Honduras Update: "We Are Not Afraid..."

Roberto Micheletti spells it out for the OAS

"We are not afraid of an embargo by anybody.

"The country can carry on firmly and calmly without your support and that of other nations," he said after a meeting with the delegation.

"Nobody is coming here to impose anything on us, unless troops come from somewhere else and force us."

It amazes me that in light of Central Americas history of despotism, dictatorship and thuggery the world is now seeking to force Honduras to destroy its own constitution and return to that Banana Republic model.

Tax Haven

This just makes me want to move to Costa Rica.

No Tax for Pan-Am

1.4 billion

Bread and Circuses, that's what it was called back during the fall of the Roman Empire. The idea at the time was that the political leadership of the Empire could distract the citizenry, and make them to forget the realities of their day-to-day lives by staging elaborate games and spectacles in the colleseum.

Fast forward 2000 years... Now, in the middle of a recession, when people in the manufacturing heartland of Ontario (of which Hamilton is a part) are suffering from lay offs and plant closures all three arms of the government, municipal, provincial and federal, led by Dalton "Nero" McGinty think it's a good time to take more money from taxpaers to fund a sporting event?

Ridiculous!

No Tax For PanAm...

Huh?

On a day where this picture is captured on an online news aggregator...








I'm inclined to think The Onion has hit the nail on the head with this piece.



I used a previous post to lambaste politicians for their pragmatism but to be fair the average voter needs to learn how to stand for something unequivocally if we are ever going to do more than chase our electoral tails during and between elections...

Don’t Call It Moral.

The Scottish Judge who released Terrorist bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi the killer of 270 people over Lockerbie Scotland said in an interview with CNN that;

“Equally, we have values that we seek to live by, even if those who perpetrate crimes against us have not respected us or shown any compassion. Here is a dying man. He didn't show compassion to the victims, American or Scottish. That does not mean that we should lower ourselves, debase ourselves, or abandon our values.

He was justly convicted, but we're allowing him some mercy to return home to die.”

This statement by the judge implies the application of a moral standard, but morals are defined as; of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong;

The last part is central to my point. Under Christian religious morality one should always find it in their heart to forgive a transgressor, no matter what it is that they have done wrong. This is the central tenant of Christian “morality”.

The problem is that it isn’t moral; it is specifically and implicitly amoral. It discards all concept of right and wrong and replaces it with the vilest abdication of thought imaginable. Christianity tries to make the devout follower indifferent to questions of right or wrong and wholly dependent and subservient to some mystical whim which is itself contradicted in Christian religious writings (including anecdotal evidence of god’s actions).

So here is your choice. You can believe in the Christian morality and try to walk your religious tightrope which lists a multitude of things as evil but also states that you should forgive any transgression no matter how vile, or you can apply the morality encapsulated in the sentence “In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”

Quickly… Choose. Choose to compromise on any and all moral decisions, to abandon any principal based on the whim of a deity who himself fails to apply what he teaches, or you can take the hard line, the resolute stance to believe in right and wrong regardless of circumstance, immovable by whim, immutable by the mystic babbling of an invisible unknowable and completely inconsistent god.

UPDATE: Scottish Justice...

Is a dish best served at a "hero's" homecoming...



Sickening.

3 Months To Live

Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison in 2001 for taking part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, and was to serve at least 27 years behind bars.

However, he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer last year and doctors have said he has less than three months to live.

*

Well isn't that special. I wonder how much of that three months this terrorist mass murderer will spend laughing at the weakness of the west's version of "justice".

Less Than A Parent

Is this for the rights and interests of children or against the rights and interests of Fathers?

I understand the need to legally protect the rights of children in custody battles. Being minors their voice and interest can often be lost in their parents bitterness and sundry legal machinations.

But wouldn't it have been much more proper for Minister Nicholson to say;

"The interests of children must take priority over a father's a parents right to an equal parenting role after divorce,"

As spoken, the Minister is advocating the dismissal of one parents rights based soley upon sex. Many fathers already believe that in a divorce, the mother is given preferential treatment in custody and in today's day and age that is a crime.

The statement from the minister is nothing more than a glimpse at his own predjudice, and that of many other people. It is the predjudice that labels mothers as being the nurtuting, loving, child rearing masters of men, It is sexist, baseless, discriminatory and illegal.

It's high time that equality started to mean equality all the time for everyone in this country.

