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That can pretty much be applied to followers of almost all religions. Here in the US we have a number of Christian Talibans, Reconstructionists, and those who believe in Manifest Destiny who like some Muslims believe in stoning.

Falcom

You don't live in Arizona do you? They've already cut everything they can... So don't knock the government here for doing everything in their power to fix the problem. At least we haven't had to send out IOU's like California yet.

Blame Arizona? What, with its rich heritage of fine leaders and businessmen like Evan Mecham, Fife Symington, Charles Keating, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Not to mention a couple losing presidential candidates. Sigh.

They do of stupid things, and all their good talent seems to get skimmed off the top. Damn term limits.

There are two important factors often overlooked in the "organic" vs. conventional debate. First is cost. Is it better to have produce that is slightly less nutritious but cheaper so that people eat more of it? Simply stated, if conventionally grown salad greens are cheaper will people eat more of them (and be healthier) or will more people (poorer people) eat them when they wouldn't at a higher price (and be healthier)? Second is practicality. The great Nobel Peace price winning agronomist Norman Borlaug has stated that in common analysis there simply isn't a way to change the world to 100% organic produce. There simply isn't enough sh*t to support feeding the world's current population plus reduced efficiencies of organic farming methods are an issue. http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html

The report specifically doesn't look into the main reasons why I tend to buy organic - which aren't do to with health issues primarily, but to do with environmental and animal husbandry factors

Do human beings ever come into play while considering these "animal husbandry" factors?

Organic Alchemy

As the Cambridge chemist John Emsley recently concluded, "The greatest catastrophe that the human race could face this century is not global warming but a global conversion to 'organic farming'--an estimated 2 billion people would perish."

Yeah, I remember when I first learned to use google. Listen, you're going to have to actually learn to read books to get the truth rather than from dipshits on the internet.

I have read books. I only have a fraction of the books and magazines I've bought but I still have 100 plus books and hundreds more magazines. These books and magazines range from culture to economics to science and technology. I bought Adam Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" which I gave to my younger sister as well as "Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution" which is on my bookshelf right behind me. I subscribe to "Reason" magazine and regularly read the "Economist". Besides reading I've also learned from my family. One of my sister's a Certified Public Accountant who runs her own accounting business. Her husband is a Certified Financial Planner who has run his run business as well as worked as a daytrader.

My family started in the low income bracket, my dad retired as an enlisted airman in the US Air Force. And while my mom raised 3 children she worked her way through a technical school to become a lab tech in a hospital. All three of us children worked our way at least partially through college. My older sister's now a nurse. And not only does my younger sister run her own business she's also a property owner. Among others she owns the apartment building I live in. Now I haven't gotten a Bachelor's degree never mind the PhD I wanted. But that was because of an accident I had while in college. Due to an injury and disability I survived my college degree plans were put on hold. And now I don't know when, or if, I'll be able to start taking classes again. I am hoping though that I can get back to college where I plan to study international business and economics.

On the surface he of course does not support these things but his progeny tell a completely different story.

Yea and all Germans were responsible for Hitler.

I suppose you've never heard of Glass-Steagall?

I know about the Glass-Steagall Act, which created the FDIC and some banking regulations.

Your knowledge of history is extremely superficial. It's what comes from learning everything from wikipedia and google searches.

Your knowledge of me is what is extremely superficial. And on that note I'm ending this.

Falcon

Actually, quite a few products are made by well paid people in western countries, precisely because they have unions.

Citation needed.

Not all unions are good, but many are.

I suppose, not all trusts were bad either, but the US has long-standing laws against them. What many fail to realize, is that trade unions are the same — trusts seeking to become monopolistic sources of their members' services. That they sometimes fight for that through highly illegal means, including violence ought to subject them to anti-racketeering laws as well...

Now, I am all for "freedom of association" — even if Senators McCain & Feingold aren't — and have no problems with collective bargaining per se. What I see as evil, however, are the legal advantages and protections, that unions enjoy even in our mostly free country...

Corporations don't lower their prices when they reduce their costs. They just pocket the money.

Fortunately, that is none of our business, is it?

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

Fortunately, nobody is forced to associate with corporations... I hear, the North Korea's and Cuba's borders are open to people wanting to move in... Quick, rush back to Chomsky's drivel to find a decent-sounding reason you are still here...

I wasn't there when she was discussing her motives, but it is commonly assumed that Ms. Carson wanted DDT banned, absolutely.

