Monthly Archives: January 2008

Fred Thompson Withdraws From Race

Election '08

Fred Thompson, in a statement released by the candidate, withdrew his candidacy for President:

Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.

Although not unforeseen, it is unfortunate. Thompson was one of the few candidates that was somewhere between neutral and moderately friendly towards more liberty when looking at the current set of issues. While I would not have endorsed him, or any other candidate, for President in this particular group of candidates, I would have liked to see him stay in to push the discussion more his direction and less to the Huckabee and Giuliani side of the house.

Adam Selene
https://thelibertypapers.org/2006/11/22/comrades-i-hereby-declare-the-revolution/

The Consequences When Government Tries To Do A Good Thing&#153

Economics, Equal Protection, Foreign Affairs, Government Regulation, Political Correctness

I think we can all agree that gender equality is a Good Thing&#153. I think we can all agree that there should not be any barriers, legal or otherwise, to women reaching the highest levels of the workforce. And I think we can mostly, if not all, agree that the “old boy’s club”, to the extent that it exists, harms our economy by making it much harder for qualified women to reach that level of a company.

The real question, then, is what to do about it. Personally, I’m more of a “let the market sort it out” type. After all, we’ve seen a sea change on this issue in just my lifetime, and anyone who still harbors thoughts that business is just a “man’s game” should keep his guard up before Oprah owns his ass. Norway, though, has taken a different tack. Not content to let the market sort it out, they’ve mandated that 40% of the countries seats on Boards of Directors be held by women. Unfortunately, though, they’ve put the cart before the horse, and simply crowned a few of the countries top business women:

Before the law was proposed, about 7% of board members in Norway were female, according to the Centre for Corporate Diversity. The number has since jumped to 36%. That is far higher than the average of 9% for big companies across Europe—11% for Britain’s FTSE 100—or America’s 15% for the Fortune 500. Norway’s stock exchange and its main business lobby oppose the law, as do many businessmen. “I am against quotas for women or men as a matter of principle,” says Sverre Munck, head of international operations at Schibsted, a media firm. “Board members of public companies should be chosen solely on the basis of merit and experience,” he says. Several firms have even given up their public status in order to escape the new law.

Companies have had to recruit about 1,000 women in four years. Many complain that it has been difficult to find experienced candidates. Because of this, some of the best women have collected as many as 25-35 directorships each, and are known in Norwegian business circles as the “golden skirts”. One reason for the scarcity is that there are fairly few women in management in Norwegian companies—they occupy around 15% of senior positions. It has been particularly hard for firms in the oil, technology and financial industries to find women with enough experience. DNO, for instance, an oil and gas firm that operates in Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere, found women it was happy with last November, but their expertise is in finance and human resources, not oil, says Helge Eide, DNO’s president. “However, we retain sufficient oil and gas experience in the men on our board,” he adds.

When government tries to do something “good”, they end up bringing in unintended consequences and ill effects that they often seem surprised to find. In this case, much like Sarbanes-Oxley, it has caused many companies to go private. And rather than leveling the playing field for all women, it has simply elevated a few specific women to a level where they sit on so many boards that their efforts must be spread too thin to have any real effect.

What is also interesting here is the difference between allowing the market to sort it out, and not. America tends to have relatively low business regulation in comparison to Europe, where the barrier to entry for a public company is tremendous. Thus, America’s more free market offers more opportunity for women to start public companies and to prove their mettle in the business world. As the story points out, this has resulted in about 15% of Board of Directors at American Fortune 500 companies to be women, with Britian, Europe, and Norway (pre-mandate) lagging behind.

This is a perfect example of government attempting to fix a problem through mandate, when all they have done is masked the problem. America lets the market sort this out, and women hold more top-level positions than other industrialized nations. It proves what we free-market advocates have long stated: the free-market isn’t simply the most efficient distributor of capital, it is also one of the most equal and fair systems for distributing opportunity.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Venezuela Shows Why Price Controls Fail

Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Economics, Free Trade

In my regular Chavez-watching, I read an article about bickering between the United States, Colombia, and Venezuela over drug trafficking and interdiction efforts. As a libertarian and an opponent of the drug war, that’s little more than political theater. After all, for all the tons of cocaine stopped by the local government, tens or hundreds of times more make it out. After all, the profit in a black market is far too alluring to avoid.

