Ask me anything — ISO 8601 edition

Some standards in the US are really absurdly eccentric and irrational. It’s the only advanced industrialized country that uses the British system of weights and measures. It uses foot, pound, gallon, degrees Fahrenheit instead of meter, kilo, liter, degrees Celsius. (Please stop with the centigrade thing already.)

The other two countries — Liberia and Myanmar –which have the same insanity are not exactly technologically advanced. Even the UK follows the metric system (with a few exceptions such as it is illegal for metric road signs and illegal to sell draught beer in metric.) Continue reading “Ask me anything — ISO 8601 edition”

Reed’s Response to Time Magazine’s Cover Story on Capitalism

[Editor’s note: The following is Lawrence Reed’s response to the cover story, “How the Elites Lost Their Grip,” by Anand Giridharadas in the December 2-9, 2019 issue of Time magazine.]

My Response to Time Magazine’s Cover Story on Capitalism

The case for true capitalism is a moral one that’s rooted in human nature and human rights.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019

The inventor of the now-famous “Overton Window,” the late Joseph P. Overton, was my best friend and a senior colleague at the Michigan organization I headed for nearly 21 years (1987-2008), the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The Window postulates that at any given time, public policy options are framed by public opinion. Politicians who operate within it can get elected or re-elected, while those who offer proposals outside of it run the risk of public rejection. Move the Window by changing public opinion, and what was previously a losing proposition can then become politically possible. Continue reading “Reed’s Response to Time Magazine’s Cover Story on Capitalism”

Vigilante Justice in India

One of the markers of an uncivilized society is that mobs resort to vigilantism which are acts of summary justice without legal authority or due process. When the police engage in vigilantism, it signals a failed society. That’s what happened last week in Hyderabad in India.

Four people were killed murdered by the police (led by one Mr Sajjanar) in what is referred to as an “encounter.” The four were accused of a singularly horrific crime — the gang rape and murder of a young woman –and were in police custody. Note the word accused. Continue reading “Vigilante Justice in India”

Media Test

This is just a test. Please ignore. Thanks.

You can listen to this test track or download it.

Download (right click and “Save as”) Morning_Mandolin.

Cheers

Like many an evening, today I raise a glass to the end of a disastrous social policy in the United States on this day in 1933. The wiki informs us thusly:

The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

The lesson is simply this: human nature is not perfectible. People are people. Retards will retard. And impose suffering on others because they’re convinced that their will overrides individual freedom.

Here’s a piece on 6 Things We Learned from Prohibition — except that the policy makers  did not really learn that prohibition does not actually work. The baptists and bootleggers win, and everyone loses.

Modi wins and India loses. I raise a glass of alcohol in opposition to Gandhi and Modi today. Cheers.

Happy Thanksgiving

Greetings, all. Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. Among all the American holidays, this one is my favorite. Never mind the genesis and history of this tradition — some of it is not very pretty. What matters to me is the idea of thanksgiving.

Gratitude is one of the most healthy emotions we have. Life is not always nice but every now and then it is good for our mental health to pause and say, “I am thankful that I have so much to be thankful about.”

Here’s the Sanskrit mantra that expresses my core desire

      • लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु
      • Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu.
      • May all beings be happy.

Happy Thanksgiving Day.

The Earth is Doomed because of Climate Change

Regarding effective propaganda, it is hard to improve upon what was written long years ago.

“But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”

The author? Herr Adolf Hitler. The book was Mein Kampf (My Struggle), the autobiographical manifesto of the Nazi leader published in 1925 and 1926. One of the biggest contemporary pernicious lies that is being repeated — and therefore believed by the public — is about climate change and the imminent global  catastrophe that is certain to follow if costly steps are not immediately taken. Continue reading “The Earth is Doomed because of Climate Change”

Like Albert J Nock, I’m an Anarchist

As a liberal — in the classical sense of the word meaning one who believes in liberty — I have special respect for Albert Jay Nock (1870 – 1945), the American libertarian who was a radical anti-statist.

It’s astonishing to me how much our views match. Perhaps I am one of Nock’s reincarnations. (I should write about reincarnation one of these days.) Like him, I am a philosophical anarchist: I hold the state in contempt and believe that it lacks moral legitimacy but I am also against the use of violence to overthrow the state. Like him, I am opposed to centralization, regulation, the income tax, state welfare, majoritarian democracy and state mandated education. Continue reading “Like Albert J Nock, I’m an Anarchist”

The Climate Change Debate — Oh no, not again!

If you are not worried about the climate change hoax, you are not paying attention. It’s the biggest scam that’s going around.

In a previous post I proposed that a simple test of the super loser — having a facebook account. Here’s another simple test to figure out if you’re a super retard. You might be a redneck super retard if you believe in the currently fashionable tripe about climate change.

The stand-up comedian Jeff Foxworthy (a proud descendant of a long line of rednecks) defines a redneck as someone “with a glorious lack of sophistication.”[1] I define a super retard as one with a glorious inability to competently arrive at conclusions that evidence and reason compel. My sincere advice to you is to not be a super retard (although being a simple retard is still acceptable.) Continue reading “The Climate Change Debate — Oh no, not again!”

I don’t have a Facebook account

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I think people who have facebook accounts are super losers. Let’s face it, the overwhelmingly vast majority of the people (including yours truly) are losers in some way or the other. But what sets super losers apart from garden variety losers is that the former have facebook accounts.

The only positive thing that facebook has inadvertently done is to create a simple test for determining whether one is a super loser or not. It would have been very difficult to estimate the number of super losers in the world but thanks to facebook, you can get an accurate count — the number of facebook accounts. Bill Maher should have pointed that out in his “New Rule” segment about facebook. Here’s that bit:

Continue reading “I don’t have a Facebook account”