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Every dollar spent in a libertarian society on public goods will accomplish far more than a dollar spent by the welfare state. So even if a free society spends less money, it is far from clear that it will perform less charity. – Patri Friedman, Catallarchy August 21st, 2004 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Advice Goddess Amy Alkon, whose writing is always good for a laugh, has a disturbing piece on her site about how useless the police were when her car was stolen. On one occasion, a friend spotted her car and, when she rang the police to tell them exactly where they could find it, she was fobbed off by a disinterested operator who read from a script and did not send officers to retrieve it. Later, when the man she knew (and the cops strongly suspected) had stolen her car was known to be at home, Alkon called the LAPD and told them exactly where they could pick him up. The police receptionist told her that no detectives were around, and that she’d have to call back the next day to speak to anyone who could help her. In the end, Alkon had to get her car back from the thief herself, using good old fashioned shame and hostility. She even enlisted her mother in trying to guilt him into returning items that were in the car when he stole it. But few will be surprised at what the real consequences were for the thief.
Of course this state of affairs is not confined to Los Angeles. Everyone seems to know someone who has been similarly screwed over by police bureaucracy and incompetence. I know some good cops. But pieces like these make it all the more puzzling to me that so many people trust the police so unquestioningly, both to serve and to protect. Do they genuinely believe that the system is stacked in their favour, or is it something people tell themselves in order to feel secure? August 21st, 2004 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
The case of Gayle Laverne Grinds highlights one of the most important issues of our time. I wonder how many adverts for fatty, calorie-laden food this woman viewed during the six years she spent on the sofa in front of the television. I suppose the free marketeers would claim that exposure to these commercials had no bearing on the foods this woman consumed during her six years on the couch, and that she had the “personal responsibility” to choose not to eat them and to choose not to soil herself every day. But public health experts predict that by 2010, one person in three will die this way, and that 72 per cent of all schoolchildren will be one with sofas of their own. With increased funding for public education on the dangers of sofas and junk food, those rates could be substantially reduced. As it is, the government departments in charge of such education are criminally underfunded – and still the right-wingers and libertarians cheer on as tax cuts for the wealthy kill us and kill our kids. The real question is this: How many innocent people have to die after spending six years on the sofa, eating unhealthy food, defecating and sitting in a mound of their own filth before we put big business in its place and tell these fast food and junk food companies that they cannot continue to run roughshod over the public? August 16th, 2004 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
Monday night, I and Samizdata editors Perry de Havilland and Adriana Cronin-Lukas went to the House of Commons in London for the launch of the Hansard Society’s new report on blogging. Pointing out what is wrong with the report will be tackled soon enough, but the overall message of the night is what really got to me – and not in a good way. The launch was being held in Westminster Hall, where the Hansard Society has set up an exhibition called House to Home: Bringing Parliament and people together. The first thing about this exhibition – after the huge plasma screens showing shots from parliamentary debates and self-conscious, empty elements like stacks of chairs hanging suspended from the ceiling – that caught my attention was the large banner telling us that “Politics matters”. Not only that, but that “Politics shapes us as a society”. You can imagine how we each reacted to that supposed axiom from the Hansard Society, the “independent, non-partisan educational charity”…whose exhibition just happened to be sponsored in part by the government’s Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Electoral Commission. The information guide that accompanies the exhibition, copies of which were handed out to everyone present at the launch, contains even more such gems. First, some good news:
Glad to hear it. But did you know that freedom of speech – along with freedom of religion and freedom to protest – is something we only have because of the government? According to the Hansard Society:
Hmmm. Which one of these is not like the other? “Free” education is something to which each human being is entitled just by virtue of having been born, according to the “independent, non-partisan” Hansard Society’s government-sponsored exhibition. The “educational charity” also informs us that it was the benevolent Parliament that recognised this in law – and that it was the benevolent Parliament that granted us freedom of speech, to protest, and to practice religion. What is more:
The Hansard Society has also provided a handy guide to “How to have your say,” including tips on how to solve the vexing mystery of which constituency you live in. The guide advises us to decide which candidate and which party is most likely to speak up for what we believe in. But what if the answer is “none of the above”? Well:
Hey, that is helpful. Finally, on page ten of this pamphlet, the Hansard Society comes clean:
Indeed. It is about telling people that it is imperative that we “get involved” in the political process – because, don’t you know, we would not have any rights if it were not for the government! And it is about freedom of expression being something that only politics can enable. As the Hansard Society puts it:
Because expressing one’s views can only come about through the good grace of politicians. The scary thing is, the government is taking our money to fund the “non-partisan, independent” Hansard Society’s efforts to spread this message. That is to say, British taxpayers are funding this “independent” propaganda machine. Ah, well. It was a night for such things. Walking along Victoria Street from the House of Commons, Perry snapped a photo for me of one of my most loathed views in London – a government propaganda ticker that repeats the same message over and over: “London is getting safer…”
Still, the night was not all dispiriting. Leaving the House of Commons, I paused to admire a police guard’s impressive guns – two Glocks in the holster and a machine gun thingy (that is the technical name, I believe) in his hands. He was eager to show them off to me, and seemed happy to encounter someone who had respect for the weapons and his proficiency with them. It was enough to make a crunchy granola gun-control activist weep – which was more than enough to make me smile.