The Government Effect

Health reform in Canada... have none of these people ever heard of the law of unintended consequences?

Unintended consequences are outcomes that are not (or not limited to) the results originally intended in a particular situation. They may be foreseen or unforeseen, but they should be the logical or likely results of the action.

Now what do you think might be the unintended consequence of this:

"He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget.

This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said."

Dr Ouellet is counting on all those positive consequences he's already concluded would be the result. But understanding the nature of bureaucracy isn't his forte apparently.

Bureaucracy's love their budgets, its how they live. When they are given a set budget they will spend it all, every time, in the hopes that;

a) It won't be cut next year because they proved through frugality or efficiency that they did not need all the cash and;

b) That if they spend it all they will have the opportunity to ask for more for next year so that the bureaucracy can expand (as is their wont).

But the good Doctor is proposing an open budget. One that (apparently) rewards the bureaucracy for its efficiency.

But in the land of unintended consequences is quality a necessary part of the equation? No. The only necessary part of the equation would become processing the largest possible volume of patients to receive the largest possible payment.

This system would not be a problem in a free market because if the quality of the service dropped to meet the need of efficiency then the patient would be able to go somewhere else and the offending business would be forced out of business by the companies offering both quality and efficiency.

But since all hospitals in this country are state owned there is no hope for a market correction of that type, and what you would have is hospitals becoming sausage factories. With no reason to offer quality and efficiency, then efficiency (expediency) will win out.

Once that budgetary imperative has taken hold, the other unintended consequence will rear it's head, namely the cost of health care in this country will go through the roof, which means our taxes will go through the roof.

There ought to be a corollary to the Law of Unintended Consequences called "The Government Effect" stating simply that when any government program results in unintended consequences the cost of said unintended consequences is inevitably downloaded onto the individual in the form of some tax levied against him or some sacrifice of his freedom.

A Spade a Spade

There has been quite some fervor about the NDP possibly changing its name in the upcoming convention. The word is that they may drop the word "New".

Well, I for one would like to see them all change their names to more accurately reflect their political and organizational beliefs.

The NDP would call itself the Marxist-Socialist Party of Canada

The Liberals would call themselves the Pragmatic Socialist Party of Canada

The Green Party would call itself the Anti-technology and Advancement Party of Canada

The Bloc Quebecois would call itself The Xenophobic Communist Party of Quebec

and the Conservative Party would call itself The Utilitarian Social Conservative Religious Alliance Party.

Oh, The Freedom Party, could call itself The Capitalist Party.

Canada's Pragmatic Politics: Standing For Nothing

Lawrence Martin spends this article praising the mushy middle of politics. The progressive, the pragmatic, the popular position.

Now while I'm not interested in praising the Conservatives for their pragmatism I will note that many political pundits in the last few years, since the fall of the Liberal hegemony in Canada have made much noise, type and hype out of lambasting that party for its lack of direction. They have resoundingly skewered the Liberal party for its whim-driven adherence to, well, nothing more substantial than the power they sought and the votes that would get them there... So, fast forward and suddenly this same course of progressive pragmatism is the course of action for the Conservatives?

Personally I could care less at this point. After a number of years of supporting the Conservatives I now realize that as far as the 4 main parties* in Canada are concerned the average voters choice is bad, worse, disastrous and irrelevant.

What I really want to get at is the notion that pragmatism in politics is somehow a good thing.

Pragmatism is defined as; "A way of approaching situations or solving problems that emphasizes practical applications and consequences." now on the surface that doesn't sound too bad, but the problem is that as it is applied in politics the practical applications and consequences part is lost and the definition more closely adheres to "A way of approaching political situations or solving social problems that emphasizes majority rule regardless of principal."

Gone is the idea that the solution must work or that it must be practical. Consequences are only considered, if at all, as something to be dealt with or "spun" at the next election.

But even if the actual definition was closely followed there is a major problem... Where are the beliefs, the ideals, the principles upon which decisions will be made?

When being in charge, as the leader of a nation you have to be able to enunciate that there are things in which you believe. The foundations of any society are the things that are accepted and believed by the individuals within it, for right or wrong for good or ill.

Obviously we've gotten away from anything so hide-bound as principals as far as politics are concerned in this country. It no longer seems to matter what a political party, or you as a politician believe, the important thing is how many people you can convince that you believe the same thing they do. That's pragmatism, and that is the thing which Mr. Martin extols in his article.

