Category Archives: Politics

The Start of Privatized Roads?

Economics, Politics

A good way to beat traffic: Lease major toll roads

If you traveled by road over the Fourth of July, you might have found yourself in a parking lot mistakenly labeled as a highway. That was not the goal 50 years ago as the nation embarked on one of the most successful government programs ever: the interstate system. The 47,000-mile network of roads has been a boon to commerce, employment and family vacations ever since. But the vision isn’t keeping pace with the traffic – or perhaps more precisely, the public isn’t willing to finance the vision.

In the past decade, usage of interstates rose by more than 30%, according to the Department of Transportation, while additions of routes and added lanes increased capacity by only 4%. The problem is simple. Gasoline taxes and tolls, already unpopular, provide a fraction of the money needed to keep traffic from getting worse.

Now comes an idea to get around this problem. A number of states, most visibly Indiana, have proposed leasing major toll roads to private companies. By doing so, they can raise billions of dollars needed to make road improvements elsewhere.

Ideally, such leases would not be necessary. Governments would give highways and public transit systems the funds they need, and they would not shy away from raising the requisite money from the people who use them. That would ensure a network of efficient, carefully integrated transportation systems in ways that a more piecemeal approach cannot. But given the extreme resistance, which dates back decades and shows no signs of abating, leases are the best option for easing gridlock.

Truthfully, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. In some ways, I see this as being a starting point to private funding of the maintenance and operation of toll roads. And if the cost of travel is based on something at least resembling a balance of supply and demand, it actually starts to approximate a market-based system.

But I see some issues, the first of which being that this seems to be simply a shift of money. Road users will still pay for this, but they’ll pay over years and years of higher tolls on this road. At the same time, government either gets a one-time windfall of lease fees, or relies on the toll on this road to subsidize other construction for decades into the future. It’s not a way to make the toll road pay for itself, it’s a way to extort tolls from one road to subsidize the rest of the system. Why should the users of this road be forced to subsidize other roads they never use?

But even more striking is one simple passage: “Gasoline taxes and tolls, already unpopular, provide a fraction of the money needed to keep traffic from getting worse.” This overlooks two crucial problems. First, tax money isn’t always used for the purpose it is supposed to be. Whether it’s a “rainforest” in Iowa, a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, or any of the other places the Porkbusters folks have pointed out, it’s clear it’s not always spent on the roads it’s supposed to be. And this only underscores the second problem: our roads are managed by a central bureaucracy dominated by political interests. Normally I’m all for privatization, because the free market is much more efficient at producing functional systems than the political market. But I feel like this attempt to lease roads is taking a bad system and applying an even worse solution.

What does everyone else think on this one? Anyone think this is a good idea, and willing to explain where I’m wrong?

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Never Again

Constitution, Individual Rights, Keep and Bear Arms, Politics, The Bill Of Rights

On July 4th, the United Nations will convene a conference on “the international trafficking and trade in small arms”; which is essentially shorthand for U.N. gun control.

For some time now the U.N. has promulgated treaties which would effectively ban private firearms ownership in signatory states. They have also attempted (thus far unsuccessfully) to add such provisions to their charter, and the universal declaration of human rights; which all U.N members are required to be signatory to.

The various gun rights organizations in this country (and to a lesser extent around the world), are making a very big public relations deal about this; and they have been for quite some time (since the 1970s in fact, but especially since Wayne LaPierre became president of the NRA. He’s even written a book on the subject which a kind reader is sending me to review). Conversely the statist media around the world are using these groups opposition, and sometimes seemingly paranoid rantings (believe me there are just as many whack jobs on our side as on theirs) of these groups supporters as their own public relations bonanza.

Which, in the U.S., is all this is; public relations.

The bald fact is that the U.N.; and the various NGO’s who support this initiative; have the stated and trumpeted goal of banning all private firearm ownership. This is not even an open question, it is their stated goal. It may not be their short term goal for today; but it is what they want in the long term, and universally; and they will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.

So what.

No treaty may take precedence over the U.S. constitution. It’ written right into the document itself; the constitution is the supreme law of this land. The constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms (note: it does not GRANT that right, it recognizes and protects the pre-existing right). This is incontrovertible.

