With the Presidential election but nine weeks away, this is a good time to revisit Milton Friedman’s ten-part Free to Choose each Friday before the election as a reminder of why politically good sounding policies are often bad economics.
The second episode: The Tyranny of Control
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Life is hard and good times rare; death is easy and escape is normal
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Switzerland, the home of financially inclined gnomes, is going ahead with killing people by putting them in pods and letting the suicidal push a button to die.
“An assisted-suicide advocacy group in Switzerland has announced that a first-of-its-kind portable ‘suicide pod’ will soon be available for widespread use by people wishing to end their lives without medical supervision.
“The Sarco device, short for sarcophagus, is a sealed capsule which enables the person inside to press a button that rapidly replaces the oxygen inside the pod with nitrogen gas, resulting in death by hypoxia. Marketed as a ‘beautiful way [to die]’ by its supporters, the ghoulish and futuristic-looking capsule essentially amounts to a single-person gas chamber.”
And this will just be for the terminally ill who suffer debilitating pain who just want to die with dignity, right?
Nah, they’re using it to subsidize the killing of the poor.
“Citizens in Switzerland who are too poor to afford basic necessities are being offered the chance to be euthanized at a discounted price, the government announced on Wednesday.
“The portable suicide pods will be used for the first time in Switzerland, allowing people will various illnesses, mental issues, or social problems to end their life for just $20.”
The Native American Party, later just the American Party, was a nativist political party during the middle of the 19th Century that arose against waves of immigrants coming into America that threatened to replace (and indeed largely succeeded in replacing) the native born largely Anglo-Saxon population of the United States. This party became known as the Know Nothing party, and the immigrants they considered a threat to real Americans were the Irish and the Germans.
Apparently blaming the Irish and Germans is back in vogue, as GOP Vice-Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance seems to have expressed awkwardly.
JD Vance in 2021, while discussing earlier waves of immigration to the US:
"You had this massive wave of Italian, Irish and German immigration and that had its problems, its consequences. You had higher crime rates, you had these ethnic enclaves, you had inter-ethnic conflict in… pic.twitter.com/SQNPwaPBLx
— Jacqueline Sweet (@JSweetLI) August 15, 2024
To beg the question, can we really take seriously now what was a Mel Brooks joke from half-a-century ago?
The United Kingdom is well known for waging a war on sharp pointed objects (give or take a stick). They are also becoming well known for having a two-tiered justice system where some lives are ranking higher than others. In fact, they seem to rank, after a fashion, the undead higher than some living. Case in point (pun intended): The prohibition on “Zombie Knives”.
“From 24 September, it will be illegal to own zombie-style knives and machetes as they will be added to the list of dangerous prohibited items already banned, including zombie knives, butterfly knives, Samurai swords and push daggers.
“Ahead of the new ban coming into force, anyone who has one of these weapons is being urged to hand them over – safely and legally.”
News of the Week for September 1st, 2024
With the Presidential election but ten weeks away, this is a good time to revisit Milton Friedman’s ten-part Free to Choose each Friday before the election as a reminder of why politically good sounding policies are often bad economics.
The first episode: The Power of the Market
‘Til next Friday.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Ignorance is strength and tuition for fines
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
All that tuition money and student loans… and nothing but ignorance to show for it.
“A recent survey found that many college students graduate from their schools ‘without even a rudimentary grasp of America’s history and political system,’ reinforcing concerns that colleges have been ineffective at giving students education with real academic value.
“The survey, published on July 8, was conducted by College Pulse, an analytics company focused on college students. The survey was released by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an independent, nonprofit organization committed to academic freedom.
“‘The dismal results of our survey show that current students and recent college graduates have little idea of the American past or its core principles and values, no guide to take them through the roiling controversies facing us today or to enable them to defend and protect the free institutions that are the glory of our nation and an inspiration to the world,’ ACTA President Michael Poliakoff remarked.
“College graduates ‘cannot uphold what they do not comprehend,’ Poliakoff concluded.”