So the pragmatic virtue of the Conservative party is the ability of the party to say on the eve of the recession that they do not believe that bailouts are the solution only to pragmatically bail out any and all takers less than a month later!

The truth is pragmatism is little more than political newspeak for the sentence "We are going to lie to you."

What ever happened to ideas and ideals? Where did the principled politicians go? Why do so few people ask this question?

Who is John Galt?

* I do not include the Bloc because they can not and will not run candidates in any province other than Quebec

Are We There Yet?

“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
Ayn Rand

If you read the news today or have been reading it for the last while you are virtually assaulted by the systemic use of tax money to bail out here, or subsidize there. The workers cry out for it, the Unions beg for it, the businessmen complain that they can not survive without it and the politicians dole it out.

When this is done a majority of consumers sagely nod their heads, Unions and businessmen grimly set their jaws and make a show of “getting to work” and Politicians on the left and on the right preach the gospel of regulation, control and “social responsibility”.

It’s systemic, invasive, pervasive and sickening.

So, as the title of this post asks… Are we there yet? Is it necessary for honest rights respecting folks to be criminals in order to live their lives as men?

Getting away from it all: more about sea steading, micronations and finding a physical Galt's Gulch

The discussion on Libertarian seasteads, space colonies and micronations is opening up again on the blog "Next Big Future" This link is to only one of the articles, others exist here and here.

The basic argument is how could freedom loving people escape from the current mess of redistributive politics? Simply up and leaving civilization isn't much of an option, every piece of the land area of Earth has been claimed by one State entity or another, and even the open oceans are patrolled by navies eager to exert the sovereign power of the State wherever resources and trade routes exist that can benefit the State.

While it is possible to find some very out of the way area that has essentially been abandoned by central State control, there are probably good reasons for this, including relative inaccessibility, lack of resources and the presence of competing non state actors attempting to create their own areas of control. The determined freedom seeker would have to be extremely tough, resourceful and willing to battle it out with FARC, the Taliban or similar groups, as well as doing without hot and cold running water.

I suspect only the very smallest minority of readers fall into this category, so joining the John Galt strike and making provisions to disconnect yourself from the grid through some form of urban homesteading is probably the most realistic path open to the majority of readers.

There is the delicious irony of turning the various memes of the Progressives against them while becoming a successful citizen of  the distributed or virtual "Galt's Gulch". Generating your own energy and home schooling your children to "reduce your carbon footprint", growing your own produce to "only eat food from within 100 km" and other activities that increase your standard of living while reducing your tax contributions to the State; now we are starting not only to join John Galt, but also his confederate Ragnar Danneskjöld, who recovers wealth from the looters.

For people determined to build real as opposed to virtual or distributed Galt's Gulches, there are a few possible options left. A billionaire or corporation with libertarian inclinations might choose to "buy" a small city or create the physical infrastructure of a self contained city within a city (something along the lines of the classical Arcology concept). Encouraging migration of like minded people to single geographic areas might also work to build a voting block which could swing elections, and this moment in history could make it possible, considering the collapse of housing values in many parts of the United States. (The downside is most of the collapse is in the Democrat controlled "Blue States", so even fully libertarian municipalities would be held hostage by intrusive State governments).

The timeline to create a Galt's Gulch is very tight, with an apocalyptic financial crisis looming in the relatively near future. US Medicare is projected to go bankrupt in 2016, and Social Security soon after. The increase of the annual deficits by the Obama administration to almost 2 trillion a year means the United States itself could exhaust the accumulated stock of American wealth in under 25 years, much sooner once the unfunded liabilites are factored in. Certainly the surviving institutions of the State will take extreme measures to maintain their hold on power as the economy crumbles under them, and we need to get ready not only to survive and repel the agents of the State desperate to seize our wealth for their own survival, but also the chaos that will follow the collapse.

Charter cities in the desert, sea steads, urban homesteads and other nodes of civilization need to be prepared, and more importantly, people need to be prepared and educated to survive the new realities. Every attempt to meld anti-politics (i.e. the John Galt Strike combined with creating the best Galt's gulch that is physically possible) with local political action to reduce the power and effects of the State from intruding into your lives will serve to soften the blow when it does come.

Freedom is a self help project!

This is John Galt Speaking: Part 6

Missing The Point

I beg your pardon?

This is what happens when context is forgotten.

