Recently, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took to the floor of the House to talk about Wikileaks, transparency in government, and the case of Daniel Ellsberg, the 
Pentagon Papers, and the New York Times. He spoke about how the Iraq War was based on lies. He asked how the U. S. government should prosecute a citizen of Australia for publishing classified U. S. documents that he did not steal. Paul also said the following: “Revealing the real nature and goal of our presence in so many Muslim countries is a threat to our empire, and any revelation of this truth is highly resented by those in charge.”
Paul posed a number of questions at the end of his talk:
Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?
Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised ‘Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.’ I yield back the balance of my time.
Source: Huffington Post
– Elaine Magliaro
Actually I care about semi-educated people spreading misinformation and bad ideas out of venal and myopic self-interest.
That’s how the world got to be this screwed up in the first place.
I could give a damn if you think I’m right or not, McHomeSchooled.
Chan give gyges some credit. He may not agree with mises but he at least read the man, and has the clarity to see that there is common ground. Buddha, as far as i can tell, is concerned only with declaring himself right loud enough for everyone to hear.
Gyges, I owe you a thank you for your insight that I am not concerned with telling people what to do. I simply wish to see the world organize itself voluntarily. I would go so far as to say that if people created a socialist/marxist society I would have absolutely no problem with it. I think there would be natural dysfunctions to such a system but I am not fundamentally opposed to it as long as all members were participating of their own free will. Until such time that they are free to associate as they see fit, I would have to conclude any derivations of individual preferences null and void.
Tony, efficiency, accomplishing one’s goals with, and heres the important part, MINIMUM of time and effort, is the utmost priority of any business as it allows a drop in prices, attracting more customers, or an increase in profits at current production levels, allowing expansion of production. Government has no such incentives, given that they must satisfy noone to generate revenue, and suffer no consequences if they exhaust those resources. For proof look no further than “cash for clunkers” It incentived people to trade in a fucntional, if not perfect, car for a new car they did not need at a price they could not afford. If they needed a new car they would have bought one anyway, if they could afford it, they would not be looking for a 4500 dollar discount. The government, instead of making SOME use out of those cars traded in simply destroyed them, demolishing the used car market and driving up prices. Additionally, the program, which was budgeted to run for months, was out of money in days and this was heralded as a smashing success.
Out of those two models, private companies striving tirelessly to reduce cost and increase efficienct use of their limited resources, or the government which destroys capital on a whim, and declares swift bankruptcy a triumph, which of those sounds sustainable to you?
Oh, you’re soooo clever, Chan!
Why don’t you just wheel around and give yourself a big self-congratulatory pat on your venal lil’ back.
@ekeyra: It is NOT sustainable, and the cost would be higher, which by your own logic would further restrict the use of it. The same goes for the roads; the government (state or federal) can build roads at cost. If they use civilian contractors those guys can make a profit; if they use civilians for maintenance, those guys can make a profit, but we don’t have any billionaire toll road barons in the country, and that is a good thing, because their billions would have come out of our pocket.
Your fundamental and completely wrong assumption is that private enterprise is somehow more efficient than government enterprise. It is not. In my personal experience with half a dozen state agencies and over a dozen private companies, I never saw that to be the case.
Sociology backs me up, my sister (a sociologist) has forwarded me studies in the past that show equal productivity.
Psychology backs me up, if bosses demand too much “efficiency” from workers, the workers move on to find easier bosses (either by being fired or quitting after finding another job). And guess what? The bully boss pays the cost in productivity due to higher turnover of his employees, and paying more overtime when he is understaffed, and those businesses lose money by providing poor service due to being understaffed.
Typical hourly or fixed-salary employees have no profit motive to work any harder than they have to work to keep some job, and if bosses try to push them much harder than that, then they will just go do bookkeeping for a nicer guy. And the boss they quit will eventually learn to be nicer, or pay the price in turnover and crises.
Evolutionary psychology backs me up: Humans naturally keep some energy in reserve to deal with unexpected emergencies that may require flight, fight, or strenuous effort to preserve their life or the life of another. We aren’t built to work flat out for hours on end, day after day. We can do it temporarily, but we are going to break down.
Your central premise, that profits motivate people to work hard, is factually wrong on a dozen fronts. The only place it actually holds is in unusual (by definition) circumstances in which people can earn significantly more, in some activity, than their relative market value outside of that activity. Whole Foods janitors are three times as productive as other janitors because at Whole Foods (where everything is measured) they are paid extra for productivity, and can earn twice what they can elsewhere. Entrepreneurs will work 14 hour days because if they are successful, they will be earning (as owners) several times what they could earn working for somebody else, and the amount of work an entrepreneur can do is often a direct multiplier on his income.
