The Market Fundamentalist

http://reason.com/blog/show/130478.html

Finally, an HONEST POLITICIAN!

No, not honest in the sense of truthful and ethical, but honest in the sense that Gov Rod Blagovetch’s frank ramblings about how much a Senate seat was worth to him on the open market caught by the FBI wiretaps is relevant to several threads we have pursued on our lists.

Like my friend Dennis would say, now we know why they spend millions to get a 100,000 dollar a year job.

Like Chris would say, sure there are some really honest, hard working politicians (most of them Democrats, I would think he would say) but Blagovetch’s blatant admissions underscore what I have said:

1. The worst monkeys climb the greasy pole of politics to the top (FA Hayek)
2. Public choice economics reveals to us that politicians are NOT selfless individuals dedicated to the “common good”, but ambitious pikers driven by self interest, and WITHOUT the competitive checks and balances one finds in the market.
3. As the economist in this blog points out, with all this bailout mania, what we will see is influence peddling writ large, as hundreds of politicians cloak their inner Blagovetch with high sounding words about “saving jobs” or “helping little people keep their homes” or “building a greener world” or just “change” as the corporations line up for favors that will surely be repaid in full down the road.
4. The polticians (ie, the state) ARE the real center of power. They are NOT owned or controlled by corporations or some hidden elite. They ARE the elite, they HAVE THE GUNS, and they dispense the favors that only power can bestow according to THEIR whim.

Brendan

Dave S was loud once again at the Carson Nugget. We were there for the Northern Nevada premiere of Aaron Russo’s documentary America: From Freedom to Fascism.There were several tables of people there eating before the movie. I must confess I was kind of glad he was sitting near me, because I anticipated that he would launch into another anti-immigrant screed. I didn’t care if I was the only pro-immigrant person in the room. If he wanted a verbal
confrontation, I would give it to him.

He Did.

It was his usual diatribe. He argued with the fallacy of the “mature economy” and large population today that somehow cannot absorb more immigrants…even though Americans are not reproducing with large families and indeed we can accept more people easily. He asks why the Mexicans should have preference over Asians who must wait “simply because they are born close to the border”. Of course accidents of birth are an important factor in determining rights and opportunities. His accident of birth in being born in the USA, by that logic, should not determine his status either. Besides, the argument that Mexicans ( as a generic term for Latinos) should not be allowed entry when others have to wait is an argument for eliminating quotas and waits for everyone, not an argument for equality of restrictions on liberty.

The natural control on immigration is of course to eliminate the welfare state, if not the state itself, and make the distinction between immigrant worker and citizen clearer. Let those who come to work, work. Allow those who truly wish to remain and be citizens of the US have a clear path to that. Get the government out of the schools and health care and the labor markets so that the market place can allocate these resources. End the war on drugs and return to a non-interventionist foreign policy to minimize crime and terrorism associated with international travel. Stop the inane reliance on papers, ids and return to community policing and awareness as the proper method of discovering potential criminals and terrorists.

Since Republicans and Democrats have no intention of doing any of these things, it is left to the Libertarians alone to propose them.

But what really gets me is Dave S is convinced he is a free market economic thinker. He says he met Milton Friedman. But, he must not have read “Free to Choose” , wherein Friedman calls protective tariffs or restrictions on the free immigration of persons an “illogical rationalization” and where he even quotes the immortal inscription on the Statue of Liberty and states “They came by the millions, and by the millions they were absorbed. They prospered because they were left to their own devices.”

In similar fashion Dave S says he met Ayn Rand and thinks that qualifies him to understand Libertarian thought. That Ayn Rand is only one Libertarian among many, many great free market thinkers is lost to him. That her accomplishments must be measured against the cult of personality she created around herself is also not understood by him. The current Objectivists are thankfully not all Libertarians, and not all Libertarians by far are Objectivists. Murray Rothbard called them “Randroids” because of their slavish, almost programmed devotion to Ms. Rand. And, Ayn Rand herself was an immigrant, who fled both the Communists of her Russian Homeland and the Fascists of Italy.

Dave S, once again, illustrated the difference between a conservative and a libertarian. He cannot help but think in collective terms, and therefore is a socialist. His socialism is of the right, and regards the nation state as the great collective that the individual must absorb into. The left socialist thinks of the collective as a class distinction, of rich vs. poor. Both are antithetical to libertarian beliefs, as we regard the individual as an end in himself, and deny that any collective, whether nationalist or based on class or race, is more important than the
individual person.

Last Tuesday there were some Political Cross Dressers spotted on the in Washoe County Commission.

Further evidence that political affiliation is no indicator of ideology among major party players:

Local restaurateur, property rights advocate and open meeting law expert Gary Schmidt lost his appeal of an “inoperable vehicle” citation for the two antique fire engines he has on display on his property up Mount Rose Highway.

Despite his presentation that the vehicles were in excellent condition, were on “proud display”, that the road they are visible from is a private road, and that the anonymous complaint against them was still anonymous, the vote against him was 4-1.

All four nay votes were cast by the Republicans on the County Commission. Humke, Webber, Galloway and Larkin.

The only Commissioner to vote for the appeal was Pete Sferrazza, the lone Democrat.

It would be a sad day to notice that a Democrat was more willing to uphold property rights than four Republicans. It would be, that is, if it didn’t happen almost every day.

Republicans are more concerned with upholding the positivist laws passed by the state than in upholding the natural laws of real nuisance. Unless, of course, it involves a major corporate contributor, in which case they will defend property rights with more vigor, or at least until the checks stop coming in.

The Commissioners drew a very fine, pharisaical line in this case. The fact that Schmidt has embarrassed them on the Washoe County Board of Equalization and in public comments regarding their violations of the open meeting law had absolutely nothing to do with it, or so they claim.

Although Commissioner Sferrazza did point out that Schmidt asked for a continuance that is routinely granted but denied him in this instance.

Think small, tight, enclosed. Imagine a rat in a maze. There are definite boundaries to his development. If he is gonna get the cheese, it will be where the maze builder puts it…

Now, dress the rat in a calico shirt, tie a ribbon around his neck, and call the maze his “community”. The nearby planted cheese is now his workplace, close to the straw bed he calls his home. There is suddenly no need for the rat to even imagine leaving the maze, to venture out from any hole in the wall into a vast kitchen filled with cuboards and baseboards to explore and discover random bits of cheese…no, everything is close to home, confined, built up, not out…

The war on suburbia, given the perjoritive name “sprawl”, like all wars, is about control of territory. It’s about drawing definitive “growth management boundaries” defined with legal barb wire regulations. It’s about diplomatic maneuvering, media propaganda, demands and concessions. It is a frontal assault on the private property rights of ordinary Americans. And, it is a foreign war being waged on our land (literally), directed by international forces, operating from the UN and various affiliated NGO’s.

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Dr Jennifer Daniels came to Reno this week. She is an interesting woman, persecuted by the State of New York over her decision for economic and scientific reasons to stop prescribing pharmaceuticals and turn her practiceinto a natural healing rather than allopathic one.

We taped three hours with her. She has such impressive credentials, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Wheaton School of Business!

She was featured in the Wall Street Journal as a black entrepreuner. She had a successful practice, but found discrimination by the insurance companies . She decided, after consulting her patients, to turn to traditional medicine, and nutritional counseling.

Disaster struck in the form of one patient who abandoned his healthy regimen as the result of a drinking binge.

Dr Daniels has been a Libertarian Party Candidate for Mayor of Syracuse, NY. She has also been a candidate in the New York Green Party.

Contact Dennis Grover for more information and to order tapes and DVD’s.

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