Nope, she was against large scale agricultural use, and specifically not against disease vector control.

Here's an interesting article that does a good job summing up the controversy.

As far as I can tell, the laws and public opinion about freedom of speech issues are dysfunctional.

I think, the belief is, we'd rather suffer through annoyances of some fools/assholes/weirdos saying stuff we don't like, than have the Government decide, what can and can not be said.

Also I'm absolutely convinced that corporate speech and political speech is more dangerous than hate speech. And the US has completely failed to deal with them... or for that matter even discuss them openly and honestly.

"Corporate speech" is advertising and is very restricted already — way too much, in this immigrant's opinion. They can't advertise cigarettes. They can't even tell you, their food is good for you!

As for political speech, well, that's what the First Amendment, actually, is about, even if it was misused in the past to claim the right to sell pornography. So hands off! I wish, I could shout that into the ears of Senators McCain and Feingold, when they were pushing their unconstitutional law...

Back to your statement, both political and corporate speech in the US has, in fact, been discussed and dealt with, so you are 100% wrong. Which is very unfortunate...

When you have the Military controling civilian security, the civilians become the enemy...You can't just take an MP out of the fleet, give him a badge and a gun, and expect him to take a squad car around the block with out incident.

We've been militarizing ordinary police work for the past few decades, since the Reagan era. It's part of the general trend of the militarization of society pushed by authoritarian neoconservatives.

It is generally considered that they are a slightly left party. By generally, I mean every media source, every political pundit, in fact every source I know.

I am certainly not basing my observations on the interpretations of the media or political pundits. I am making my observations based on policy decisions and on how they vote on legislation. The last term they voted for just about every piece of PM Harpers bills into reality. The Liberals are certainly more left of the Right, but not being extremists does not make them left wing. What the "media" says is useless. They are either beholden to advertisers and ratings or in terms of shows like the 700 Club, by special interest groups. There's an interesting write-up on the so-called "Liberal" magazine Time that says a lot here (ref, http://www.reason.com/news/show/134038.html.

The Liberals certainly have been more "socialist" than the new re-vamped Conservatives and under the reign of Mike Harris in Ontario (I'll mention again that he decimated the economy, the school system, increased taxes while claiming to have decreased taxes [through the process of "downloading" expenses onto the poorer populations of major cities, etc and so on]). The Liberals are just more subtle about these things because they don't want to alienate and potential voters. The Conservatives are more into burning bridges and claiming that people who disagree with their policies are "left wing". Does this sound American to you?

In my own province of Ontario the contemporary "Liberal" government has raised taxes on the poor (largely by increasing cigarette taxes substantially), but in their own words it is for the poor's own good (to suffer); "think of the children...". They have also banned Face Book from being used on government computers. These are just examples of Right Wing behavior, individually they don't add up to much, but all of their practices together add up to patterns of behavior that set them apart from more neutral or truly "Liberal" practices as is known by History and Political Science.

One must also realize that Right and Left are not just distinguished by economic issues, but by social issues as well. I did a journal on this not to long ago (it never ended up getting "published", but it remains as a link that I can reference; http://slashdot.org/~unlametheweak/journal/229887).

It has been disputed by at least one person here, but Political Compass is an excellent and rather neutral Web site that goes more deeply into the Left and Right interpretations. Many people of the Right, Left, and etc that I have talked to here on Slashdot seem to value that Web site as a good resource. You may want to take some time and read the details of it instead of just listing it as biased because I happened to use it as an example (http://www.politicalcompass.org/index). The original like that I gave out pertaining to the Liberals; http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008.

I'm worried that the Supreme Court, should it eventually take this case, might find a way to justify these hugely exorbitant awards on technically narrow and nit-picky grounds that nonetheless are broad enough in reality to make fighting the RIAA essentially a hopeless cause financially for most people. The Kelo decision shows the kind of sloppy reasoning that can lead to appalling results. It surely doesn't help that Jammie appears to be guilty of deliberate file-sharing and tampering with evidence after the fact. One could wish heartily for a much more sympathetic defendant.

You're very in-line in the conventional wisdom. Here's a starter article that shows the scholastic work being done to try and bring that conventional wisdom around to reality:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28703.html

It's certainly not an end-all, be-all resource. But it's a nice starting point to broadening your discourse on intellectual property.