“Owning the Libs”, particularly online, has become the primary weapon of political warfare, particularly with the chronically online. What was once high meme culture and sophisticated in its own faux-juvenile way has devolved into sick burns where political success is measured by how many people one has been able to “trigger”.
Yet for all the memelording, far too many, particularly amongst Trump fans, are just as sensitive as the libs they try to “pwn”, and just as easily triggered when prodded successfully.
The obsession with crowd size is one such trigger now. Once, the pro-Trump cheerleaders would point to the large crowds that Trump could bring in as “evidence” for broad support and “proof” that he couldn’t have lost the 2020 election. The mocking of Biden and the Dems was palpable. Now, Kamala Harris is brining in huge crowds, and the once boastful pro-Trump boosters, if not Trump himself, are getting “triggered” by this and underscoring how much crowd size was a coping mechanism.
Similarly, the attacks on J. D. Vance as being “weird” are causing angry replies. It’s not that this or the crowd size thing swings any moderate median voters, but that it “triggers” all the right people into having online apoplectic fits. And after all, we are living in the political age of “Leeroy Jenkins”.
But these can all be sidestepped by focusing in on, if not the issues, than legitimate concerns about Harris and Walz, of which there are a myriad or more. Going after Walz for his pro-ChiCom statements, his military claims, or even the black and white evidence of far-Left legislation that he signed.
But instead, far too many are trying to be clever by going after Walz for the #BlackLivesMatter “mostly peaceful” riots. As cromulent as these accusations may be, to make those accusations is to beg the question of where Trump and MAGA stand on “mostly peaceful” riots… such as the January 6th temper-tantrum.
There is a certain obsession with the “Nature Rights” crowd with making objects morally equivalent to humans. They’ve done this with lagoons, lakes, moons, swamps, rivers, and mountains. Now, not only are glaciers like people too, they can even be politicians and run for office!
“The campaign that sought to nominate Snæfellsjökull, an Icelandic glacier, for president was the first attempt within Iceland to establish Rights of Nature. It differs from typical strategies like using legislation or court rulings, but the basis of establishing legal rights for natural features remains the same.
“…
“‘Geologists predict all glaciers in Iceland will disappear in the next 150 to 200 years, Iris Valckx, a campaign spokesperson and environmental lawyer, emphasized in an interview with GlacierHub. ‘This is irreversible and highlights the need to shift from a global perspective of egocentrism to ecocentrism.’
“As far as logistics went, the campaign argued that Snæfellsjökull met all the requirements of running for presidency under the Icelandic constitution: it was a de facto Icelander (having been there for centuries), was over 35 years old and had no criminal record.”
And of course, it’s a Leftist
In this day and age where everything seems to be accused of being White Supremacy from milk to mini-sombreros, science is of course targeted as oppressive and colonialist. Science has been declared to be sexist, and even a form colonialism when it comes to exploring unliving rocks in space. Sadly, even many on the Right deride and fear science they do not understand, and would rather—much like the Left—substitute it with their own ways of knowing.
Ironically, many of those who deride the Western Civilization evils of science are themselves associated with actual science. Now, even the once vaunted journal Science has an editorial (by non-scientist, if their credentials are anything to go by) railing against the oppression and global inequity of scientific research and development by attacking the very Western concept of intellectual property rights.
“The legacy of colonialism in scientific research includes an intellectual property system that favors Global North countries and the big corporations they support. This unfairness shows up in who gets access to the fruits of science and raises the question of who science is designed to serve or save. […]
“[…] The commitment to capitalist exploitation that powered much of European colonization persists in science and continues to cost lives. If vaccines had reached the Global South in an equitable and timely manner, half the deaths that occurred might have been averted. Although efforts are being made to bring the technology to Africa, the mRNA platform is largely controlled by the Global North and Big Pharma, undermining vaccine development against a variety of diseases. These same power dynamics and actors also derailed the pandemic accord, which aims to ensure equity.”
These “scientific” minds are deriding the right to the fruits of one’s own cerebral labor. This is basically the intellectual property equivalent of Marx’s “from each according to their labor; to each according to their need”.
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