But about 90% of the population simply will not work very hard. Profit sharing plans are B.S., employee stock ownership plans are B.S., in fact these have been shown to be counter-productive because they are disappointing: Employees think the employer is trying to trick them into working harder for next to nothing.
Your basic premise that work done in a for-profit organization is “more efficient” than work done by government employees is completely false. And therefore, when something IS done by government employees, citizens can get that service at cost, meaning they may be charged for it in taxes or fees or licenses but the government only tries to recover the expenses of providing the service. Plus there are no CEOs or corporate officers making multi-million dollar salaries, no insanely expensive perks to pay for, no fancy buildings or private jets, and no discrimination. There is nobody cutting corners on safety and playing with our lives to try and increase the bottom line (like BP and Massey have done 700+ times); there are no investors demanding we open more roads (necessary or not) or increase tolls or increase the volume of mail so they can hit the quarter-over-quarter 8% growth rate they have arbitrarily set.
Your central premise is wrong when applied to the vast majority of people, it has been proven wrong for 50 years, and without it your entire argument collapses.
ekeyra:
here is Buddha and Gyges’s main source for posts here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/12/trolling.jpeg
Ekerya,
Fox appeals to Authoritarians. Which you are distinctly not.
One of the reasons I have discussions with you is because even though we interpret reality differently, we both do it for ourselves. I’m always willing to hear new ideas (or old ideas rephrased), but I’ve got a limit on the number of times I can stand to have something parroted to me.
Speaking of which…
Yes, yes debt bad. Except when it isn’t. Debt’s a tool, businesses use it, individuals use it, and governments use it.
Tools in and of themselves aren’t bad, but they may be bad for certain things.
My rifle is a tool, an extremely well made tool. I love my rifle, shooting it just feels right, one of the two things I own that feels like an extension of me when I use it. Anyway, in and of itself it isn’t bad. Randomly shooting a person with it would be.
Do I disagree with some of the things that the U.S. government took out loans for? Yes. I’m sure you can guess (and agree with) the two big ones. Do I think that because the U.S. government has to take out a loan to do something that it’s bad? No.
I’d love to see our government run on a balanced budget, but I’m willing to make exceptions for certain investments.
“Abolish the U.S. post office! Make all roads privately owned toll roads! Make the police force, the courts, and the military for-profit operations, that’s the only way they will ever be efficient! Kill the gays because somehow that is bad for us!”
As for the post office, of course abolishing it and allowing multiple profitable businesses to flourish would make it efficient. Why would that be a bad thing to have a sustainable mail service? You cant even argue restricted access because it is already charging fees, which restrict access. No matter how low you set the fees there will be someone who cannot afford them. As for roads, not only would it make them more effecient, it would make them safer given that businesses have an inherent self interest in not letting their cusstomers die. Its easier to make it safer for your already existing customers than to just wait around for new ones to be born. Regarding the police (besides directing you to the cases of misconduct reported on this blog almost daily), contractual obligations and market competition would do more to curtail police misconduct than any oversight committee, watchdog group, or internal affairs division ever could. As it stands i see no reason to ever call the police given two facts, one being that they are in no way obligated to protected anyone from anything, and two, should they “protect and serve” you to a hospital room or worse, they can expect a few weeks of paid vacation and an internal investigation to reveal they “followed procedure”. In addition any misconduct on the part of a private defense firm would result in damages coming directly out of the pockets of the firm itself instead of socialized police misconduct being paid for by the very citizenry whose rights have been violated. And why would a private court ever rule against a private defense contractor in a private court? Because, not only would the court in no way require the services of the private defense contrator in question to enforce its rulings (as is the case with state run courts and state run law enforcement), there would be competing courts to put pressure on every other court to rule thouroughly and fairly.
Hmmmm the military… what was this entire article about? Oh yeah the military and state department lying about the wars we are currently fighting and the government trying to lock up the one person trying to distribute the truth. Funny how when the government’s exercise in senseless destruction and mass slaughter bankrupts the nation through counterfieting and confiscation to fund it, they forget that their stated purpose is to protect our freedoms like say, oh, freedom of speech? If you are truly terrified of the “foreign hordes” as you so fearfully described them, YOU fund their extermination half a world away at your own expense and stop foisting the cost of your paranoia on those who would otherwise live their lives without the thought that the government must murder thousands of people a day to protect me and my family.
Ill throw in that i would make the fire dept for profit too.
And kill the gays? If they happen to reside in a country currently occupied by our armed forces i somehow doubt you can muster much sympathy for them, being part of those scary “foreign hordes”. Me personally, I dont care where anyone sticks their dick as long as the recipient consents.
