But it’s old news and beating a dead horse to suggest that the president of the United States has an agency (the
3/9/14
The state of the state
I think I understand this correctly: It’s big news that the governor of New Jersey had people on his staff who arranged for two lanes of traffic to close in an act of political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, who declined to endorse Christie’s re-election.
But it’s old news and beating a dead horse to suggest that the president of the United States has an agency (theStasi Internal Revenue Service) that targets people and organizations for harrassment in an act of political retribution against anyone who dares to challenge the president’s ambitions.
But it’s old news and beating a dead horse to suggest that the president of the United States has an agency (the
3/5/14
Here we go again: The drumbeats of war
I am always amused by the silence that overtakes "anti-war" activists when a member of the Democrat wing of the State Party is holding the executive branch. When a Democrat sends good American lads and lasses to sacrifices their lives, limbs and minds to the cause of the state, it's not nearly as egregious as when a Republican does.
And so here we are, rattling the sabers again while squirrels who have never tasted life in a combat zone chatter on the sidelines. The next time a member of the Republican wing of the State Party wages an undeclared-by-Congress-and-therefore-illegal war, the chipmunks of the Democrat wing will regain their voices, but this is not that time.
Are the pending incursion into the Ukraine and whatever subsequent response by the United Nations/States part of what Barack Obama meant when he famously told Valdimir Putin that he'll have "more flexibility" after the election? The two state leaders reportedly talked on the phone for 90 minutes the other day; the official transcripts suggests it was a long exercise in saber-rattling, but of course the officials transcripts would.
It's hard to sustain "You're being an idiot/I know you are, but what am I?" for more than a minute or two. That's not how you spend an hour and a half. You spend 90 minutes with someone making plans, setting goals, or talking about your fantasy football teams. I'm guessing the conversation was about the scenario for the next few days, weeks, months and perhaps years.
Some wag back in the 1960s asked, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" We're still waiting for the answer.
And so here we are, rattling the sabers again while squirrels who have never tasted life in a combat zone chatter on the sidelines. The next time a member of the Republican wing of the State Party wages an undeclared-by-Congress-and-therefore-illegal war, the chipmunks of the Democrat wing will regain their voices, but this is not that time.
Are the pending incursion into the Ukraine and whatever subsequent response by the United Nations/States part of what Barack Obama meant when he famously told Valdimir Putin that he'll have "more flexibility" after the election? The two state leaders reportedly talked on the phone for 90 minutes the other day; the official transcripts suggests it was a long exercise in saber-rattling, but of course the officials transcripts would.
It's hard to sustain "You're being an idiot/I know you are, but what am I?" for more than a minute or two. That's not how you spend an hour and a half. You spend 90 minutes with someone making plans, setting goals, or talking about your fantasy football teams. I'm guessing the conversation was about the scenario for the next few days, weeks, months and perhaps years.
Some wag back in the 1960s asked, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" We're still waiting for the answer.
3/2/14
The Lessons of Arizona
On the events in Arizona in recent weeks, in which the governor vetoed a bill that would have allowed businesses to decline service to people on religious grounds, J. Neil Schulman has summed up the stakes quite neatly in a piece called "The Trap of Politics." A sample:
Attempting to use the blunt instrument of force that is government to achieve social goals is rarely a good idea, if ever. Whichever side won in Arizona – either the cause of religious freedom or the cause of gay marriage – the losing side was fated to be embittered rather than accepting, as any victim of a bludgeoning is likely to be. The governor's action did not create sympathy and understanding, and allowing the new law to take effect would not have created sympathy or understanding, either.
Only what Schulman describes as a "tortoise-slow uphill climb" ever generates true change. Using the jackboot of government to force a change only generates anger and resentment.
Once legal compulsion is established in principle to be used in compelling a private business to serve any customer regardless of the proprietor’s beliefs, ethics, or esthetics — any request for service where there is no right of refusal makes the proprietor a slave to the customer.
But here’s the other thing. Decent people who object to the right of refusal being invoked on the basis of various bigotries — skin color, ethnic origin, religion, or sexual preference — would rather live in a legal and political system that outlaws certain rights of refusal rather than working against such bigotry relying completely on the tortoise-slow uphill climb of argument, picketing, boycott, and writing novels, plays, and movies that combat bigotry with mind and heart.
Attempting to use the blunt instrument of force that is government to achieve social goals is rarely a good idea, if ever. Whichever side won in Arizona – either the cause of religious freedom or the cause of gay marriage – the losing side was fated to be embittered rather than accepting, as any victim of a bludgeoning is likely to be. The governor's action did not create sympathy and understanding, and allowing the new law to take effect would not have created sympathy or understanding, either.
Only what Schulman describes as a "tortoise-slow uphill climb" ever generates true change. Using the jackboot of government to force a change only generates anger and resentment.
2/27/14
B.W.'s Book Report: Why Wages Rise
How, pray tell, does a body get a raise in this world? How the hell does a guy making 13 bucks an hour convince his boss that he oughtta make $13.50, or $15, or $20?
In “Why Wages Rise,” F.A. Harper tells you one way that you don’t make more money: By negotiating a higher salary. By talking your Law Makers into raising the minimum wage. By joining a Union. Those things give you inflation, but they don’t give you a raise.
