks. How many entrepreneurial activities are allowed in the ghetto?
Cronkite ends with:
Incidentally, I looked up the definition of "liberal" in a Random House dictionary. It gave the synonyms for "liberal" as "progressive," "broad-minded," "unprejudiced," "beneficent." The antonyms it offered: "reactionary" and "intolerant."
I've always suspected those fine folks at Random House of being liberals. You just can't trust anybody these days.
Amen. They failed to mention the more modern definition: socialist; marxist. Oh, that's right, that's what the progressives were. Or were they racist, populist authoritarians?
I believe that most of us reporters are liberal, but not because we consciously have chosen that particular color in the political spectrum. More likely it is because most of us served our journalistic apprenticeships as reporters covering the seamier side of our cities - the crimes, the tenement fires, the homeless and the hungry, the underclothed and undereducated.
We reached our intellectual adulthood with daily close-ups of the inequality in a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. So we are inclined to side with the powerless rather than the powerful.
Then he says some pious things about accurate reporting. Jason pointed out that, having seen the daily close-ups, the reporters then go home to their middle class (or ritzy, for some) neighborhoods where capitalism is succeeding and write their gripes about the few places it's not. It succeeds where it's not banned folks. How many entrepreneurial activities are allowed in the ghetto?
Cronkite ends with:
Incidentally, I looked up the definition of "liberal" in a Random House dictionary. It gave the synonyms for "liberal" as "progressive," "broad-minded," "unprejudiced," "beneficent." The antonyms it offered: "reactionary" and "intolerant."
I've always suspected those fine folks at Random House of being liberals. You just can't trust anybody these days.
Amen. They failed to mention the more modern definition: socialist; marxist. Oh, that's right, that's what the progressives were. Or were they racist, populist authoritarians?
Here's an article that should be divided up into chapter and verse and snuggled in between Philemon and Hebrews:
In a world where instability is feared, politicians promise security, dressed up in campaign fusillades of "time for a change" because the challengers acknowledge there's been no security during the previous term. If everybody's always looking for a change, does it ever get done right? Of course not. But success is always just around the corner for the subjugated, albeit in a classic, Greek, Sisyphean sorta way.
...
When utilitarian arguments fail, vile politicians appeal to morality. Country X is using slave labor. Country Y tortures dissidents. Why do we need politicians to make moral decisions for us? These choices must be made individually, with the confidence that their combined effects will be felt by the market. Trade interference is simply an extension of the popular delusion that it makes sense to have the fewest options. No politician is going to represent your opinions on everything, so why bother? You represent yourself. You make buying decisions considering everything that's important to you, and that's the most vote you can ask for. Cherish it. Cherish the complexity and fine granularity allowed when nobody speaks for you but you. Savor the wonderful things that can happen when the fine tolerances of the market are left to function with their natural delicacy.
...
Under coercion, gone are the happy and surprising relationships grown and cemented by commerce. Think of the friendly interactions because of trade and mutual dependence among disparate parties in your local environment – the same dependence which anti-traders point to as a pending disaster! Those with eyeballs connected to brain know it as the prevention of disaster; nothing contributes to peace better than knowing you will have lowered your standing while defeating your enemy. So why does the ruling class perpetually strain against the obvious and lead whole populations to ruin? One need only know that they do, and that we must resist.
In a world where instability is feared, politicians promise security, dressed up in campaign fusillades of "time for a change" because the challengers acknowledge there's been no security during the previous term. If everybody's always looking for a change, does it ever get done right? Of course not. But success is always just around the corner for the subjugated, albeit in a classic, Greek, Sisyphean sorta way.
...
When utilitarian arguments fail, vile politicians appeal to morality. Country X is using slave labor. Country Y tortures dissidents. Why do we need politicians to make moral decisions for us? These choices must be made individually, with the confidence that their combined effects will be felt by the market. Trade interference is simply an extension of the popular delusion that it makes sense to have the fewest options. No politician is going to represent your opinions on everything, so why bother? You represent yourself. You make buying decisions considering everything that's important to you, and that's the most vote you can ask for. Cherish it. Cherish the complexity and fine granularity allowed when nobody speaks for you but you. Savor the wonderful things that can happen when the fine tolerances of the market are left to function with their natural delicacy.
...
Under coercion, gone are the happy and surprising relationships grown and cemented by commerce. Think of the friendly interactions because of trade and mutual dependence among disparate parties in your local environment – the same dependence which anti-traders point to as a pending disaster! Those with eyeballs connected to brain know it as the prevention of disaster; nothing contributes to peace better than knowing you will have lowered your standing while defeating your enemy. So why does the ruling class perpetually strain against the obvious and lead whole populations to ruin? One need only know that they do, and that we must resist.
Sunday, August 24, 2003
The Mises Institute article may have been earlier. I try to keep up with them. Read everything linked here. I love them all. I even enjoy the forays into anarcho-capitalism to which most of them were led by Murray Rothbard.
But I part ways with them when the Rockwell-Raimondo branch treat peace as a primary value. Peace is the result of Justice- individualized and personalized in the hearts of the populace.
What we got here is one populace that understands justice and one that doesn't. How do we teach them? When the whole lot of them are deceived by false philosophy.
When somebody's going apeshit you take 'em down and hold 'em down until they calm down. Then you can reason. Have those people (the Mises people?) never been in a fight? And if they try to kill you, you disable or kill them first. Then there'll be peace.
They need to learn a truer way.
But I part ways with them when the Rockwell-Raimondo branch treat peace as a primary value. Peace is the result of Justice- individualized and personalized in the hearts of the populace.
What we got here is one populace that understands justice and one that doesn't. How do we teach them? When the whole lot of them are deceived by false philosophy.
When somebody's going apeshit you take 'em down and hold 'em down until they calm down. Then you can reason. Have those people (the Mises people?) never been in a fight? And if they try to kill you, you disable or kill them first. Then there'll be peace.
They need to learn a truer way.
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