We in America are safe from the U.N. and other NGOs manipulations in this matter; until such time as our constitution is amended; or forcibly ignored (but that’s another topic entirely). The rest of the bleating from the NRA and other organizations is essentially fundraising, and consciousness raising. They are using this issue to alarm folks who might otherwise not be paying attention (and god knows there are millions of gun owners who don’t); into understanding that there are organized, well funded, and even extranational (or transnational) efforts to abrogate their rights.

That part of the effort, or at least that purpose attached to it, I applaud greatly; but screaming “The UN is going to take your guns” to Americans is both untrue, and crass.

This is not to say that the UN’s efforts in this regard should not be opposed; they should; and not simply because the U.N. is a corrupt, criminal, and fundamentally unsound organization (though that is a sufficient reason, it isn’t the only one).

This reason alone is both sufficient, and necessary: The only effective long term tool to combat genocide and democide, is an armed and educated populace.

Please note it takes both components.

An educated unarmed population will still be slaughtered by those intent on enforcing their will on them; or in effecting their destruction.

An armed, uneducated population, is nothing more than a tool for a dictator to effect such genocide and democide.

Some would cry “but what can private individuals do against an army, or a government?“.

Let me tell you right now, it is amazing what an armed and educated population can do; even when their arms are limited, scrounged, and inferior; and their numbers seemingly too small to matter.

I could give you many examples, but I believe one is sufficient: our nation was founded by such men.

Even when victory is remote, one can choose to fight; fight for the chance to be free; and choose to be free in fighting rather than to be a slave, or to be slaughtered.

In 1943, no more than 200 Polish, Hungarian, and Lithuanian Jews held two divisions of NAZIs at bay for two months, using only captured and scrounged weapons; with which they had no training or experience (before the fighting ended another 750 men joined them). None of these men were soldiers, they were tailors, and scholars, and jewelers… but they had intelligence, and a will to survive.

Yes, they were eventually slaughtered; as the NAZIs did to so many others; but they died defending themselves and their families.. or what was left of their families. They were not simply mown under like wheat.

Even if one cannot prevail; it is sometimes better to fight and die, than to be led to the slaughter.

They had a choice, and they fought, and they were free for at least a time. They chose death fighting, over being slaughtered like cattle, or made to be slaves in the concentration camps.

In 72 AD another group of Jews; this one perhaps 1000 strong, but 2/3 of them women and children; made a similar choice. They withdrew themselves to the fortress at Masada, where they were besieged by perhaps 10,000 Romans. For two years they held the Romans at bay; but they received no support from their disarmed brethren; who were content to live under the heel of Rome.

Without outside assistance, they did not have the arms sufficient to resist the Romans; but rather than be enslaved or executed by them, thy chose to die; poisoning each other, and slitting each others throats.

“Since we long ago resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice…We were the very first that revolted, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom.”

— Elazar ben Yair, Patriarch of Masada

An armed man need not choose to die at the hand of his persecutors; he may fight them, and he may win; he may fight them, and he may die; or he may be overwhelmed by them, and he may take his own life; but an armed man has a choice.

Leonidas held the pass at Thermopylae with 300 spartans, (along with 700 thespians, and 400 thebans); against many thousands (anywhere from 800,000 to several million) of Persians under Xerxes. He knew the battle was lost, but he would not submit. When Xerxes petitioned the Spartans to lay down their arms, and they would be spared; Leonidas responded “?O??? ????“… “Come and take them!”

They made their choices to die fighting, to die free. The unarmed man has no choice but to submit.

An unarmed populace, with an enemy bent on their genocide: Germany, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania Serbia, Bosnia, Armenia, Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, Kurdistan, Cambodia…

Hundreds of Millions dead in the 20th century alone… HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS

The U.N. must be stopped in this; if for no other reason than to prevent these horrible things from happening once more.

Never Again

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com

Ditch the UN — Before it’s Too Late

Politics

Today in the Washington Post, the suggestion is that we learn from the game for skinny guys who can’t throw, and adapt FIFA practices to the UN:

Though it is difficult to envisage a FIFA-colored bulldozer forcing regime change at the UN, some parts of the organization could certainly benefit by adopting FIFA’s principles, transparency and common vision, and the Beautiful Game’s rules of fair play.

FIFA owes 102 years of success to its emphasis on fair play, which has survived numerous disputes, communism and two world wars. The UN was formed by mostly Christian, industrialized countries after World War II. Like FIFA, it seeks fair play, but in its search for “stability”, has grown and sprawled into multiple organisations. Unlike FIFA, it has lost its focus.

