Apple Is ‘The Man’ ?

Apple has long considered itself a computing rebel — the anti-Microsoft — famously, the destroyer of Big Brother in a Superbowl commercial. Now, Apple faces the threat of action from regulators, who see it as “The Man” using its market power to quash competition.

The above is from a Wired article.  How ridiculous!  Regulators, that is the government itself, view Apple as “The Man”?  Or in other words The Man views Apple as The Man?  Enough!

Apple sells computing devices that people willing choose to buy.  Apple designs and builds those devices as it sees fit.  This makes them a dark anti-competitive force?  People buy Apple products not because they don’t have choices from competitors, but instead because those choices are found wanting.

Government Promotes Big Brother Image

This is a real ad playing in Pennsylvania:

ObamaCare Already Failing At Cost-Cutting ?

Apparently, the Senate has already post-poned some previously scheduled Medicare cost saving measures. If you’ve been paying attention you might know the new healthcare “reform” package required certain cost saving measures to make is seem palatable in the face of spiraling government deficits.

Many people felt ObamaCare was unworkable as Congress would simply pass supplemental legislation preventing those cost-saving measures from taking effect (and thus raising the cost of the ObamaCare programs).  It would seem the actions taken on April 15 bolster this view.

The lesson to learn, all government actions are reversible and cannot be relied upon.  There are no laws or entitlements that can’t be taken away or randomly altered.  This year-long debate on healthcare has been a magnificent attempt at catching the wind.  Why?  Because this “landmark” legislation won’t exist in it’s originally passed form in a year, or two years or ten.  There is no landmark, this wasn’t permanent or reliable in any way.  All the arguing was literally a waste of time.  All the lobbying and money spent last year could have been spent directly on people needing it in 2009.  Instead it was spent on thousands of pages of meaningless paper.

Arizona Illegal-Immigration Controversy Not So Clear-Cut

Arizona’s new illegal immigration laws are causing a bit of controversy around the nation.  Even Mexico is upset and calling for boycotts of the state.  Libertarian-minded folks are outraged that people might have to “show their papers”.

As is often the case, the reality on the ground is somewhat messier than the high-minded theories of right/wrong and fair/unfair.  The AP reports a deputy was shot in relation to “carrying out smuggling interdiction work before finding the bales of marijuana and encountering the five suspected illegal immigrants, two armed with rifles” (yesterday). The article further states a rancher was recently killed by a suspected illegal border crosser.

So, perhaps the people of Arizona aren’t dealing with abstract theories, but cold-hard reality.

Paul Krugman: Gov. Regulation Caused the Housing Bubble

Mr. Krugman writes:

To appreciate Georgia’s specialness, you need to realize that the housing bubble was a geographically uneven affair. Basically, prices rose sharply only where zoning restrictions and other factors limited the construction of new houses. In the rest of the country — what I once dubbed Flatland — permissive zoning and abundant land make it easy to increase the housing supply, a situation that prevented big price increases and therefore prevented a serious bubble.

Don’t worry, that’s as close as he gets in blaming government in this article. Later he returns to how consumer protection regulations actually saved “homeowners [from treating] their homes as piggybanks”.  Despite this curious phrase, he notes predatory lending was really to blame.  It must be hard for him to walk such a fine line between logical thinking and completely opposite conclusion making.

Rising Taxes: VAT (Consumption) & Income

George Will’s opening paragraph says it clearly:

When liberals advocate a value-added tax (VAT), conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it — after the 16th Amendment is repealed.

Food, Inc. vs. Reality

This image still says much about what is wrong with the 2009 movie, Food, Inc.:

Obviously, this is a dramatization and not an actual documentation of something.  I remember when the word documentary brought to mind amazing shots in the wild of a bear catching a salmon.  This movie seems to be more of a feature length activist message promoting a particular point of view.  Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t really a documentary or high-minded journalism.

Besides my gripe with the format, it was an interesting show.  To the extent that the information presented is believable, it is at least food for thought.  However, the conclusions the movie makers draw is puzzling to say the least.

The overriding theme seems to be that big multi-national food corporations are engaging in bad, unsafe activities and they are covering it up.  Yet, nearly every example trotted out by the movie’s producers of bad corporate behavior can be traced to the abuse of government power.  In fact, the movie itself constantly sites how corporations get their power, from the government: government laws crafted for the food industry; market distorting subsidies from government to the food industry; food industry insiders being appointed to high level government positions; and government courts ruling in favor of the food industry.

The government is often the common denominator of power abuse.  Let’s be crystal clear, without the force of government on their side, the consequences of bad actions by certain individuals and corporations would be drastically reduced.

What Is President Obama’s Philosophy ?

Over the last couple of years, I’ve heard President Obama’s political policies described as: socialist, fascist, corporatist, and statist.  I don’t know which one best describes his policies, but (YIKES) who would want to be described by that list?

Of course, the world being a messy place, his policies are probably some mixture of several different philosophies. Socialist is most commonly attributed to him, but it doesn’t fully take into account all of his initiatives. For example, ObamaCare requires coverage by private companies. This would seem to make him a Corporatist, but it too doesn’t account for his strong belief in central planning by the social elite. Maybe he is guided by Statism, but this term seems far too nebulous to really describe much.

Sadly, that list doesn’t seem to have much in common with freedom for the people and thus doesn’t allow for policies that ultimately respect the people.

‘Socialism’ Definition

From my Mac’s dictionary, socialism:

a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

policy or practice based on this theory.

It goes on to say, “it implies an opposition to the untrammeled workings of the economic market”.

Desperate to Justify Anti-Liberty Policies

Recently, I’ve heard the argument made (particularly with regard to the recent healthcare legislation) that a small reduction in liberty or personal freedom isn’t really that big-a-deal since it comes nowhere close to the horrors experienced by others in history (eastern european communism, chinese communism, slavery, and so on).  It’s even been suggested that to have a strong opinion otherwise is to be an uninformed, whiny American.

I would put forward, that it is precisely the knowledge of the horrors of the world (past and present) that leads many to choose to guard their liberty so jealously.  Further, to the extent that the rhetoric may seem to be overheated from the liberty-loving crowd, they are in great despair at watching what freedoms they have to be taken away piece by piece.  They are often told, ‘your sacrifice is for the greater good’.  But what greater good can there be, that an entire group of people are forced against their will into a particular action?  Do they participate in the greater good?

No, it is very hard to justify forcing another human-being into a particular action against their will, whether it is total lack of liberty or just a little bit of ‘unimportant’ liberty.  And, I believe, the anti-liberty crowd know this. There are few arguments in America that are so universally understood to be unacceptable as ‘I will tell you what to do’. So, a certain humility-lacking, know-what-is-best-for-everyone crowd continually churn-out any number of ‘greater good’, or ‘you just don’t understand’ arguments in a desperate attempt justify taking some amount of a person’s liberty away.