Which is what makes the end of this article such a great lesson. Chavez is destroying his economy, with inflation and the often-following wrong response to inflation: price controls. Suddenly producing goods becomes more expensive than selling those goods at the regulated price. Thus, you see what happens:

The announcement comes after 145 tons of contraband food items headed for Colombia were found in San Cristobal, Tachira last week in an anti-smuggling operation by Venezuelan intelligence services. The items included a number of basic food products that are regulated by the government such as powdered milk, rice, sugar, cooking oil, cereal and canned fish. The government says that speculation and hoarding by private producers has contributed food shortages of basic products.

The regional daily, Panorama, reported that every night 50 to 60 trucks load up with Venezuelan food products such as rice and milk, leave the Las Pulgas market in Maracaibo in the opposition controlled state of Zulia and cross over the Colombian border illegally where they sell the products at up to five times the regulated price in Venezuela.

“No one says anything because the business is very big,” said an anonymous vendor in the Las Pulgas market to Panorama. “In order to not have any problems in transporting it is necessary to pay what they ask [the border guards], but in the end they earn a lot more there than here because of the regulation of prices implemented by the government,” he added.

As part of the measures adopted to combat smuggling and crime in the frontier zone a further 500 tons of food loaded onto 18 semi-trailers that were destined for Colombia were intercepted today and a clandestine landing strip near the border, along with a camp thought to be used for narco-trafficking logistics were uncovered.

Remember, just as in the drug trade, the numbers of tons they actually catch is an indication that the number making it through is much, much higher.

See what happens in a command and control economy? When it becomes a money-losing operation to try to sell at the regulated price, it doesn’t mean commerce disappears, it only disappears from store shelves. The “criminals” profit and the rich eat well, while the average citizen is duped by the government’s claim of “speculation and hoarding”.

Venezuela is like a living lesson of what happens when the government tries to break the law of supply and demand. Sadly, as I’ve said before, far too few people will understand the lesson.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Quote Of The Day: I Have A Dream

History, Quote of the Day

Posted last year, but worth reposting again. One of the best political speeches in American history, on a par with Washington’s Farewell Address and Lincoln’s Gettyburg Address:

Full text:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

California Propagandists — Pulling Out All The Stops

Election '08, Politics, Theory and Ideas

California currently has a term limits law– 14 years total, with a max of 6 in the State Assembly and 8 in the State Senate. As is expected, politicians don’t like this law. They want to stay in office for as long as possible.

So they’re trying to change it. They can’t advocate an outright repeal, as the voters will see right through that. So instead, they’re dropping the maximum to 12 years, and allowing it to be served in a single house. Since it’s a lot easier to get re-elected than elected, this means that most legislators who currently only serve 6 or 8 (despite the opportunity to serve 14) will serve the full 12 years. It’s a way to gut the term limits to make them about half as effective.

At the same time, there is more politics at play. The two big backers behind the plan are Tom Perata and Fabian Nunez, two politicians who would be termed-out after this year. In California, ballot initiatives often come up during primary elections, so normally they would be required to sit out a term (as the extensions of their terms wouldn’t be legally possible until after the measure passed, which means someone else would have been nominated in the primary). This year, they decided to push for a special election to move their Presidential primary forward, which conveniently allows this measure to come up to the ballot and be in force when they try to run for re-election at the statehouse primaries in June.

But all that was intended for a future post, as we move closer to primary day. What really got me was just how shameless the proponents of this plan were in their television ads. See for yourself:

Just look at the logical fallacies here. When you know that a politician or union representative arguing this point simply won’t fly, you hire for someone so unassailable that only a monster would oppose him: a fresh-faced EMT, tasked with saving lives. After all, look at this kid. He can’t possibly be shilling for a horrible cause, yet gives an improper argument from authority. Then, you create a false choice: vote for term limits or your government will be as corrupt as those which didn’t respond to Katrina. And last, an irrelevant conclusion: experience is the answer to every problem of California’s government!

I could point out that Louisiana already has 12-year term limits, and Mississippi (which handled Katrina much more effectively) has no term limits. I could point out that California managed the wildfires well because the state erupts in fire every few years, and they’ve got lots of practice. I could even point out that term limits are often enacted because politicians have experience at the wrong thing– selling influence, rather than solving problems. I could come up with plenty of logical reasons to oppose Prop 93.

But all that seems unnecessary when you look at the way they crafted this ad. It’s a slick advertisement meant to appeal to people’s emotions, not their reason. Personally, when I see someone blatantly lying to sell a product, it makes me unwilling to buy that product unless I have trusted independent sources to verify its quality. The same holds true here. There can be a debate over whether or not term limits are useful, but when you see such blatant propaganda from the other side, it’s best to reflexively vote NO.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/
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