It's not all just "common sense", and some things are certainly prerequisites to others. It's notable that in repeating some of your core points, you chose to still consider IP law a foundational element while trivializing my notion that quality of life and general wealth are the actual foundation of career artists. But it is logically certain. IP law doesn't pay anyone, it merely provides limited time monopolies on creatives works. However, *most notably*, all creatives works were *extremely difficult to duplicate* until very recent times. The natural monopoly of of physical existence, in combination with additional wealth allocated by society to the arts, makes IP law irrelevant until very recent times. However, career artists have not existed only in very recent times...

I'll stop hammering the same conceptual points, but just because one can settle on conventional wisdom doesn't make it correct... it just makes it easy.

"I just made up an imaginary environmentalist. I hate that asshole. We could invest in solar, but he's a real son of a bitch and he's going to gripe no matter what I do.

Imaginary? Here's a whole article about environmentalists trying to block solar power plants.

"It's not just businesses that have slowed things down, it's not just Republicans that have slowed things down, it's also Democrats and also environmental activists sometimes that slow things down," declared a frustrated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) during a speech at Yale University this past spring. "They say that we want renewable energy but we don't want you to put it anywhere, we don't want you to use it." Schwarzenegger added, "I don't know whether this is ironic or absurd. But, I mean, if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/128044.html

By the way, if we allowed payment for the sale of organs, there would be a lot more of them available and a lot fewer people dying due to lack of organs!

Here is a link to the case for selling human organs.

No, but thanks for twisting my words to make it sound like that.

If I didn't know the pictures source besides a name, and the kid wasn't in the bathtub, yea, I'd be skeptical of a picture of a naked kid. But that's just me. Should the lady have been arrested? No. That's why I said the cops fucked up their job.

"Have any naked baby photos of your kids? Remember the mother who got arrested at Wal-Mart after taking such photos to be developed?"

link: "a WalMart worker in Pennsylvania reported 59-year-old Donna Dull to local authorities after Dull dropped off some film that included shots of her three-year-old granddaughter in and just out of the bath. Dull was arrestedâ"roughly, she saysâ"and charged with producing and distributing child pornography. The charges were dropped 15 months later..."

So, she's just more used to Dvorak, and he's more used to Qwerty. Doesn't really matter... dvorak isn't really superior.

Personal anecdotes are not evidence. Please read this (starting from "Tainted Evidence" if you want to skip the boring bits) and be enlightened.

• some people might prefer not living in an experiment like that... and any city of appreciable size is likely to have a good number of those people, so
• if you're going to be embarking on crazy city reengineering projects, you need to give the people-in-charge an awful lot of power to make it happen... and then you need to make sure that they're actually interested in doing that sort of experiment instead of pushing another preexisting pet sociopolitical agenda
• many of the most vibrant and well-regarded sorts of neighborhoods in this country were built without much central planning
• there's some room for criticism of current popular urban planning thinking (granted, the critics here are a bunch of Libertarians and naturally hate it, but they have some solid points)
• just-this-moment we're a little short on funds for big city reengineering projects ;)

The real world, alas, is not as simple as SimCity. :P

I remember seeing an old 60 Minutes about Archer Daniels Midland and they showed the CEO getting off Air Force One. They have a lot of pull and they are a major player in Ethanol.

Archer Daniels Midland has been liked to as a corporate welfare queen.

Falcon

I'm assuming most people here won't have a problem with this research. But truly, where is the line? What about injecting human brain cells into mice? How about into chimps? Do we have any moral obligations not to cross this line? I am in awe and at the same time terrified about the future.

This article raises some of these questions. It's quite interesting that it was written in 2004. It even mentions the FOXP2 gene.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/34941.html

If the nation really wanted a really good SCOTUS justice, it should obviously pick me. ...
I suppose if I had a choice in the matter, I'd probably pick a thinker like Nick Gillespie. But I don't.

Well, this tells us all we need to know. Where did you go to law school? What experience do you have? Of course as you noted, you're an unlikely candidate, so let's take a look at your other choice -- someone with degrees in English literature and creative writing, whose claim to fame is that he edits a knee-jerk libertarian magazine. I can understand why you would pick someone like this ideologically, but do you have any evidence this guy has even read the Constitution all the way through, much less is familiar with a vast body of case law? I know there have been political and ideological appointments to the bench in the past but for me I'm much more comfortable with a justice who has actually, you know, studied law. Cheers!

It's a long list.