July 20th, 2004 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
My friend Robert J Avrech, the Hollywood screenwriter behind such productions as Body Double and The Devil’s Arithmetic, lost his 22-year-old son Ariel to pulmonary fibrosis last July. Ariel, like the rest of his family, was a devout Orthodox Jew, and was also a rabbinical candidate and an incredibly learned Talmudic scholar. Ariel was just a kid when his family found themselves trapped in a cinema besieged by thugs during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and as he grew older and studied the Torah more closely, he turned his attention to the case made in Jewish texts for the right to private ownership of guns. He eventually grew too weak and ill to put the case down on paper, just as he never did have the chance to go to the shooting range with his father as he dreamed of doing. But Robert has written about the matter himself, and it makes for compelling reading whether you are Jewish or not. I reproduce his essay, in its entirety, with Robert’s kind permission. → Continue reading: Jews and guns July 15th, 2004 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
Not that I need to preach to the converted here, but I love the internet. How else could I read every daily edition of my hometown newspaper back in the US if not for the web? I like keeping up on who is engaged and who got married, who got arrested and which baseball coach got sent to prison for selling crack cocaine – it is local It is also interesting to note the range of opinions that co-exist in my largely conservative hometown. It is a wonderful place to grow up, and a wonderful place to grow old, full of lovely people, but I was somewhat surprised to read an editorial in Monday’s edition which stated that taxpayers have to be willing to foot the bill for public schools’ physical education classes. What surprised me was not that such an unquestioning, statist line could be uttered in the kind of place that was built on a can-do attitude and pride in one’s own ability to do for oneself; what surprised me was how the editorial writer did not even bother to craft an argument in favour of his or her opinion. So I wrote my first ever letter to the editor. I do not think it will be published, and I would hate to have totally wasted the one minute it took me to read the article and the five minutes it took me to dash off a response, so I reproduce it here.
What I did not mention in my letter is that I experienced in two local school districts, as a child and teenager, downright lousy phys ed programs. In high school, it was so bad that your phys ed grade was based solely on whether or not you bothered to bring a change of clothes for the class. The teacher, who also served as athletic director and head basketball coach of the high school, would give you 50 per cent credit just for showing up. Calling that “physical education” was nothing short of a joke, especially as most of us used the period to do the homework we’d neglected to do for the next period’s class. Is this really the reason why some kids are overweight? Hardly. But if I have learned one thing from growing up in an area with very little in the way of fee-paying schools, it is that the parents of kids who attend state (public) schools will always complain about all the things the schools are not teaching their kids that they are entirely capable of teaching their children themselves, be it how not to get pregnant, how not to catch a sexually transmitted disease, or how not to grow obese. It is time someone started making parents feel as crummy as they should for this attitude, so get guilt-tripping today. July 13th, 2004 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
This past weekend, I took a friend’s baby daughter for a long walk (or, more accurately, a long push – she can’t yet walk, so was in a buggy/stroller). The ducks that reside at a nearby lake are usually a safe bet when one wants to keep this particular child entertained, so that’s where we headed. As the baby clapped and giggled at the animals – They’re not that funny, I sniffed. She kept laughing anyway. Kids, eh? A man arrived on the shore carrying a cage that contained a baby duck. He had rescued the animal the week before, he told me, after a member of the public had called the Folly Wildlife Rescue to report that the duck was caught in some fishing line. Initially, it was believed that the duck would have to have its leg amputated, but fortunately the vets were able to save the animal’s life and its leg. I asked the man about Folly Wildlife Rescue, and he told me that it is an exclusively volunteer effort, with absolutely no form of government subsidy or other state support. It relies entirely on donations from the public and its own fund-raising activities. He himself is not paid a penny for the time and effort he puts in to this endeavour, and neither is anyone else involved. In addition to the entirely noble goal of trying to educate the public about how they can prevent accidental injury to animals and caring for those animals when they do get hurt, I approve wholeheartedly of people taking the initiative to launch and maintain this kind of volunteer effort. It is refreshing to see Folly Wildlife Rescue performing such an admirable service without relying on the state to write the cheques. And I am pleased that they get enough donations to treat thousands of animals and inform the public about the dangers posed to wildlife by seemingly innocuous activities. For years, Folly Wildlife Rescue – including its intensive care unit and other medical facilities – has been run from the home of