Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in My mood

Re: My mood

Cheers — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:23:41 -0000

Rpl, you have no idea what I saved you from ;)

I don't particularly disagree with you. One of the fundamental difficulties with the military is how to make it accountable. If you think there can be issues with government accountability, it's kind of like that with guns.

If they are accountable to politicians, then they serve to keep them in power.

If they are accountable to the aggregate of people, they are subject to the war-weariness of the populace (though some find this agreeable) when control is not lax.

If they are accountable to individuals, crime ensues.

If they are accountable to no-one, it results in pillage and tyranny.

These are not absolutes, but they are historically demonstrated. I think the problem was best explained by what Chris said earlier. Ultimately, we're fighting a bad thing with an imperfect solution. I don't by any means disagree with the existence and use of the military, but we do have to organize it to minimize the negative consequences that will inevitably come from a system that is inherently problematic.

Re: My mood

Gil — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:27:09 -0000

Hey muirgeo, I sure you're looking forward in 10 years time to a graph showing improved economic performance with a Democrat president, eh?

Re: My mood

Sam Grove — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:44:37 -0000

Demotopia. And you of accuse us of wishful thinking.

George from VA

The poster's name appears after his/her post.

Re: My mood

george from VA — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:20:15 -0000

Sam big gov is for big gov its not for you or me its for them.

if it was for you and I why would they take so much of our $s and give us nothing in return.

Thats the thing I think lots of lifers in Govt think I work for them instead of them working for me.

At the end of the day they're overhead and should be treated as the baggage they are.

Re: My mood

MnM — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:01:24 -0000

"You really have no clue do you? You might want to look at all the debt obligations you now hold in the treasury of the country you pay taxes to thanks to Bush and his incompetence. . Bush has put this piece of shit economy together with paper tape and handed it off to Obama. He doubled the national debt officially but the risk we hold could be trillions more.

Do you even care to hear about the facts?"

Posted by: muirgeo | Jan 21, 2009 7:29:46 PM

Wow. You really should drop the condescension muirgeo. You missed the point so badly that it's embarrassing.

I'm not defending GW Bailout...I'm saying Obama isn't any different.

Please work on your critical reading skills.

Re: My mood

Randy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:46:28 -0000

"...but when you have a government responsible to the people and representative of the people instead of the rich, the corporations and lobbyist you will likely have a more efficient government."

This is no more likely than libertopia. There is only one form of government and that is aristocracy. Modern aristocracies are just more subtle in their exploitation and far better propagandists than their predecessors.

Re: My mood

Methinks — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:44:46 -0000

Mezzanine,

True. The rinse and repeat of resident morons is tiresome. I don't know that registration would help. The professors did this to their own blog.

Re: My mood

muirgeo — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:36:15 -0000

See I think we hit upon where we differ muirgeo. I believe incompetence, cronyism, war, abuse of power, and all that other stuff is part of big gov not part of Red or Blue.

Posted by: george from VA

It may be a part of "Big Government " but when you have a government responsible to the people and representative of the people instead of the rich, the corporations and lobbyist you will likely have a more efficient government. The Democratic party is far more representative of the peoples desires but still we have far to go.

I only hope that if Obama goes off track those who voted for him will hold him accountable compared to the average republican who simply covers for the gross incompetence of his party.

Re: My mood

Sam Grove — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:34:55 -0000

These libertarians are glum and bitter and can't understand why we didn't vote for another Republican. What are they thinking?

You assume we care which party is in power.

I assure you I don't. I'm satisfied to have the GOP repudiated by the election of BHO.

What matters is what they do while in office.

We might wish Ron Paul had won the primary, but not because he's Republican.

Re: My mood

muirgeo — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:29:46 -0000

"$800 billion is less? Sounds roughly equivalent to Bush's spending ideas to me. You might be a pragmatist, but you sure as hell aren't a realist."

MnM

You really have no clue do you? You might want to look at all the debt obligations you now hold in the treasury of the country you pay taxes to thanks to Bush and his incompetence. . Bush has put this piece of shit economy together with paper tape and handed it off to Obama. He doubled the national debt officially but the risk we hold could be trillions more.

Do you even care to hear about the facts?

Re: My mood

muirgeo — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:21:36 -0000

"No we haven't. We argue that interference with the pricing mechanism distorts information transmitted by those prices. People make bad decisions when they have bad information."

MnM

Oh really. So how'd the pricing mechanism work for unregulated OTC financial derivatives and CDO's?

Re: My mood

Mezzanine — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:19:06 -0000

Methinks - I think the blog comment section is deteriorating to the point of unreadability due to trolls. Cafe Hayek should add user registration.

Re: My mood

Methinks — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:56:07 -0000

"Another way to look at it is that so long as we have political freedom we can continue to fight for economic freedom, but without political freedom we're finished."

I agree with Randy's response to this. It's actually the other way around. Economic freedom usually leads to political freedom - not the other way around. The right to elect your chief thief is not all it's cracked up to be. Singapore is a great example of lots of economic and civil freedoms with zero political freedom.

Mezzanine,

I think the folks here tend to like to toy with the village idiot from time to time.

Re: My mood

Methinks — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:52:06 -0000

so as long as we're going to have bailouts and entitlements, I'd rather have them without the torture, to say nothing of the incompetence, cronyism, war, abuse of power, and all that other stuff. - rpl

rpl,

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but all that happens with both parties too. These are characteristics of government and centralized power - not solely of Republicans.