The list of badly thought out rationalizations to prohibit free speech is indeed long, but the number of people who subscribe to them that I know is not large. Admittedly, I live in an area where even the state government has rejected the federal position on many of these issues -- we have laws *against* eminent domain, *against* federal firearms authority, and so forth. Perhaps the people in your area do indeed cleave as a majority to the ideas you mention above. If so, what a crying, pitiful shame. And what a broad condemnation of our educational system.

So yes, the 1st Amendment, as written, is an extremist position. That doesn't make it bad, but it does make it unconventional.

The constitution, inclusive of the first amendment, is the constituting authority for government power and structure. Anything to the contrary is by definition illegal and unauthorized, barring pursuit of article V. That's not opinion: That's fact. The legal system is being driven by people in violation of the highest law in the land. Fact. If you take comfort in the commonality of the number and position of the lawbreakers, that's your business. I don't. I only regret that there are no penalties associated with violation of the constitution's requirements; I have no doubt in my mind that is why legislators and judges alike feel free to "wing it" whenever they choose.

So, assuming you do have a clue, who are you pushing for?

No, you have it right. I'm pushing against Sotomayor. I'm not in a position where I can nominate anyone. But I can raise my voice against poor choices.

However... If the nation really wanted a really good SCOTUS justice, it should obviously pick me. I'd protect rights as written in the constitution, and my response to those who would twist its words to try to get what they want would uniformly "seek an amendment." But guess what? I misspent my teenage years (drugs) and part of my young adult life [crazed musician], I'm not wealthy, and frankly, I couldn't win the office of dogcatcher on my best day. So my input is limited to speaking my opinion, and defending it as best I can, in the face of whatever opposition arises. From time to time, someone shows me where I'm wrong, and I adjust my opinions accordingly. That's just as much of a win for me as is enlightening someone else, as (very) occasionally happens.

I suppose if I had a choice in the matter, I'd probably pick a thinker like Nick Gillespie. But I don't.

Reason has happily put the proper amount of time into laying out just why identity politics and judical choice do not mix.

And for the record, a number of my friends are lawyers so I'm very aware the law can be ambiguous. But you must be careful when saying that because a lawyer has a very different and highly specialized notion of what is "ambiguous", and again just because some things are does not mean ALL things are.

You know what? It's nice to finally see "climate change" being less of a parareligious asceticism movement and more results-oriented. About time.

As usual, you are behind the times:

No, my friend, I'm afraid that's just the way things look when you're being lapped. Taubes did indeed make a lame attempt to defend his "work", such as it is, against Fumento's criticism, which Fumento then tore to bits.

Advocates of Atkins-style diets belong in the same bin with creationists, climate change deniers, and (to bring this back on point) the folks who told us for years that making water bottles out of a polymer of a synthetic hormone was perfectly safe because BPA couldn't possibly ever ever leach from polycarbonate.

Except that Atkins-style diets are more dangerous to human health than those other ideas.

As for Taubes and his famous "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" story, he's full of crap.

As usual, you are behind the times:

in his second paragraph, Fumento characterizes my article as arguing "that the consumption of too little fat [Fumento's emphasis] could explain the explosion in obesity." He does not quote the article, which would have been easy to do had it included such a declaration anywhere in its nearly 8,000 words, but it doesn't. Rather my article challenged the accepted dogma that obesity and excess weight are caused by the excessive consumption of fat calories, and instead suggested that it was caused by the excessive consumption of calories from refined carbohydrates and starches.

Try again, troll.

As for Taubes and his famous "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" story, he's full of crap.

As usual, you are behind the times:

in his second paragraph, Fumento characterizes my article as arguing "that the consumption of too little fat [Fumento's emphasis] could explain the explosion in obesity." He does not quote the article, which would have been easy to do had it included such a declaration anywhere in its nearly 8,000 words, but it doesn't. Rather my article challenged the accepted dogma that obesity and excess weight are caused by the excessive consumption of fat calories, and instead suggested that it was caused by the excessive consumption of calories from refined carbohydrates and starches.

Try again, troll.

You mean like AIG, Wall Street, all these stupid banks involved in subprime mortgage scams, GM and Chrysler... Oh wait they didnt fail they got a bail out.

The fact they were bailed out shows there wasn't a freemarket. Under a free market the government would have let all of them fail and declare bankrupty. Many of those who support a free market opposed them. Here's some articles from the freemarket think-tank CATO. Here's more articles from the Libertarian Party, with more from the magazine "Reason". All of them support freemarkets.

