Hey…. a question came to mind…. how would we go about trying to convince people to totally TURN OFF their TVs for the whole day… I’m starting to sound like a PSA for child rearment… But seriously… with all the inane political garbage that we see on TV during the news,… How can we start a campaign on getting people to either turn off their TVs, cancel subscriptions to the right/left-wing cable companies and those idiot satillite providers and think about something else… what I don’t know… but show these idiot company big-wigs that we aren’t zombies and can’t be pushed around… This is gonna take more than just me, people… Who’s brain can I pick for ideas… Anyone? K_MuDD Burnsville, MN

I don’t know if this is worth blogging about… Jason can 86 it if he wishes…

But, instead of trying to get people to the polls on November 7th…. is it a stupid idea to just have the concept of, say… saying "fuck it" or "my vote doesn’t count as is anyway, so why bother"?

I’ve ran in to quite a few people here in the Minneapolis Metro that have that exact opinion. I dare not ask them their affiliation in fear they would walk away in offence.

I was talking to a girl at Hooters the other day… yes, I agree, not the first place one would go to attempt intelictual conversation… but I was hungry and felt the need to have a soda and some wings… at any rate…. The half-naked barmaid mentioned that she doesn’t like Bush. So, I proded on… She said she doesn’t like Mark Kennedy because he looks to … and I quote… "…too much like her weird uncle…" and she thinks Amy Klobushar is a bitch… apparently she’s met her at one point… to continue… So, I asked her if she didn’t like either of the canidates, then whom shall she be voting for?

She said, "Why should I even bother? I swear, every time I vote of one person the other person wins. It’s as if someone is fucking with our minds."  "How?", I asked. "Well, common… I don’t want to sound like a consperisist, but we all know that when we vote… it doesn’t matter anyway…" She continued. "The governement’s shadow leaders (where she’s coming up with this I have nooooooooooo clue) really pick who wins, and what-not. It’s no secret…"

This convo went on for about 15 more mins. She rattled on and on about this that an the other thing….I swear she’s either been listening to waaaaaaaay too much Art Bell or reading the books in the library that we’ve never thought to look up…

Granted… it made me think… Do our votes every 4 years accutally ammount to something…. or is today’s government just "humoring" us by letting the citizans of the US and where-else make it look as if we do make a difference….

I don’t know,,, you be the judge….

K_MuDD — Burnsville, MN

A teen shouting "I want Jesus" who was shot not once, but twice by police stun guns wound up dying.

Being from north Louisiana, I would advise the Illinois police to avoid revival and gospel church services where shouting thing like "I want Jesus" is actually, get this, encouraged!

Those of us that contribute to this website  must be very careful. We run the risk of breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back over how ‘aware’ we are, and how ‘commited to liberty’ we are. We even applaud ourselves on having the courage enough to debate issues (very civily I might add) amongst ourselves as we try to nail down within our own souls some of the more nebulous aspects of liberty and its appplications. After all, we’re not the ’sheeple’!
  I submit to you that we contain within us less courage than a single Chinese dissident facing down a tank in Tianneman Square. Just a touch of perspective, maybe.

The other day I was sitting in a bar, smoking a much deserved cigarette, when I noticed a "no smoking" sign on the wall. I am a regular at this particular bar and happen to know that smoking is permitted. The bar was clearly preparing for January.

For anyone who hasn’t been keeping up with the news, D.C. is scheduled to ban smoking in bars starting Jan. 1. The ban took effect in restaurants over the summer. This ban is an example of the nanny state flexing her newfound powers.

What, you may ask, is the nanny state? The derogatory term was coined during the Reagan administration and refers to state policies that regulate human behavior in a way that is detrimental to individual rights.

So why have smoking bans been categorized this way? Well, my freedom-loving friend, the state has taken away a choice traditionally reserved by the people - in this case workers, consumers and business owners. As it stands now, these groups in D.C. can still exercise a choice about smoking.