There’s only one way to get a raise, and it has to do with how you make money in the first place.
You make money by creating something of value and selling it. That’s all there is to it. Really.
So how do you get a raise? You create more. Either you create something of greater quality, or you create somethings in greater quantity.
That’s all there is to it. Really.
Don’t take my word for it. Mr. Harper explains it better than I could. Here’s a link to the book.
In “Why Wages Rise,” F.A. Harper tells you one way that you don’t make more money: By negotiating a higher salary. By talking your Law Makers into raising the minimum wage. By joining a Union. Those things give you inflation, but they don’t give you a raise.
There’s only one way to get a raise, and it has to do with how you make money in the first place.
You make money by creating something of value and selling it. That’s all there is to it. Really.
So how do you get a raise? You create more. Either you create something of greater quality, or you create somethings in greater quantity.
That’s all there is to it. Really.
Don’t take my word for it. Mr. Harper explains it better than I could. Here’s a link to the book.
2/26/14
The revolution will not be televised - not here, anyway
Stephen Cox notes the utter failure of the American media to "get" what happened in Ukraine over the weekend.
Here's the whole article.
For CNN (“we bring you the world”), the big stories, oft repeated, were a gay football player who remains a gay football player; a racial complaint in Mississippi; how to lose weight; replays of video footage, thought to be “viral,” about a child who might have been injured but wasn’t; and a variety of other non-news features. For Fox News, the stories were the chronic errors of President Obama, a US win at the Olympics (over 20 years ago), how to look good, and a variety of other non-news features. Both cable news networks had correspondents stationed in Kiev, but they were summoned to the camera about as often as brothers-in-law are requested to receive excess funds.
Here's the whole article.
2/25/14
My name is Brian Richardson
My name is Brian Wilson Richardson. I am told I was conceived while the Beach Boys’ new album, “Pet Sounds,” was playing on the stereo. I try not to think too much about that, because who wants to envision what your parents were doing when you were conceived? TMI, says I. TMI.
The name Brian suits me, I think, but most of my friends call me B.W.
I was raised in a small state on the East Coast somewhere between New York and Delaware, then packed off to a private college out here in, well, the state where I am now. There, a rodent with a walrus moustache tried to indoctrinate me into the ways of the collective, but I am my father’s son, and my father was an individual.
One of the first thoughts I remember having along the lines of the way the world is: The folks who signed the Declaration of Independence did not believe they were forming a new country.
“We, therefore … solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states …”
Notice the plural? States? What’s the difference between a country and a state? In 1776, there was no difference. United states, yes – one nation? Not so much. More like a federation, like our United Nations today. That’s why the first contract between the states were articles of confederation.
My ideas about The Way Things Are kind of riff off that thought. “Libertarian” describes my philosophy better than “republican” or “democrat” or “conservative” or “liberal,” and if you suggest that I sometimes veer toward anarchy, I don’t take that as an insult. Just keep in mind that my heroes are people like Gandhi and Thoreau and King – people who used their minds and their creativity to change the world, not their fists or other physical weapons.
If there is a battle between two dichotomies in this world, I suggest it is between the individual and the state. Call me an anarchist, and I respond that I fear a world without individuals more than I fear a world without states. But I don’t necessarily believe the institution of government is bad, if that government is an organization created by individuals to serve individuals, not rule them. I’m just not aware of any government that functions under that code.
I was murdered four years ago. All right, that is not exactly what happened. My father put me to sleep, believing that I had outlived my usefulness.
It’s time to wake up.
P.S. You think you know who my father is, and who I am. Maybe you don’t. In any case remember Tom Paine’s words from “Common Sense”: “Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN.”
The name Brian suits me, I think, but most of my friends call me B.W.
I was raised in a small state on the East Coast somewhere between New York and Delaware, then packed off to a private college out here in, well, the state where I am now. There, a rodent with a walrus moustache tried to indoctrinate me into the ways of the collective, but I am my father’s son, and my father was an individual.
One of the first thoughts I remember having along the lines of the way the world is: The folks who signed the Declaration of Independence did not believe they were forming a new country.
“We, therefore … solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states …”
Notice the plural? States? What’s the difference between a country and a state? In 1776, there was no difference. United states, yes – one nation? Not so much. More like a federation, like our United Nations today. That’s why the first contract between the states were articles of confederation.
My ideas about The Way Things Are kind of riff off that thought. “Libertarian” describes my philosophy better than “republican” or “democrat” or “conservative” or “liberal,” and if you suggest that I sometimes veer toward anarchy, I don’t take that as an insult. Just keep in mind that my heroes are people like Gandhi and Thoreau and King – people who used their minds and their creativity to change the world, not their fists or other physical weapons.
If there is a battle between two dichotomies in this world, I suggest it is between the individual and the state. Call me an anarchist, and I respond that I fear a world without individuals more than I fear a world without states. But I don’t necessarily believe the institution of government is bad, if that government is an organization created by individuals to serve individuals, not rule them. I’m just not aware of any government that functions under that code.
I was murdered four years ago. All right, that is not exactly what happened. My father put me to sleep, believing that I had outlived my usefulness.
It’s time to wake up.
P.S. You think you know who my father is, and who I am. Maybe you don’t. In any case remember Tom Paine’s words from “Common Sense”: “Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN.”
2/24/14
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