Falcon

HFCS is not precisely the problem.

The problem is mostly that American's caloric intake increased almost 25% between 1970 and 2000, while at the same time we became more sedentary. Any difference that the sort of calories (fat, protein, complex carbs, simple sugars, whatever) might make is swamped by the fact the we just eat too much gorram food and don't get our asses up and moving enough.

A couple hundred extra calories a day above your metabolic needs is going to make you a lard-ass whether you eat them as wheat germ and broccoli, or as bacon double cheeseburgers. (Though the bacon double cheeseburgers will probably still hit you harder in terms of cancer, heart disease, and other fun effects.)

As for Taubes and his famous "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" story, he's full of crap.

I can't quite believe I'm feeding the trolls, but...

i am not like them and i am glad of it. if they want to have the same "freedom" we have and the same "prosperity" we have.

Riiight, those are the only motivations. Or maybe that's a strawman that was set up by the Bush administration.

then they can move here and quit their whining and jihad bullshit. nobody is forcing them to live in a giant catlitter box. they are choosing to live there and complain about their "plight" seriously they are just bitching for the sake of bitching because they are too fucking dumb or assholish or small minded to do something different. i may sound racist

Yes, you do. But at least you balance it out by sounding ignorant as well.

but at least i am being honest.

Though not well-informed.

and like i said before. they want out of the cat box all they have to do is move somewhere else... i hear Hawaii is rather nice...

Here's a cartoon flow-chart based on actual research and facts explaining a few of the things you clearly don't understand about how difficult it is to immigrate to the USA. I expect other Western countries have similar, or worse, flowcharts of their own.

(One thing I would add to the flow chart is an initial box for "do you have enough money to travel from your home country to the USA?". You may find this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita>chart of GDP per capita for various countries to be illuminating. Sorry, not a cartoon. Remember that the chart is overoptimistic because it only gives you the mean, not the median. The median is likely to fall below the mean.)

Contrary to what the people on Slashdot tell you, every image of a nude person under the age of 18 is not necessarily child porn

If the prosecutor has a "gut feeling" it is, it is.

The absolutely hilarious thing about paypal is that one of its co-founders fancies himself a libertarian who says of paypal: "The basic thought was if you could lessen the control of government over money and somehow shift the ability of people to control the money that was in their wallets, this would be a truly revolutionary shift." despite the fact that paypal is basically just an (expensive) escrow service with a frankly nasty reputation for incompetence, asshattery, and penny-ante fraud(Sorry, your account is locked, hope you didn't have any money in there).

Carrying the rest of the country economically? bullshit

Economist Bernard "Bud" Weinstein probably would agree. He says "North Texas Best Place to Be in Recession". Now if I recall right, from threads yesterday and the day before we've conversed in, you think Obama is doing the right thing. Well so does "Bud". He "believes the steps are headed in the right direction." Further, "He believes North Texas will fare better than most of the country, as the area's economy was strong as it headed into the global recession. People already were reported to be flocking to the region from all over the United States, especially from California and Michigan, with the surge expected to increase once the economy improves later this year or in early 2010."

Now I don't agree, or disagree, but your bullshit statement caused me to look it up so I found that article.

Middle ranking? is 49th a middle ranking as that was the last ranking I heard for Texas [last few years]

You're still right, Texas is near the bottom in education. However New Hampshire, the state for the libertarian Free State Project, is ranked number 1 by at least one calculation. It looks like New Hampshire high school students also score higher on the SAT than average.

Libertarians and Republicans might have their differences but they tend to vote together, are cut from the same cloth

I started out as a democrat, though not registered. The first tyme I voted I voted for Jimmy Carter. I don't recall who I voted for in '84 but then in '88 I voted for Ron Paul on the Libertarian ticket. During the 2004 campaign there were some Libertarians for Howard Dean. And in 2008 there was a debate on who would be better, or less bad, McCain or Obama. I think I told you before, but I may be wrong, I voted for Obama myself. So while the Libertarian Party was started by people who left the Republican Party not all are or vote for Republicans.

My problem with Texas is that a whole bunch of stupid radiates from that state every year and is mucking up the country I live in and Love.

I sometimes feel the same about both Democrats and Republicans.

Falcon

don't confuse "considered and rejected as laughably incorrect" with closed mind my friend. don't confuse "considered and rejected as laughably incorrect" with closed mind my friend.