Re: My mood

Mezzanine — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:19:56 -0000

Notice, Muirgeo just called all of us "children" and you all keep talking to him as if it matters.

Re: My mood

stu — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:18:08 -0000

While listening to our Sec. of the Treasury to be, it dawned on me that his personal affairs point the way to a brighter day. If we all stop paying our taxes, even to the limited extent he did, then we will have an immediate infusion of potential savings, consumption or retirement of debt as opposed to federal bondoogles over the next ten years. Does anyone have a better idea of how to shorten or make less onerous the present downturn?

Re: My mood

Randy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:55:44 -0000

rpl,

"If the government can imprison and torture you at will, how long do you think they will let you keep your earnings?"

Incentives matter. The government has no incentive to imprison or torture me. They have every incentive to seize my earnings. And of course, the latter actually happens. So it seems reasonable to be more concerned with the real threat.

"If they have complete dominion over your person, what possible incentive could they have to let you keep your money?"

They do have complete dominion over my person. The idea of rights is propaganda. If the political class had an incentive to kill me, they could and would. The reason they don't, and that they let me keep some of my earnings, is that my working produces revenue for them. Its just a question of efficiency.

Re: My mood

george from VA — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:44:45 -0000

RPL

I'm not sure I get it so your saying the blue side is less represssive? Show me how they're for federalism, show me where their for deluting thier power and moving it back to the states, show me where thier for not taking any more of my $s or freedom (like property rights or 2nd amendment rights).

Dude they're for consolidating power just like the last pres was. It's just diff set of people.

At the end it seems like its mob rule and who ever has the biggest mob sets the rules.

I wonder when the mob will be at my door?

Re: My mood

rpl — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:59:13 -0000

Randy,

I see it the other way around. If they can seize my earnings at will, what good is it to have the right to complain about it?

If the government can imprison and torture you at will, how long do you think they will let you keep your earnings? If they have complete dominion over your person, what possible incentive could they have to let you keep your money?

George from VA (if he's still reading),

I believe incompetence, cronyism, war, abuse of power, and all that other stuff is part of big gov not part of Red or Blue.

I agree with that up to a point, but there are differences in degree, if not kind. Not every politician uses his office to pursue personal vendettas. Not every politician attempts to appoint his personal friends to the supreme court. Not every politician appoints graduates of third-rate bible colleges to senior positions in the Justice Department. Not every. . . you get the idea.

Also, I'm bemused by the appearance of big government/small government in this discussion. If a government claims the authority to imprison you without trial or to torture you for information if it merely suspects you of terrorist ties, isn't that about as "big" as government can get?

Cheers,

If that's your short version, I'd hate to have had to read the long version. My short version is, when military forces stop taking orders from civilians they cease being soldiers and become brigands, no matter their claims to be acting in the interests of the citizens they no longer serve. Fortunately, we're nowhere near that point in our country, since it appears not to have been military officers that ordered the imprisonment and torture, but politicians and other civilians.

Re: My mood

Jeremy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:55:45 -0000

Some friends of mine, who are VERY leftist, recently asked how I felt about yesterday's inauguration festivities, so I forwarded them this article. The perspective embodied in this article was written off as being childish, immature, and naive. It is seen as the perspective of neanderthals, nitwit back-country yokels and racists who are definitely not members of the intelligentsia. In this view, it is time for dissenters to shut up and get out of the way of true progress towards the ultimate goal: A Society Just Like Western Europe. Behold: The Ego of the Left. They can't be wrong! They're too smart to be wrong!!!

Re: My mood

Martin Brock — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:51:36 -0000

... the whole new threat that is international terrorism and asymmetrical warfare.

New? I'm far more threatened by drunken drivers myself.

Re: My mood

Martin Brock — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:34:44 -0000

It's vague. Says next to nothing. I don't want Obama's "stimulus package" financed by the sale of more entitlement to tax revenue, but the Bushniks have handed it to him on a silver platter, not only by feeding every conman with a gun in sight but also by creating their own trillion dollar "stimulus" on the way out.

But that's not "tyranny", we're told. While damning the Obamatrons for everything Bushniks have already done, before Obama even has a chance to lead the next charge, Harsanyi emphasizes that Bush is not a "tyrant". Hell, let's just anoint him the Greatest Chief Executive since Hitler. Surely, he deserves an accolade for that.

Re: My mood

Chris O'Leary — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:43:37 -0000

"So, imprisoning people without trial, extraordinary rendition, torture, manufacturing a bogus case for war, domestic spying, all these things are not tyranny, or at least troubling steps along the path to tyranny?"

No, they are a clearly imperfect solution to the problem of the whole new threat that is international terrorism and asymmetrical warfare. Maybe the ICC is the answer, since these are crimes against humanity, but I'm not sure sure.

The ICC doesn't seem to move any faster.

Re: My mood

BoscoH — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:27:21 -0000

I read somewhere that with Obama's inauguration comes the death of irony. And his comedian supporters are welcoming it. We're in a new age of sincerity and seriousness. I'll probably spend the next few months laughing inside so as not to offend anyone until people get over themselves.

Re: My mood

Lee Kelly — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:19:54 -0000

A sociology professor I know was commenting how wonderful it was to see so much interest and participation in politics during last election. I tend to take another view. I worry. Politicians shouldn't have enough power to get so many people so interested in their election.

A high rate of political apathy signifies that politicians are not important enough in the lives of ordinary people for them to care who is elected. What a wonderful situation that would be.