Westboro Church

I fully support freedom of speech and association, but that doesn’t mean I support anybody’s right to say and do anything anywhere.

Perfect example: The Westboro Church.

It’s like every irrational and contemptible idea on the planet was squashed together into one. They are anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom, pro-blind faith; the list goes on. But it is not just their ideas that make them evil, it’s how they go about spreading them.

For those who don’t know, it is Westboro church that protested at soldier’s funerals, proudly holding up signs, “Thank God for Dead Solders”, and clapping when they where lowered in the ground (a women reported that she couldn’t even hear the eulogy because of these people.)

They are also “anti-gay”, often finding where gay couples or families live and harassing them.

In fact, there latest act in a long list of sins, they plan to go to Heath Ledgers’ funeral and protest because of his role in “Brokeback Mountain.”

They are so absurd, I almost have to believe they are a joke, to make other Christians look bad.

I will say, there are those who posses the same ideas of these people, and behave maturely, and even respect other people. Westboro church respects nothing. If it’s even possible; they seem to lack any redeeming qualities.

And I don’t even need to say, if you spend a significant portion of your life devoted to what you hate (which these people do), you’re missing out on life. Hate is all these people seem to have.

Yes, I support freedom of speech and association; but I don’t support assault, slander, or the violation of property rights. Let these people speak on there own land, or where they are invited; but when they force themselfs onto others land, point a microphone directly into somebody’s ear, or harass a person; they have stepped out of the realm of the First Amendment, and into the realm of assault.

The Westboro Churches’ right to speech doesn’t give it the right to violate another’s property and persons.

But there are cases where this group did peaceably assemble, and even though I support there right to speak in these instances, for the sake of class, and dignity, I wish they would shut-up. Supporting freedom doesn’t make the rants of the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro church any less contemptible.

Nothing I could say would be as damming as their own words. Here is a reporter from the BBC that interviews several of its members.

A Thought on the Carbon Tax

Let’s say that the entire world, with the exception of the United States, stops eating chocolate; what would then happen to the price of chocolate in the United States? It would naturally fall, and then come up slightly. A decrease in demand causes an increase of supply, which lowers prices; prices stay low, and demand increases, causing a slight rise in prices (though rarly reaching what it was before.) This is the most basic of basic economics.

In the same sense, what will happen if the United States puts a ‘carbon tax’ into place, or even bans fossil fuels all-together?

The fervent environmentalist, or the silver-tongued politician, would hail this as a small triumph to achieve there eventually goal of environmental utopia and harmony. And in a certain sense they are correct, there would likely be less carbon based pollution within the United States.

Unfortunately, the reality of economics doesn’t bend so easily.

By increasing prices within the U.S., it makes it cheaper for everybody else. Counties with extremely fast rates of growth, like China or India, will gladly buy up what we don’t. Instead of India investing in cleaner nuclear power, it will instead use bargain basket fossil fuels

And contrary to popular belief, freer countries are actually less pollutant then ones that don’t protect its citizen’s rights. In China, there is no protection if your property is violated, nobody to complain to, no real legal system to work in; in countries where lives are disposable and property unprotected; there is nothing to stop pollution.

In America, excess pollution is stopped by the protection of property rights, and natural market forces.*

Ironically, a carbon tax is likely to increase the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Though this fact is not likely to deter the environmentalists; anybody with basic reasoning skills could realize the impracticality of any kind of carbon tax.

That’s because what is being proposed now in the name of protecting the environment is not unique to this generation. The same controls were proposed in the 1930’s and 40’s, when socialism was all the rage; it was in a large part implemented during World War II (though there was some validity to this); during the Korean and then Vietnam wars; The “gas crisis” of the 1970’s; in the U.K., global cooling (in large part promoted by the Thatcher government) helped create controls; Then global warming and now climate change perform the same task. Every generation has different justifications for what is essentially the same thing.

This is because modern environmentalism is not pure; it is an expression of a failed political movement and a dying philosophy. When the ‘practical’, or even the ‘moral’, justifications for political control fell away, environmentalism was one of the few surviving ideologies that could support those creeds.

And it was glad to pick up the cause.

Any ‘climate change’ legislation essentially boils down to one thing; artificially raising the cost of fossil fuels. The legislation could complicate this process, but that’s about it.

And just like chocolate, any economist (or reasonable person) can predict what will happen if a part of the world stops consuming a valuable commodity.

This demonstrates how even the most simple of concepts (like supply and demand) can be buried under the weight of bad ideas and clumsy rationalism.

- Ryan

* There is strong evidence to suggest that when a country first begins to industrialize it produces most of its pollution, and when it reaches a certain point, the pollution begins to decline.

And it’s not hard to see why, priorities change with abundance; if my family is dying of hunger, I don’t worry about the plight of the buffalo or protecting national parks.

When a society can ‘afford’ to be clean, it naturally becomes cleaner. This is well demonstrated in the American society. We have more trees, cleaner rivers and lakes, and cleaner air then we’ve had in more then a hundred years. There is even a decrease in the use of carbon (or rather, how clean it is) over the past ten years.

Contrary to the popular myth, free markets are actually better for the environment then there statist alternatives. Russia and China produce an absurd amount of toxins, even those countries that signed the Kyoto protocol have been getting worse (in the countries that signed, carbon use has increased 4 percent.)

Yet again, freedom has proven itself superior.

Space Ship Two

Virgin Galactic announced the first commercial space craft to lift off soon. They should start in late 2009, with the first test flights around june of this year.