This has resulted in a city where the preferences of both smokers and non-smokers are readily available. In fact, the Smoke Free D.C. Web page has published a list of 123 restaurants and bars in the area that went smoke-free by choice. This list doesn’t even include bars that have a designated smoking area and an area that is smoke-free, such as Wonderland in Columbia Heights. With all these options, everyone should be happy, right? Wrong.

It isn’t enough that non-smokers and smokers have equal rights and that the wants of both are met. The desires of non-smokers should trump the desires and rights of smokers because smoking is unhealthy. The government has invented a new right. You now have the right to be in a smoke-free environment any time you enter a restaurant or bar. Unfortunately, your new "right" directly conflicts with a property owner’s right to allow smoking on their property and consequently with a smoker’s right to patron establishments that cater to their desires.

So the question becomes: How in a country of freedom-loving individuals did such an outrageous legislation gain support? The answer lies in secondhand smoke studies, around which there is a ridiculous amount of controversy. Proponents of the ban have a stack of studies conclusively proving that a single moment of secondhand smoke exposure will kill babies, grandmothers and family pets in gruesome ways. Opponents of the ban have stacks of studies conclusively showing that locking someone in a hole the size of a toy box with 666 chain smokers for 12,000 years will not adversely affect their health in the slightest.

Clearly, the truth lies between these two extremes. However, this is what everyone seems to miss. The number of options available for people who are concerned about how secondhand smoke may affect their health are practically endless. Anyone even mildly concerned with this issue can easily find bars and restaurants that don’t allow smoking, without using government power to legislate a ban.

The ease with which smokers and non-smokers find their restaurants and bars of choice do differ. Smokers are going to have to look a little harder to find restaurants that allow smoking while non-smokers may have to look a bit harder to find appropriate bars. Oh wait, could this possibly be market mechanisms at work? Could it be that, in general, there is a stronger correlation between smoking and drinking than smoking and eating? No, markets couldn’t possibly have worked that out all on their little lonesome!

Oh, but they have.

If we were living in a world where non-smokers were confronted with smoke-filled air in every establishment and on every street corner I would be more sympathetic to their position. As it stands today, however, the ban is less about giving non-smokers a smoke-free option and more about taking all options away from smokers.

First Published in The Eagle 10/30/06

Educational policy should not be about ideology. Once the vast majority of the population has come to the conclusion that the state should be involved in education, there is only be one question left to ask: What is best for the children?

Unfortunately, this is a difficult question to answer, not because no one has an answer, but rather because everyone has a different answer and everyone is sure that they are right. Since there is no unanimous decision, the state gets to decide what our children learn in our current public school system.

There are many arguments surrounding the inadequacy of the current system. However, there is only one issue that truly matters from a libertarian perspective. Parents, not the state, should decide what and how their kids learn at school. Just as it would be inappropriate to force a parent to raise their children a certain way, it is inappropriate to force children to learn things that their parents don’t want them to learn while they are in school.

This problem tends to affect the poor more than the wealthy because the poor have fewer educational options. Wealthy parents can easily afford private education. The system as it stands now allows wealthy parents to choose what and how their children learn while poor parents are forced to relinquish this choice to the state. Why should the rich have a greater say in how their children are raised? If taxpayers are going to be paying for education anyway, we should be paying for a system that allows choice for all.

The government should redistribute the money paid in education taxes to parents in the form of school vouchers so that they can decide how their children are educated. School vouchers are the most effective way to enhance choice within the educational system. With school vouchers, the state provides a certain amount of money for education per pupil. Where that child attends school is up to the parent. This has been enacted on a small scale in Milwaukee and Cleveland with positive results in both achievements of students and parental satisfaction.

Kids are being educated regardless of their socioeconomic background and, even better, the best schools are no longer reserved only for people who have the cash to pay for them. Now even poor students can attend prestigious private schools.