The generally consensus, supported by real world data, that i have seen has said the laffer curve is only valid somewhere above 60% marginal max tax rate

So, where is this agreement among economists on what ranges are appropriate for the Laffer Curve? I googled economics "laffer curve" agreement ranges and checked a bunch of results and not one said there any agreement of the validity of a range of the Laffer Curve.

The generally consensus, supported by real world data, that i have seen has said the laffer curve is only valid somewhere above 60% marginal max tax rate,

One of the pages I found has this scenario:
"By June, you've already made a million dollars, and the progressive tax system promised to tax that income 50 percent. However, anything you make over a million will be taxed 90 percent. Why work the rest of the year when you know you can only keep 10 percent of your income? You'd probably take your half a million and retire to your beach house until next year. At this point, the taxes are discouraging work and tax revenue."

If you let your top marginal tax rate fall below a certain level you then start to perform wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich as the rich gain more benefit per tax dollar than the poor.

If you drop the marginal tax rate the wealthy will keep more money. And they will spend it and or invest it. More spending helps the economy grow, as does more investments. Where money is redistributed by government giving subsidies. Vary few poor people will see any of that whereas the already wealthy will get those subsidies. Cargill, one of the world's largest privately owned corporations, has been called a corporate welfare queen due to the massive subsidies it gets. Government is taking money out of poor workers and giving it to a hugh private business.

Falcon

Reason Magazine talked about this a few years ago.

The NYC version:

http://oldsite.reason.com/0610/howtofireanincompetentteacher.pdf

This is for NYS:

How Do I Fire an Incompetent Teacher? (Flowchart)

At this point the best thing we do is stop making things worse.

http://reason.com/news/show/132942.html

We didn't create their situation, but we've definitely exacerbated it.

Maybe he's friends with Anton Scalia:

Besides Thomas, Scalia also took part in the decision while a close relative had a substantial interest in the outcome. Scalia's son Eugene is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where one of the senior partners is Theodore B. Olson, who argued Bush's case before the Supreme Court.

Scalia refused to recuse himself from Bush v. Gore, although the lead lawyer for the plaintiff was, in effect, his son's boss. He took the same position in the various legal proceedings that accompanied the impeachment of Bill Clinton, beginning with the Supreme Court's decision to permit Paula Jones to proceed with her lawsuit against Clinton for sexual harassment, in which Olson provided legal assistance.

and

WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused on Thursday to remove himself from a case about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, even though their recent duck-hunting trip raised questions about his impartiality.

But then, hackery has never been much of a problem

But Scalia's liberal critics have a point: His moral views have a habit of grafting themselves onto his constitutional philosophy. No one expects him to be a libertarian; he has stressed that his opposition to expanded federal power applies only to instances in which it is explicitly limited by the Constitution. But you might at least expect him to be oppose federal intervention within the parameters of his originalist vision. Or rather, you might have expected that until Gonzales v. Raich, this year's medical marijuana case.

Scalia voted to uphold the federal government's prerogative to go after medical consumers of homegrown pot, on the grounds that this activity supposedly affects interstate commerce. This ruling prompted Thomas to note in a caustic dissent, "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

...for Scalia

The 11th Amendment says federal courts cannot hear lawsuits against a state brought by "Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State." But it's been interpreted to block suits by a state's own citizens - something it clearly does not say. How to get around the Constitution's express words? In a 1991 decision, Justice Scalia wrote that "despite the narrowness of its terms," the 11th Amendment has been understood by the court "to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition of our constitutional structure which it confirms." If another judge used that rationale to find rights in the Constitution, Justice Scalia's reaction would be withering. He went on, in that 1991 decision, to throw out a suit by Indian tribes who said they had been cheated by the State of Alaska.

The problem is, the market does lead to consolidated ownership, in a mature market. That's how that works - the example you give with the phone company - the monopoly was not given to the phone company,

Governments did give phone companies monopolies. They basically said they'll give the companies exclusive rights to the rights of ways if they offered phone service. Even then the government paid for the infrastructure to be built. The universal service program was a tax on phone bills that paid for phone service in sparsely populated areas.

It works like this:

1. Government investment in research/technology/science leads to new opportunity. The internet and computer industries were both born this way.

And neither the internet nor computer industries are monopolies.

The resurgence of the American car industry after WWII was largely a result of this kind of thing too - and the airline industry.