I’ve got a better idea: why not just leave the UN?

In the debates between minarchism and anarchism, there are two common points. The minarchist claims that the anarchist’s society will devolve into totalitarianism and rule by the strong. The anarchist, on the other hand, claims that no matter how well you set up a minarchist society, you will inevitably have sprawling government that infringes on its citizen’s rights.

Thomas Jefferson understood both points very well, when he said: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” He knew, and also said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” The natural trend of minarchy is towards statism. And the only way to fight this is to keep statism in check whenever and wherever possible.

Is it not time to do so with the United Nations? All governments tend to accumulate power, and while the UN hasn’t really yet become a true government, it is slowly trending that way. They’re already trying to find ways to lobby direct taxes on member nations, looking to take over control of things such as the internet, and generally trying to be the arbiter of when and where the use of military force is “legal”. Allowed to grow unchecked, the UN will eventually become to the United States what our own federal government is to the individual states of the Union: its master.

When the United Nations was formed, it was largely a puppet of the permanent members of the Security Council, a group who desired world stability. Now it has become a forum for tin-pot dictators to be the tail wagging the dog. It’s a farce, where the UN Human Rights Commission is populated by some of the largest human rights violators in the world. The UN doesn’t serve our purposes any more, and if we don’t watch out, the UN will make sure we serve theirs.

However, we have a chance today to change this course. The United Nations has a crucial flaw, in that it relies on the United States for almost all of it’s military power, a base of operations in New York, and an enormous chunk of its budget. The United States’ withdrawal from the UN, if done soon, could cripple the organization, forcing it to wither in irrelevance.

Every day that we wait, though, the UN grows stronger. If we wait too long, the UN will be strong enough on its own to exist without us, and losing our seat at the table will be a negative. In the 1860’s, we saw what happens when a group tries to break free from a position of weakness, rather than strength. But instead of a group held together to halt such evils as slavery, we will be held in the UN by a group who exalts Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and denigrates freedom and capitalism.

I think that both the anarchist and the minarchist is correct. Anarchism and minarchism both end up somewhere we don’t want to be, although through different methods (and, IMHO, at different rates). We already may be too far down the road to stop the US government, short of expelling the blood of patriots and tyrants. But it’s not too late for the United Nations. Weeds are best defeated before they’re allowed to take root, and the UN is no exception. Let’s uproot them from Turtle Bay, make them pay their parking tickets, and get them on the first plane to Geneva.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Democracy, Stability, and Science Fiction

Politics, Theory and Ideas

A very common conceit in fantasy and SF, is the “time traveller gets stuck in the past and builds an ideal society”, and it has been through the entire history of the genre going back a few hundred years. In fact I think the very first SF/F book I ever read was “A Connetticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court” by Mark Twain. It’s absolutely iconic of this type of SF/F.

Anyway, theres a good reason for the popularity of the type, in that it makes a good story. Theres just remendous potential for exploration, and it engages the authors mind and passions, which although it can degenerate into wankerism, can also produce amazing things.

Even more so, it engages the readers mind (assuming they are an engineer type, social, political, or hard sciences oriented) in similar pursuit. I dont think theres a group of geeks, gun guys, or re-creationist (funny how much overlap there is there) who hasnt had discussions about what they would take back in time with them, or how they would rebuild civilization after the fall or some such thing.

My favorite series in this subgenre is definitely Eric Flints (and others) “Ring of Fire” series; and I would guess that in recent years it has been the best selling of the type. My SECOND favorite series of the type however, is collectively called “The Adventures of Conrad Stargard”, by Leo Frankowski; and he is still writing them today.

At any rate, there is no clearer example of an authors engineering (both social and technical) fantasy fulfilment than these books; and the fact that they are written by a former specialty equipment controls engineer (they make the systems which control large complex custom machines, like entire assmebely lines etc…) means that the TECHNICAL detail is great fun (and not really excessive to my mind… but I’m an engineer myself).

Also though, and I think more significantly, the author goes extensively into how technology effects social factors, and vice versa. So along with the technological engineering, he is a social engineer; but at the same time the technology and society of the time are re-engineering the main character.

Recently, I was so strongly put in mind of the Stargard series that I decided to re-read it; and while reading, I came across this passage, while Conrad was going over various political systems in his mind:

I believe that democracy is the best possible system for a nation with an educated, concerned, and reasonable population.