The context is not the fact that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi has terminal prostrate cancer. The context is that this piece of human flotsom was directly responsible for the brutal massacre of two hundred and seventy people.

Before Scottish justice minister, Kenny Macaskill releases al-Megrahi (if he chooses to do so) he should have to explain his rationale for doing so based on "compassionate grounds" to the families of every one of al-Megrah's victims.


Just in case you were wondering...
Com⋅pas⋅sion - {kuhm-pash-uhn} - a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Your Money

Stolen from you. Given to Them.

Circling the drain.

Questions?

Honduras Digs In.

"It doesn't matter what limitations and hardships we have to go through in these six months ... it's better than spending years with governments that are on the fringes of the law with people that threaten our democracy, our values, our principles and even our laws,"
*

I wish beyond hope for a politician as dedicated to what is right as these Hondurans seem to be. Not a hint of pragmatism or appeasement in the whole lot.

The Honduran government has a long six months ahead of it. The best way for them to survive would be to let the reigns of business go. Implement a Laissez Faire market and let the people flourish.

The on line world, cont.

As readers know, my interests have been along the lines of how Objectivism and Libertarianism have become social rather than political movements, and how to migrate to a virtual "Galt's Gulch" in order to live, work and dream in privacy without the busybodies of the State interfering with our lives. (Far better the agents of the State were to concentrate on their real jobs of protecting our lives and property from theft and fraud...).

Next Big Future has an interesting post here on the idea of transhumanism as applied to libertarian thought. For those of you who havn't come across this idea before, many futurists, science fiction writers and others maintain that advances in technology and biology will allow the human race to trancend current limits and achieve a physical utopia free of current problems and wants.

Ideas such as nanotechnology, highly advanced computers and artificial intelligence and genetic engineering do have the potential to eliminate scarcity and poverty in the world, and allow ordinary people access to the sorts of tools that are currently only in the reach of governments today. This is a two edged sword, of course. Being able to fabricate a spaceship and go to the asteroid belt is a positive, but the same technologies also allow you to build an ICBM and take personal action against a foreign regime you may not like.

It occurs to me that much of what we see in politics is a reaction to this sort of thinking (however diffused and unorganized). Politics is defined in organizational theory as a means of allocating limited resources. In the transhumanist libertarian universe, there are no limited resources (besides natural limits set by physics), hence there is no need for politics as usually defined. Why do we need a CRTC to allocate limited bandwidth, when there is effectively unlimited bandwidth through the Internet? The world produces more than enough agricultural produce to feed everyone, famines are caused by government actions that distort markets or actively embargo food distribution for military or ideological purposes. Other examples can be thought of by the preceptive reader.

What we are seeing is a process of limiting access to resources by political entities in order to maintain control. Bureaucratic entities like the CRTC float trial balloons to limit the sorts of information available on the Internet in a very public way. Other groups act like "Brownshirts" and attempt to drive competing ideas from the public square, as this example shows. "Cap and Trade" and associated "Climate Change" hysteria is designed to frighten people and make inexpensive access to energy, manufactured goods and services too expensive to afford for the masses.

So how do we respond?

Transhumanism is a very high tech idea and would require the resources of innovative corporations and the mass market to develop quickly and effectively. However, lots of low to mid tech resources exist in the here and now that allow the determined person to partake of relative abundance in the comfort of their own households. Everything from hydroponic gardening to using rain barrels to catch unmetered water, investing in high efficiency appliances to schooling yourself to turn off and unplug "instant on" devices reduces you dependance on outside resources and agencies without necessarily depriving you of a lifestyle of relative abundance.

Busybodies of the State will still attempt to harass you, for example citing zoning laws or launching complaints to take up your valuable time.  This is where you can become involved in the political process, and at a level that you, the reader have much influence. I am suggesting that applying anti-politics to your lives and engaging in the political process at the municipal level will provide the means to break down the overwhelming control of the State.

Anti politics (removing or reducing your dependance on the municipal grid and services) reduces the tax revenues of the State, provides an example for your friends and neighbours to follow and even co-ops some of the memes that the Statists use to attempt to control your lives.

Being active in municipal politics is doable for the majority of people, and the results can be imediate and very gratifying (rolling back intrusive bylaws and ordinances, for example).

Perhaps this is not as much fun as prospecting in the rings of Saturn or sea steading in the Earth's oceans, but it is doable, and it is possible for all of us, today.

Freedom is a self help project!