The solution to this problem is to ensure that all kids currently in the public system are able to transfer to private schools. This way no child is left behind. Opponents of school choice argue that there are not enough private schools to accommodate so many students. They are correct. However, if vouchers are implemented, then demand for private schools will rise. As any economics student knows, when demand rises, supply does, too. Eventually the market finds equilibrium. If vouchers are implemented within several years, there will be enough private schools to accommodate all children. There is no reason for a single child to be stuck in a failing educational system.

First Published in The Eagle 10/12/06

If you’ve been reading the news lately, you may have come across some talk of the Food and Drug Administration’s latest approval. Vectibix is a drug used to treat colorectal cancer, the third leading cause of death in the United States. The drug has been shown to slow tumor growth and, in some cases, reduce the size of tumors. According to the FDA, 55,000 deaths will occur from colon and rectal cancer in 2006.

After years of safety and efficacy testing had already been completed, biotech company Amgen, the maker of Vectibix, began submitting data in December and completed its FDA approval application in March. The agency reviewed Vectibix under an accelerated program for life- saving drugs. It is now September, and the drug has just been approved. Including all the time the drug company spent jumping through the FDA’s regulatory hoops, it took the FDA nine months to approve the drug.

This raises an important question: If a drug has the potential to save thousands of lives each year, and the FDA takes nearly a year to do nothing but review the paperwork, how many people died while the FDA was busy flipping through paperwork? It doesn’t take a mathematician to come up with the answer: a lot.

Clearly this problem is more pronounced with life-saving drugs. If a person is given three months to live, they will probably be willing to take a drug that may have adverse side effects. The worst the drug can do is kill them, but their death is already imminent. However, this problem also exists with other drugs. Why should a person have to deal with chronic arthritis pain just because the FDA is being overly cautious on approving a new painkiller? Even when adverse side effects of a drug have been found, why should the FDA be able to decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs? Shouldn’t individuals be able to make those decisions for themselves?

While a moderate solution might be to encourage the FDA to review drugs more quickly, this has already been tried. The rapid-approval status for life saving drugs such as Vectibix was the FDA’s attempt to do just that. As we have seen, the FDA’s idea of fast approval is just under a year. While there is no perfect way to guarantee consumer safety, this system is simply too imperfect. The FDA is meant to save lives, but by erring on the side of caution it can perversely cause more deaths with its inefficient approval process than the free market would cause without its help.

Before throwing this paper down in disgust at my naive trust in markets, take a minute to think about how market mechanisms work and how this would apply to the pharmaceutical industry. A company that sold a drug that killed people would not make a profit. Not only would they not profit, they would likely be taken to court and go bankrupt. Clearly, there is an automatic incentive to produce only safe products. Companies are going to be very careful to release only safe drugs to the general pubic. While this incentive will undoubtedly not keep all harmful drugs off the market, neither does the FDA. Furthermore, without the FDA’s long and expensive approval process, drugs will be less expensive for consumers.

Many consumers will probably be more willing to trust only drugs whose safety had been verified by a third party, much like the assurance now provided by the FDA. Already, though, private bodies certify the safety of everything from medical devices to automobiles to electrical appliances. It’s easy to imagine how such a process could be developed by one or more competing companies to supply the demand for drug safety evaluation. If consumers are willing to pay more for their drugs for this extra protection, then drug companies will be happy to pay for a stamp of approval in order to increase sales. But, most importantly, the competition between efficiency and safety needs would allow drugs to reach the market more quickly while also providing the level of safety consumers demand.

More importantly, people who are dying or in intense discomfort and willing to take unapproved drugs - and assume the risks - will be able to do so. Under free market solutions to pharmaceutical safety, consumers who are in dire need of decision-making power will be able to take their lives into their own hands instead of waiting for the FDA to approve a life saving drug.

What the dismantling of the FDA would really boil down to is an increase in consumer choices, and consumer demand for certification is likely to result in little or no real difference in the safety of drugs. Chances are great that fewer people will die unnecessarily as a result of mistakes from pharmaceutical companies than are dying today as a result of government overregulation.