It is not that the people are particularly wise. They aren’t. And the larger the number of people involved in a decision, the poorer the decision is likely to be. To find the IQ of a group, take the average IQ of the people involved and divide by the number-of people in the group.

Anyone who has ever marched troops can verify that a hundred men have the collective intelligence of a centipede. Worse. A centipede doesn’t step on its own feet.

No. Democracy is a good system because it is an extremely stable system.

In many parts of South America and Africa, when an individual becomes truly disgruntled, he gets together with six hundred friends, three hundred rifles, and maybe a hundred bullets and starts a revolution. This practice is socially disruptive and results in lost worktime, destroyed property, and dead bodies.

In America, such an individual does not go off to the hills with a gun. He becomes a political candidate.

Of course, he knows that, to be effective, he must start at the bottom-say, sewer commissioner. So he runs against six other social misfits for that office. If he loses, at least he feels that he has done his best to straighten things out, that if the people don’t appreciate him, they don’t deserve him. Anyway, an election is so exhausting, physically, financially, and emotionally, that he is likely to be over his initial anger. If he wins, well, he can’t really do much harm. There are engineers to make sure that shit flows downhill. And who knows? Maybe he will turn out to be a good sewer commissioner. In any case, society is the winner. Seven potential troublemakers have been defused, only one of them has to be paid, and they just might get some useful work out of that one.

One should note, Frankowski is a bit of a socialist libertarian anarchist mix… Not really an anarcho syndicalist, one might call him a social democrat in the literal sense. Although I’m a bit more idealistic about democracy than that, I can’t say as I disagree with it, and I think it is a good point to make about our current situation in the mddle east.

See, there are idealistic reasons to democratize the mid-east, but there are also very practical reasons. Democracies are generally so busy with their own internal politics, that they dont have the time or energy to attack the rest of the world.

Or maybe I’m jsut reading to much into this…

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com

When did they stop?

Constitution, Education, Politics, The Bill Of Rights

When I was a kid, and that isn’t exactly a geological age ago; there was a U.S. Flag in every single classrom. Most were on angled jackstaffs flying on the wall next to the P.A. speaker, over the chlakboard, or maybe over the main door.

This didnt warrant notice, any more than desks or chalkboards would.

A bill has just been introduced in the Arizona state house to require that all educational institutions that recieve public funding display the flag in every classroom. Current regulations (as pursuant to U.S. Flag code) only state that a flag must be flown somewhere on campus while school is in session.

My question is, when did they change? When and why did they stop?

The ed-stablishment is complaining that they don’t have the budget, and that they don’t have the personell trained in U.S. Flag code, to do so.

You have got to be kidding me.

Every day at my school, the teacher or the custodian would go around at night and roll the flags up on their jackstaffs. I (or my wife) do it every night to OUR flag. It’s not all that hard. Not only that, but if a flag is permanently mounted, it is acceptable to leave that flag flying at all times, so long as that flag is “properly illuminated” or so long as that flag is indoors.

The flag code is not difficult. Here’s a well illustrated guide, and the annotated code.

Not only that, but I guarantee you they could ask for and recieve enough donations for a proper flag in every classroom in a heartbeat. A decent small indoor flag, U.S. made, only costs about $20. Even a beautiful embroidered presentation flag is only about $100 for a small classroom size model.

Even better to my mind, an ammendment has been added to the bill that would require the concurrent display of the constitution, bill of rights and other ammendments, and declaration of independence as well.

Again, the ed-stablishment says they don’t have the budget; but I ask why isn’t this done alreayd/ Why hasnt this ALWAYS been done? When I was a kid every general ed classrom and history classroom had all of the above prominently displayed.

And still they protest?

No, I believe they are unwilling, because they do not beleive in our nation, our greatness, our exceptional position in this world as the true bastion of freedom and liberty (however it may now be compromised); and they do not wish to be associated with our symbol.

If this legislation passes, and is funded or volunteers fund it; I can assure you the ed-stablishment will find some other excuse to refuse to display our flag. I can guarnatee you that there will be protests by hispanic and native American groups. I guarantee you there will be teachers who refuse to display the flag in their classrooms, or who refuse to teach or assemble in a room where the flag is displayed.

They do this because they are the enemies of our country, and of our children; no more, no less.

Chris Byrne
I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com
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