Here I agree. During the war automakers geared up to produce vehicles for the war, then once the war ended they were able to convert to making autos for civilian use. And because the original GI Bill funded the education for returning military personnel the auto makers had people who could afford to buy cars.

3. Industry matures, when one or a few players dominate the market, and things break down (higher prices, falling quality). At this point, there tends to need to be some government intervention

Except it's usually the industries being regulated who want the regulations. Regulations make it harder for competitors to start. A good example today is lawn care. Companies want cities to license and regulate the lawn care industry in an attempt to limit competition.

I agree with most of the second part of your post, but can't help but read that and think, "Well great, but that's not the free market!"

I did say some libertarians would disagree with it. Just as with Democrats and Republicans libertarians are a diverse group with different ideas about government. For the 2004 election there were even Libertarians for Dean as well as a website with that as it's domain name.

Falcon

The blogs you link to all happily blame the housing bubble and the uncommonly cavalier behaviour of the financial houses. But what caused those things?

I agree, the CRA emphasis is overblown and doesn't make for a good argument. But what GP also referred to were the "tax-supported agencies" of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The presence of those giants creates a huge "distortion field" in the market. If someone's giving out free BJ's (willing to buy super-risky house loans), who's gonna decline? Same thing with government encouragement of mindless suburban buildup post 9/11 and dot-com. And, to come back to GP's point, that's definitely not capitalism.

Linkie (look further along the article): http://reason.com/news/show/130330.html

I agree that there's an appealing aspect to "Buy Local", but the reality is that it's economically inefficient. I think you'd be surprised by the aggregate effect of this on the economy if everyone were to do it.

What about the subjective components of cost? More importantly, what about future costs? I'm sure you're familiar with arguments for protectionism, so what is your response to them?

When one nation enacts protectionist laws other nations follow suit shutting down exports. The protectionist law Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act made the Great Depression worse than it would have been without the law. No matter how it's sliced and diced national economies depend on international trade. As a recent example look at US based Caterpiller, the world's largest heavy equipment manufacturer for construction and mining. Because other countries can't buy Cats they have had to close down factories putting the employees out of work.

Why do you want to limit economic improvement to certain people?

There are a ton of answers for this. The simplest is selfishness -- if I help my physical neighbor, I get more benefit out of that than if I help some random dude across the globe. For instance, maybe he'll find the cash to put in better landscaping so I don't have to look at his ugly brown grass each evening.

By helping someone half way around the world you enable him or her to buy what the US exports, which creates jobs thus helping your neighbor. Or don't you have Cat employees next door? What about farmers? The US is the largest food exporter, largely because you the taxpayer gives hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill. If you really want to help your neighbor then tell government not to give his tax dollars to large corporations.

Falcon

perhaps you haven't heard but most of the western world has HUGE subsidies for farmers

While farm subsidies are high not all of the money makes it to the farmers. I don't particularly like farm subsidies but it would be better if the money was given directly to the farmers instead of to huge agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill. Giving the money to farmers would be more efficient than giving it to ADM and Cargill. I don't know how farm subsidies work in Australia, Canada, the EU, or Japan, all of which give large subsidies for agriculture produce.

Falcon

Regulation, regulation, and some more regulation.

In fact, Matt and Trey are on the record as saying (I'm just paraphrasing here from memory) - "we don't like extreme right-wingers, but we really fucking hate extreme left-wingers."

A quick google search turns up this quote from an article in ReasonOnline:

It's really what Team America is as well: taking an extremist on this side and an extremist on that side. Michael Moore being an extremist is just as bad, you know, as Donald Rumsfeld. It's like they're the same person. It takes a fourth-grade kid to go, "You both remind me of each other." The show is saying that there is a middle ground, that most of us actually live in this middle ground, and that all you extremists are the ones who have the microphones because you're the most interesting to listen to, but actually this group isn't evil, that group isn't evil, and there's something to be worked out here.

The quote is an interesting mix of the middle ground fallacy and extreme moral relativism.

A free market is a two way street not one way. If I can't own my own business it's not a free market.

Control is not ownership. According to Tucker, if the state grants you a monopoly on capital (by enforcing property rights), even if you don't contribute to product, the market can't be free. In other words, If you don't farm your land yourself, you shouldn't exercise any rights over it. He opposed rents and interest. Markets were Tucker's thing. He hated capitalism, but often said it was preferable to State Socialism, because it at least allowed for SOME choice.

