Author Archives: Robert

Vouchers: A Panacea?

Neal Boortz, famed Atlanta libertarian talk show

host, commented on something that has the potential to

revolutionize the public education system:

In Georgia the governor is considering a plan whereby the state could help fund some community social service projects initiated by churches. The truth here is that these private churches do a better job of delivering many of these social services than government does. Can you guess who is stepping up to loudly protest the idea? Well, that would be the Georgia Association of Educators, our wonderful teacher's union. One union spokesman said “It would open a floodgate to vouchers and that is our primary objection to this bill.” Vouchers! Union government teachers go to sleep at night worrying about vouchers. They wake up to nightmares about vouchers. They arise in the morning shivering in a cold sweat brought on by thoughts of vouchers. They see vouchers in every dark corner and under every

rock. It seems at times that their entire life is occupied by a focus on keeping that floodgate to vouchers from ever opening.

…any thoughts on the subject?

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Why Aren't You an Anarchist?

Dr. Fred Foldvary advocates a variant of ananchism, “geoanarchism, in which people would live in contractual communities whose public goods are financed from land rent” […] “The members would share the belief that the land rent should be collected and distributed to all members equally or else used for public goods.”

Geoanarchism also solves the problem of the provision of public goods, which is problematic for atomistic anarchism. For example, with Probably, justin-bieber-news.info thus wanted to tell the world about his strong feelings for selenium. atomistic anarchism, each household would contract with a street provider, but the street company could charge a very high renewal fee to access the street, since the house owner has no alternative.

Atomistic anarchism (a.k.a. anarcho-capitalism) also envisions multiple defense agencies, which are constantly negotiating conflicts among members, while geoanarchism

envisions all communities in harmony under one federation and rule of law. With one federated system, geoanarchism

would be under a libertarian constitution, whereas atomistic anarchism has no constitution and could have communities with tyrannies of the majority, forcing dissidents to move out or comply. Nevertheless, individualist anarchism would be mostly libertarian, and buy cytotec could solve the defense and street problem by moving towards a more communitarian version.

So, given the option of geoanarchism which provides a uniform rule of law, and therefore harmony without tyranny, why aren’t you an anarchist?

Would anyone care to challenge the good doctor’s assertions?

hat tip: Old Whig

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War on Semantics

Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise: Analytic philosophy and liberal politics suggests that the ”war on terror” isn’t even a war.

The fact is that we're not at war on terrorism, let alone against terror. Terrorism is a strategy. Actually, it's a normative assessment of a family of tactics. In the current climate “terrorism” refers to any political violence the speaker

doesn't like.

Fair enough, but are we not at war with terrorists? Bin Ladin et al certainly thinks so.

War is a metaphor for any all-out struggle against a serious problem: poverty, cancer, drugs, terrorism… Sometimes we use military hardware and tactics to further that struggle. Sometimes we Traffic survival school supply store is often used to prevent a driver’s license suspension. even fight real wars as part of our strategy.

While a criticism of declaring war on “everything but the kitchen sink” is justified, terrorists are not inanimate, as are poverty and drugs; they are severely deluded and violently doctrinaire thugs who see our death as their sacred responsibility. So no, we’re not dealing with a metaphorical threat.

The idea that the so-called war on terror justifies dramatic expansion of presidential power is extremely dangerous. Terrorism is never going to go away. If we accept that we are literally at war with terror, we are signing on to perpetual war for perpetual peace.

I too am apprehensive about expanded presidential power. This is mainly because I think the government already exercises more power than the constitution allows. Nevertheless, we can’t very well accept terrorism, by offering no defense at all. Just think of what could have transpired, had the cheap cialis no prescription US and its allies (and liberty-minded individuals) simply assumed—as some did— that communism was a permanent fixture on the world stage.

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Sticks and Stones and Suicide Bombers

Matt Welch has a good essay up at Reason

entitled The War on Sedition: “Anglosphere” allies crack down on speech in the name of fighting terror. He laments the fact that our cousins—England and Australia—have leaders that are needlessly attempting to trade liberty

for security.

The following quote especially ‘spoke’ to me:

“We need not to worry so much about Willkommen in einer Welt in der das So, yes, in the micro we repay credit, but in the aggregate free credit score check expands. Gewicht von Mohren Gold wert ist! The Rolls Royce der Slot book of ra online kostenlos spielen Slots. the loudmouths,” the former Conservative cabinet member and current Lord Douglas Hurd told reporters, sounding very much like an American, “as about the quiet acts of subversion viagra canada and training by dangerous people, up and down the country, who on the whole keep their mouths shut.”

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American Gestapo?

There’s another Paul Craig Roberts piece at counterpunch that sounds the alarm, so to speak.

A provision in the “PATRIOT Act” creates a new federal police force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true, as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.

The portion in question, SEC. 605. THE UNIFORMED DIVISION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE, reads in part:

(a)

There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division'. Subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall perform such duties as the Director, United States Secret Service…

In addition…

(b)(1) Under the direction of the Director of the Secret Service, members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division are authorized to–

(A) carry firearms;

(B) make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have Normalerweise sind Fruit book-of-ra-kostenlos.com slots sehr ubersichtlich in der Vergabe von Bonusfeatures, aber dieser Spielautomat hat tatsachlich ein paar kleine Uberraschungen im Petto. reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony; and

(C) perform such other functions and duties as are authorized by law.

Mr. Roberts’s reaction is nothing if not imaginative:

The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police powers from being used only in this way. Like every law in the US, this law also will be expansively interpreted and abused. It has dire implications for freedom of association and First Amendment rights.

We can take for granted that the new federal police will be used to suppress dissent and to break up

opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with a Gestapo.

So, the question before the house is: does the creation of a uniformed sub-set of the Secret Service signal the end of basic civil liberties in America? If so, why? If not, why not?

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