Annette and Dave Risley in the Kent and East Sussex borders area of South East England. Due to the huge volume of animals they are treating, this is an impractical set of circumstances, both presently and in the long term. Because the price of property in this area of England is so high, it is expected that Folly Wildlife will have to spend at least £400,000 (more than $730,000US at current exchange rates) in order to buy suitable premises for their operation. If you are at all impressed with the dedication shown by the volunteers who run and raise funds for this rescue operation that is untainted by money taken from taxpayers, I would ask you to consider throwing a few ducats their way. If you are not able to do that, you could support them by using their Amazon affiliation link when you shop at that online store, or simply drop them an email (address here) to let them know you are behind them and wish them luck. After all, someone has got to give injections to sick badgers and put bandages on injured hedgehogs, and I am pretty glad it is not me. More to the point, Folly Wildlife Rescue is the kind of thing any supporter of a smaller government should gaze upon with gratitude. Please consider doing what you can to communicate that gratitude to the people behind the effort. June 16th, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Even our dogs and cats are fat … and it’s not because they’re watching too much advertising.” and There’s lots of things government can do, but I don’t think government can prevent children from nagging their parents. June 7th, 2004 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Don’t become a novelist; be a statistician, much more scope for the imagination.” -a cartoon man drawn and given a voice by Mel Calman in How to Lie with Statistics June 7th, 2004 | Comments are closed
Is Gordon Brown the most irresponsible Chancellor the UK has ever had? So asks Michael Becket, author of Starting Your Own Business, in this month’s issue of Director magazine, published by the Institute of Directors for its members – sorry, but there is no online version. According to Becket:
Well, that is all very cheering for a British taxpayer to read. I take no convincing on the points that the government is bang out of order in what it takes from us, that the state is forcing people to rely on public benefit, and that the NHS sucks. What I want to know is whether Michael Becket is right: Is Gordon Brown the most irresponsible Chancellor this country has ever had? June 5th, 2004 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am going to give a hard time to someone I like immensely, but sometimes, it must be done – more on which later. In this case, it is blogger Harry Hatchet, who has posted an online poll on banning “junk” food advertisements, along with his argument for why the state should step in so that he does not have to say no to his child when she asks for “bad” food from McDonald’s. I will quote Dr Sean Gabb on the “obesity epidemic” (which might more accurately be described as a “sedentarism epidemic”):
Lest you think that I am preaching to the converted here, I mention this to make a larger point: These ideas are nothing new to those who believe in the concepts of personal liberty and the free market and who reject the slave-to-the-state mentality that’s all too prevalent in western society. But it is worth remembering that not everyone accepts these truths to be self-evident. And, unless you only surround yourself with those who agree with you on every single issue, sometimes (just sometimes!) the people who reject such truths will not be total idiots who are not worth engaging in discussion. Sometimes they are, like Mr Hatchet, intelligent people with whom you are friendly and with whom it is often possible to find common ground. In cases like this, when we are dealing with fantasy “epidemics” spun by the government and irresponsible media outlets, I think it is worth making the effort to find that common ground, even if it is only an inch. Labour MP Tom Watson once told me that reading blogs had led him to change his mind on ID cards; he was once in favour of them, but blogs like this one gave him a fresh perspective on what he previously thought to be an open-and-shut case, and his opinion changed. I did not need to hear this to know that persuasive writing – in this case, in the context of a blog – can actually persuade. But in order for people to be won over, some of us have to be bothered to fight the fight in the first place. And in case anyone’s thinking that there is nothing that lefties like Harry Hatchet could ever change our minds about, I confess: I used to think that the output of British rapper Mike Skinner, aka The Streets, was not that bad, but thanks to Harry’s quoting of some choice lyrics, I now know otherwise. May 29th, 2004 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
You know how people are always saying that complaining about the state of the world (and the world of the state) is all well and good, except that it never achieves anything? The UK’s Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, thinks that the great British public is about to prove those people wrong, as “whingers” put London’s Olympic bid in peril.
Nah. For perhaps the first time ever, I and many others are fully backing the French to win. Let’s hope a continued stream of bitching and moaning about this ridiculous misuse of taxpayer money will see them through to victory, and bring about Britain’s glorious defeat. May 24th, 2004 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
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