makeshiftmind

I did a little catch-up on Google Reader today.  Here are some random thoughts it provoked.

1. If swine flu is such an epidemic, why aren’t we banning pigs and burning their bodies in the streets?
2. If it will be illegal to not have health insurance, we should all immediately quit paying for it and see how the government likes them apples.  Insurance is big business.  Perhaps the lack of revenue will make them re-think this Fascist plan.
3. This man is my hero, and in the famous (paraphrased) words of some Cracked.com writer, he will need a second casket for his balls when he dies.

I’m not a fan of Obama and his statist policies, but this is priceless.

The 4 Craziest Right Wing Fears About Obama

So the Media has been blaming our current financial crisis on capitalism.  And the Mises Institute has taken the media to task with one very clear message: “MEDIA FAIL”.  Check out their latest article, “Is Laissez Faire Is Responsible for the Financial Crisis?“.

“Laissez-faire capitalism has a definite meaning, which is totally ignored, contradicted, and downright defiled by such statements as those quoted above [from various Media outlets]. Laissez-faire capitalism is a politico-economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and in which the powers of the state are limited to the protection of the individual’s rights against the initiation of physical force. This protection applies to the initiation of physical force by other private individuals, by foreign governments, and, most importantly, by the individual’s own government. This last is accomplished by such means as a written constitution, a system of division of powers and checks and balances, an explicit bill of rights, and eternal vigilance on the part of a citizenry with the right to keep and bear arms. Under laissez-faire capitalism, the state consists essentially just of a police force, law courts, and a national defense establishment, which deter and combat those who initiate the use of physical force. And nothing more.”

The other morning I was listening to talk radio on my way to work.  The hosts were discussing some of the criticisms leveled against the McCain campaign, specifically that he and Palin are fueling racism, presumably because some McCain “supporters” have been shouting racist comments at McCain rallies.  As I was digesting that information, a thought began to form in the back of my head, and all of a sudden I realized:

We can’t get rid of racism because we have no suitable replacement for it.

Racism is treated as if it’s an emotion — people “feel” hatred towards other people, and that’s bad.  Opponents of racism argue against it on the simple premise that everyone agrees that racism shouldn’t occur.  In some ways, this begs the question; it is assumed that racism is bad, and those who are racist are subsequently demonized.

What people tend to forget is that racism is a symptom, not a core problem.  Racism is a manifestation of a bad philosophy about what it means to be human.  Attacking racism without attacking its philosophical roots is like fighting cancer by putting pink ribbons on your car; both have their place, but do nothing to solve the ultimate problem.

If we really want racism to end in our country, we need to expose the faulty philosophical assumptions behind racism, and replace them with good philosophical principles about the nature of humanity.  Some people will go to their grave holding on to bad philosophy; there is nothing you can do to change their minds.  But simply demonizing them, and victimizing others, won’t solve the problem, because nature abhors a vacuum — the space that racism occupies needs to be filled with sound, counter-ideas.

To quote Rand:

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.”

“Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.”

“Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.”

Stories like this make me want to become an anarchist.  Apparently Democrat Senator Mark Pryor is sponsoring a bill that is supposed to help parents regulate the television that their children watch.  Says he:

“It’s time for the FCC to take a fresh look at how the market can empower parents with more tools to choose appropriate programming for their children.”

Yeah, did you catch that?  Ok, let me rephrase:

It’s time for government to tell the market what to do because parents are idiots and don’t raise their children correctly.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit: I watch too many shows, and play too many computer games, and you know what?  I didn’t have a television growing up.  I have never owned a single gaming console (not even an Atari!).  I did snag my father’s Commodore 64 and, on slow days when I could endure the 5-10 minute load time, would play “Jump Man” or “Hey Taxi!”.  When my folks purchased an 8088 for “educational” purposes, I played “Bowling” in amber monochrome glory.  When we bumped up to Windows 3.11, I purchased my first real video game, a “Star Trek” adventure that I never did finish.

My point is this: my parents definately knew how to say “no” when I would have wasted countless hours in front of a TV or game console.  Instead they made me read and do other constructive things.  They didn’t need the FCC to hold their hand.  If anything, I think they may have been too conservative in their approach, but they knew the dangers of making the TV a babysitter.  They didn’t need gobs of taxpayer money to figure this out.

If the government really wants to help parents, it needs to quit taxing the life out of them.  If both parents could afford to spend more time with their children, perhaps the TV wouldn’t be the default childcare method of choice.  As it is, to pay for school, daycare, feeding and clothing their children, college funds, extra-school activities, etc., many households have two adults that work more than 40 hours a week.

But then again, this could be part of the conspiracy.  The government taxes excessively so parents will be forced to set their kids in front of the television every evening, because they are too busy meeting those deadlines after dinner.  Then the government swoops in and says,

“Hey, be afraid!  Your kids are being exposed to sex, violence, and drugs!  Thankfully, we provide FCC approved public programming that has none of those things, and is completely safe for your children.  We will teach them about morality (how nothing is *really* right or wrong), multiculturalism (how all cultures are equal, and we have no right to judge anybody), patriotism (how everyone should be compelled to serve in our military campaigns to be a good citizen), and collectivism (how people with “needs” have a legitimate claim to your money and property)!”

I hate the aristocracy up there in Washington.

Cato brings us this enlightening summary of our dear 110th Congress:

The 110th Congress, whose term officially ends in January, hasn’t passed any spending bills or attacked high gasoline prices,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “But it has used its powers to celebrate watermelons and to decree the origins of the word ‘baseball.’ Barring a burst of legislative activity after Labor Day, this group of 535 men and women will have accomplished a rare feat. In two decades of record keeping, no sitting Congress has passed fewer public laws at this point in the session — 294 so far — than this one. That’s not to say they’ve been idle. On the flip side, no Congress in the same 20 years has been so prolific when it comes to proposing resolutions — more than 1,900, according to a tally by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

(emphasis mine)

I’ve heard about Technorati in the past but never really bothered to check it out. It’s blogging aggregation site that brings together information from a lot of different blogs and indexes it so you can search for things you’re interested in. Here is my Technorati profile.