This is pretty exiting news, it means more then just Backstreet Boys and aging politicians can soon make it into space (for a substantial amount of money.)

There are even plans for an inflatable space hotel, which will orbit the planet and offer longer stays in space.

Does this represent the dawning of the new age of space flight? Maybe. But I think if private space is to become common, we are going to have to find a more practical application then just tourism.

If nothing else, it shows private industry is vastly superior to government-run programs when it comes to cost effectiveness, practicality, innovation, and even safety.

The link to their site is Here.

Below is an animation created by Virgin Galactic:

'What to Expect When You’re Free Trading'

Here is a good Op-Ed by Steven E. Landsburg published in The New York Times.

I wish he went into more detail, but he still underlines the main conflict in “protecting” American jobs; that no matter which way you cut it, if the government is involved, it involves force.

Sadly, because of the general ignorance of basic economics, no candidate can go on the record and say that it’s not worth it, and wrong besides, to keep American jobs at the cost of freedom and greater prosperity; not that any candidate would say this, even if they could.

Very few recognize that “keeping jobs” involves forcing decisions out of people, decisions that they would presumably not prefer; after all, the only reason the government would need to protect a job would be if it no longer provide the best value to other people.

When politicians talk about “protecting America’s workers” they are talking about holding up a market that people no longer desire, or useful has expired.

In New Jersey, there is a law that says that person cannot pup their own gas (I don’t know if this is still on the books.) This was instituted under the same backwards logic as the protectionist policies above. What few realize is: sure, you have more jobs at gas stations, but at the price of more expensive gasoline.

Most people, given the choice, would prefer to save money and pump their own gas; but by law they can’t.

By spending money on a service they didn’t want, they take money away from where it should have gone; that is, precisely where that person wanted it to go based on there own desires.

Little controls like this add up, and eventually, billons are lost in investments that never happened, or products that were never bought; industries that were never born.

Imagine what would have happened to this country if the government tried to protect carriage makers, at the cost of the automobile or the train; or the steam engine, at the cost of internal combustion; or tried to protect domestic electronic manufactures from foreign competition, at the cost of satellite and pharmaceutical research (and they ARE connected.)

What’s ironic is that these policies produce little of the benefits they promise, and many times result in a lower standard of living.

I hope people realize this before the government controls all our decisions in the name of “protecting America’s workers.”

“An Idea Is A Greater Monument Then A Cathedral”

While the movie Inherit the Wind has very little to do with the trial it was based on, it still expertly demonstrates and dramatizes the underlining battle of ideas that went on there.

Art can be seen as a reflection of culture; a collage of its dominant ideas and conflicts. Watching the clip below, I'm surprised how different movies where back then; sure, they lacked the subtlety and finesse of modern movies, but there was little of the vagueness and that certain evasive relativism that’s hard to define.

While movies are more technically brilliant then they ever where, in many ways they are much more cowardly; even those movies which are supposedly “cutting edge” or “controversial” stink of this same vagueness, the same fear, the same unwillingness to commit to anything they say. In the end, they only end up being offensive, and even at that they mostly fail.

A movie about a child molester (The Woodsman) ends up saying nothing, even committing to a solid picture of the character. A movie that explores racism without ever exploring racism (Crash.)Vague pseudo-philosophical rhetoric that attempts to be “deep” (The Matrix sequels.) And a movie that plays with, but never commits to, the idea of fate and God (I am Legend.)

All these movies are a testament to our time, to the post-modern, anti-ideas that have become almost entirely dominant.

Well, below is a movie that has none of that vagueness, whose characters declare exactly what they believe in, and why.

I have to say, it’s refreshing:



There is another good clip here.

Brilliant Video on Economics: A tribute to Milton Freidman

This is great; I don't even have to say anything, it speaks for itself.

Without further ado:



I also found this at Café Hayek.

Another Reason to be Happy and Optimistic

It seems, counter to what many would claim, wealth in this country is growing, not decreasing; and despite the proclamations of Lou Dobbs and the like, the middle class is doing quite well.

Just read at this quote from Walter Williams:

"Controlling for inflation, in 1967, 8 percent of households had an annual income of $75,000 and up; in 2003, more than 26 percent did. In 1967, 17 percent of households had a $50,000 to $75,000 income; in 2003, it was 18 percent. In 1967, 22 percent of households were in the $35,000 to $50,000 income group; by 2003, it had fallen to 15 percent. During the same period, the $15,000 to $35,000 category fell from 31 percent to 25 percent, and the under $15,000 category fell from 21 percent to 16 percent. The only reasonable conclusion from this evidence is that if the middle class is disappearing, it's doing so by swelling the ranks of the upper classes."

I found this at Café Hayek.

“New Math” Put In Its Place

When I lived in Nevada, I suffered through this “revolutionary” math systems with my sister’s homework.

The process was cumbersome, complicated, and unintuitive. Often, “new math” didn’t produce the correct answer; a ton of special rules needed to be created to solve the flaws in the process (though, for the record, I am in favor of teaching different base systems; but not as a replacment for base 10.)

Well, I’m glad people are starting to catch on, and are realizing that a new system is not necessary a better one.

Below is an entertaining video that lays down the convoluted process of “new math” subtraction. I love it when he says, “In the new approach, as you know, it is more important to understand what you are doing then to get the right answer.”



It is connected to the dryer but more informative: Math Education, an Inconvenient Truth

-Ryan

P.S.---I also like this guys rendition of the elements Here.