Let me check that... My copies don't list him but wiki says he published it.

Maybe Lysander Spooner founded it and he took it over. I don't remember. They were practically the same person. Best friends.

I read "Liberty" semi-regularly, and subscribe to "Reason" magazine, and don't recall reading about him before.

Well, he was a big influence on Murray Rothbard. I don't really get why, except that Rothbard was intent on appropriating the term Anarchism from the Socialists. I guess he thought it sounded cooler than Libertarian.

Perhaps I phrased it wrong. I hadn't heard of them before and didn't know if they were important.

The name looks familiar but I don't really recall why. According to your link she supported woman's rights in the late 1700s. That's two people I know of that did back then, Thomas Jefferson also supported equal rights for women and Blacks. In his early drafts of the "Declaration of Independence" he included both as enjoying rights also. However others had to sign it and they opposed this.

Jefferson was a flaming hypocrite. His support for black and women's civil right extended as far as his conversation. He literally kept an underage black sex slave. I don't think holding black women in bondage and repeatedly raping them shows much support for their civil rights. Perhaps you are confusing him with John Adams, whose deeds more closely matched his rhetoric. Adams and his equal partner/wife Abigail actively supported black causes and opposed slavery in deed as well as word. Their son John Quincy was an even more active civil rights advocate.

That said, another influential 18th century feminist was Mme. Olympe de Gouge. If you are interested in such things, read her.

Mary Wollstonecraft was married to the first Anarchist philosopher, William Godwin. Their daughter was Mary Shelley.

I think Market Socialism is pretty self explanatory. It is a system of free markets and public ownership

A free market is a two way street not one way. If I can't own my own business it's not a free market.

Benjamin Tucker was America's foremost Individualist Anarchist. He founded and edited the journal Liberty.

Let me check that... My copies don't list him but wiki says he published it.

Many American Libertarians worship him, presumably because they don't understand his beliefs fully.

I read "Liberty" semi-regularly, and subscribe to "Reason" magazine, and don't recall reading about him before.

But why should you care about anyone you haven't heard of? They couldn't have been important.

Perhaps I phrased it wrong. I hadn't heard of them before and didn't know if they were important.

Oh also, anyone who reads Paine should also read Mary Wollstonecraft.

The name looks familiar but I don't really recall why. According to your link she supported woman's rights in the late 1700s. That's two people I know of that did back then, Thomas Jefferson also supported equal rights for women and Blacks. In his early drafts of the "Declaration of Independence" he included both as enjoying rights also. However others had to sign it and they opposed this.

Falcon

There is a tendency right now in which global warming has subsumed all other environmental issues. While global warming is definitely an important environmental issue, there's a problem if it takes all of the time to the exclusion of everything else.

Reason definitely has an open bias, but as long as you know that while reading it, you can call them on their BS, but still benefit from a lot of the other really good stuff there.

The real problem with any such approach, they argue, is

Having sinned against Mother Nature inadvertently, many are keenly reluctant to intervene knowingly. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of California at Irvine who predicted, with Mario Molina, the depletion of the ozone layer, declared, "I am unalterably opposed to global mitigation." This added considerable weight to the abstention cause. At root, such people see mankind as the problem; only by behaving humbly, living lightly upon our Earth, can we atone.

This religiosity in climate-change politics fascinates me - it's why I like the Michael Crichton essays/speeches on the topic even though he says "climate change is fake!" and it's pretty much Not Fake. More recently, I've seen stuff in that same Libertarian magazine comparing the current climate-change political scene to "denigrating HIV treatment and blocking condom distribution in order to discourage promiscuity. [It] is every bit as callous and irresponsible."

The real problem with any such approach, they argue, is

Having sinned against Mother Nature inadvertently, many are keenly reluctant to intervene knowingly. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of California at Irvine who predicted, with Mario Molina, the depletion of the ozone layer, declared, "I am unalterably opposed to global mitigation." This added considerable weight to the abstention cause. At root, such people see mankind as the problem; only by behaving humbly, living lightly upon our Earth, can we atone.

This religiosity in climate-change politics fascinates me - it's why I like the Michael Crichton essays/speeches on the topic even though he says "climate change is fake!" and it's pretty much Not Fake. More recently, I've seen stuff in that same Libertarian magazine comparing the current climate-change political scene to "denigrating HIV treatment and blocking condom distribution in order to discourage promiscuity. [It] is every bit as callous and irresponsible."