Gyges,
For once someone was correct in an assumption about me hating fox. Althought of course I enjoy when ron paul makes an appearance and judge napalitano too. Before we get too cozy though, isnt the treasury in the red by trillions? Where are they getting money to loan to anyone? The government is trillions in debt and thats before you start calculating unfunded liabilities. The average american consumer is in debt somewhere between 13k and 8k. The financial institutions are the ones clamoring for hundreds of billions in emergency funds. Where is the money going to come from to continue operating these functions at massive losses?
@Gyges: I think a lot of us get overwhelmed by frustration with the government, and some laymen think the problem is over-complexity. I don’t think that, but those that do get suckered into puerile philosophies based upon absolutes they refuse to question rationally. Libertarianism with property rights and free markets, or Christianity’s religious principles formulated by unsophisticated, paternalistic, authoritarians three thousand years ago, or whatever it is.
Their problem is that if they were to question their irrational absolutes, they’d have no solution at all. So instead they figure out what “must” make sense when the absolutes are taken as given. That results in totally crazy shit, but instead of seeing this crazy shit for what it is — A complete refutation of their absolutes — They can only conclude that crazy shit must be the way to do things. Because they’ve been emotionally captured by their absolutes and cannot question them.
Thus: Abolish the U.S. post office! Make all roads privately owned toll roads! Make the police force, the courts, and the military for-profit operations, that’s the only way they will ever be efficient! Kill the gays because somehow that is bad for us!
Whatever crazy ass solution falls out of their absolutes, they want it, because they have an irrational, emotional conviction that if the absolutes are followed everything must work out in the end. Despite any evidence to the contrary.
What’s even funnier is when their absolutes conflict; e.g. “Care for the sick and poor? Shelter the homeless? Give them MY money? Is that what a Free Market Christ would do?!?”
Ahem
“So limited by philosophical blinders.”
Got distracted by my self righteous anger and mixed a metaphor.
Also, I can’t believe I’m having to argue for the post office. It’s in the Constitution, it’s widely acknowledged to be one of the best in the world, and is part of the infrastructure that’s used to define first world countries. When did we get to the point that ideologues would actually be so driven by their philosophical blinders as to try and remove one of the best things this country has ever done.
You know who relies on the post office being cheap, efficient and reliable? Every damn business in the country. From the company I do contract work teaching at preschools to Sears, Wal-mart, and every other piece of advertising you get in the mail. Bills, checks, IRS forms, all get sent via mail.
The post office benefits society, individuals and corporations alike. Period.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go get some stamps to send in my HOA dues, Christmas cards, and copies of my demo.
Right on Buddha. That was my point. Fox News lost something like $80-90 million a year for its first several years, but the price was worth it to spread the word!
Gyges, I agree that businesses and governments don’t mix and shouldn’t. The government can be efficient while doing its job and sticking to its mission.
Rafflaw,
Well I can think of lots of businesses that ran at a loss for the first several years. That’s not really the point. Businesses are businesses, the government is not. THAT’S the point.
Plus I have a feeling Ekerya is as anti Fox as you and I.
Ekerya,
The only people who directly pay for the post office are the people who send mail. There’s no other tax that supports it. The deficit is covered by loans from the treasury.
So no, I won’t have to consul anyone that ran out of money paying for the post office’s bills.
Because propaganda is always entered on the expense side of the ledger. 😉
Gyges,
Isn’t Fox News an example of a business that was/is losing money for years? Why would our Australian friend run a losing business???
Ekerya,
Quick question. Where does the USPS get it’s money?
Gyges, run at a loss for ten years. And if the people who are subsidizing this catastrophic failure run out of money in the middle of those ten years…? Console them with the fact they have access to cheap mail services?
Buddha & Raff,
Bizarreness is an open-ended commodity for our ‘leaders’.
Buddha,
That West character is the male version of Michelle Bachmann.
Good Evening Mike Appleton,
I’ve read your other posts this evening and I am pleased to be reading your contributions again–I expect the majority of the other people are too, in addition to all of the ‘regulars’.
.
FFLEO/Mike A.,
Add this to the mix:
Teabagger favorite Rep.-elect Allen West (R-Fla.) has “recently displayed selective reverence for the Tea Party’s most sacred document by calling for American news outlets to be censored for running stories based on the recent WikiLeaks cable dump.”
His exact words?
“There are different means by which you can be attacked. I mean it doesnt have to be a bomb or an airplane flying into a building. It doesn’t have to be a shooting. It can be through cyber attacks, it could be through leaking of very sensitive classified information. Regardless of whether you think it causes any harm, the fact that here is an individual that is not an American citizen first and foremost, for whatever reason gotten his hands on classified American material and put it out there in the public domain. And I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him for the efforts. So that’s kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.”
But clearly much more serious than aiding and abetting treason by Bush Co. by not seeking their prosecution. Mike, I sure hope you don’t live in this clown’s district. Florida is going to need a lot of luck with guys like this.