First Published in The Eagle 10/02/06

Just thought I would pass this along as a good example of why people don’t take environmentalists seriously.  One of the books that’s required reading for my Environmental Sociology class (yea, laugh all you want at the fact that I’m even in such a class) is Phil Brown’s and Edwin Mikkelsen’s No Safe Place.  I just started reading it, but tucked into the preface was a pretty wonderful comparison.  In a discussion of toxic waste, we find:

Toxic waste creates panic, not only among the adults who must fight the situation, but also among the children whose innocence and security are prematurely shattered.  These two American children have confronted a threat that is no longer rare or unexpected but is ever present in our culture.  Indeed, it may have become the modern equivalent of the plague.

Yes, you read correctly.  The plague.  You know, the disease that killed between one and two thirds of Europe’s population in the fourteenth century.  Just thought that might finally make all of you miscreants realize what we’re up against.  Better act quick before it’s two late!  Though it would help solve some of those overpopulation problems we’ve been hearing so much about…

Read the rest of this entry »

When I tell people that I’m a classic liberal, they usually give me a confused look and ask me what the hell I’m talking about. At this point I bite the bullet and admit that the more common term for my political affiliation is Libertarian. Undoubtedly they reply, "Oh, so you’re a conservative who smokes pot."

 
Actually, I don’t smoke pot and I don’t want to ban gay marriage. A Libertarian is someone who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Libertarianism is a philosophy that values individual rights and freedom above all else. While that sentence alone describes why I’m a libertarian, I would like to take a closer look at what is wrong with the more popular political affiliations, Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats and Republicans are more alike than they are willing to admit. They both believe that government power and coercion can be used to help people. This is about where I get off the boat. The only real difference between the two parties has to do with what they think is important enough to merit government coercion: Democrats tend to favor coercion to protect citizens’ physical bodies while Republicans think the state’s force should be used to protect people’s souls. Democrats want to ban smoking and force people to wear seatbelts. Republicans want to ban marijuana and force people to be straight. As a libertarian I don’t really have to argue about what is healthy for your body or soul. Even if all smokers were going to drop dead after their first cigarette and then be damned to hell I wouldn’t support state legislation on smoking. Why? Because it is an individual’s right to decide whether or not his body deteriorates faster than necessary or whether or not he is damned to hell. It is not the state’s decision to make.

In terms of social policy, I don’t think the government should tell us what to do unless it directly affects the rights of another. Whether I smoke, cut myself, wear my seatbelt, sleep around or worship the devil should not concern the state in the slightest. In terms of fiscal policy, I think the government should stay out of my bank account. People have earned their salaries with their own sweat and toil. It should not be forcibly taken from them in the form of taxes, simply because the state thinks it has better uses for it. I earned that money and if I want to bury it in a hole in my backyard until rodents and insects devour it, then so is my right.

On a related note, I’d like to address a common point of misinformation about Libertarians. Libertarians are not intrinsically immoral or callous. I think this idea arose from Ayn Rand’s theory of Objectivism, which is the same as the classically liberal philosophy. Just to put the debate to rest, I do not think that people should cut themselves or worship the devil. I don’t happen to do either and would probably try to get help for anyone who did. I do believe in morality and I don’t think people should be left to starve in the streets. I simply do not think that a coercive, powerful government is an appropriate means by which to attain a utopian end.

The term "Leviathan" was first used by philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes believed that human nature was greedy and manipulative. He also believed that it would never be overcome and that human life was destined to be "nasty, brutish and short." Our only possible salvation, in Hobbes’ view, was a totalitarian state. This state would come into being by the consent of the people, but once it was alive and well it would no longer require their consent. Leviathan, the state of which Hobbes speaks, would act as a powerful sea creature, binding and regulating all human action to save us from ourselves.

I feel as though our current society is too close to Leviathan for comfort - which is why I’d like to drown it.

First Published in The Eagle 09/18/06