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
@ekeyra: Like all libertarians you seem incapable of thinking in anything but absolutes. About 15% of consumers are very strongly invested in their desire to buy quality and/or prestige; and if they can afford it they will buy the higher priced item on the theory that the higher price signals quality and/or prestige. It may, certainly the most prestigious objects available for purchase are very expensive, or everybody would have them and there would be nothing prestigious about them.
I do not object to the market system, I object to the FREE market system. I have no problem with capitalism or wealth, even in the extremes.
The reason I object to the FREE market system is that if businesses are unregulated they will inevitably harm other people and businesses in the pursuit of profit. I think that is wrong, and therefore I think businesses must be regulated to prevent them from using their power to harm others.
The “others” include customers, investors, employees and suppliers; the harm includes both physical harm like poisoning and endangerment, and financial harm like extortion and threats.
A regulated market is not a FREE market. Free markets have never worked anyplace they have been implemented, including in the early USA: People rebel against predatory, deceptive companies that gain and exploit monopolies, and the people demand regulation and restraint of the bully by the government.
Free markets do not work. People reject them. The vast majority of regulations constraining business in the USA was passed in response to horrific and egregious transgressions by actual businesses. The FDA exists because drug manufacturers were killing their customers for profits; OSHA exists because factory owners were killing their employees; child labor laws exist because companies were killing children; pollution laws exist because companies were poisoning their neighbors and destroying the environment willy nilly.
Free markets do not work.
Tony heres some logic.
If customers truly want higher prices and you dont care about efficiency, then what reason at all do you have to object to the higher prices you think would come about in a free market system? If prices were ten times higher wouldnt people simply infer that the product must be ten times the quality? Where does your objection come from?
Also stefan dismantles a misconception held by most of the world for centuries, elegantly and in under five minutes. I thought Id give him his due.
“What I do when I want breakfast is go to my fridge, which somebody else made, and get out eggs, which somebody else harvested, and cook them in a pan somebody else made using heat produced by natural gas somebody else drilled, refined and shipped.”
What you are forgetting is why the people who did all that chose to provide those products. None of those people did so with the express intent to help anyone but themselves. They took upon themselves the cost, responsibility and risk to offer those products purely out of motivation to exchange them for something they valued more than the product of their own labor. If they had made a refrigerator because they wanted a refrigerator, they would have just kept it for themselves and not offered it for sale to anyone. They wanted what you already had in your possession to exchange for those goods. They were greedy and self interested. How did they satisfy this self interest? By satisfying the desires of other people in the society first. This is all a phenomenom known as the “invisible hand” of voluntary human cooperation. Even if the end result is the satisfaction of other peoples wants and needs, the goal is always to acquire something you valued more than the product of your own labor. If you didnt value what you recieved more than what you gave away, why wold you agree to the transaction at all? In this light all free market interactions are mutually beneficially, because absent violent coercion, both parties perceive a net gain from interacting.
To the degree that government facilitates this process is to the degree it does not stand in the way of individual innovation and personal motivation.
@ekeyra: Well that is to be expected; you are incapable of following logic or responding to logical arguments, all you are capable of is memorization and parroting the “authorities” you have chosen. Given that, your only defense is to appeal to those authorities (that have duped you, and/or been duped themselves) and demand I prove my authority.
There is little point in abandoning anonymity to do that, because a victory won by anything other than logic is pointless. If you cannot process logic you are just a lemming, just another foot soldier with an unshakeable faith in a religious ideology. You just know free markets must work, and how or why I am wrong may elude you, but you just know I must be wrong. Isn’t that how it goes?
Now that I’m done with the theory of a “Social Contract,” I’ll explain how the Sonata Allegro form is just a musical version of the essay form we’re all taught in English classes.
Blouise’ll back me up on this one.
Ekerya,
Individuals have obligation to society, and society has an obligation to individuals. When either end breaks their part of the bargain bad things happen. In that case, the individual no longer has a debt to the formalized structure of society (read the government), and instead is obligated to themselves and others in it to fight to establish a better one. Even when they themselves are not the ones being mistreated. The method of the fight should be as non-violent as possible, but sometimes violence is the only way. Or, in other words:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html
For you and I, we live in a society that is more or less self correcting, mostly we just have to maintain the machinery. When that’s not enough, we have several varied and non-violent methods of changing that machinery. Other people have a greater struggle. Like I said, life is not fair. I do my best to help my fellow humans (for that matter, my fellow organisms), but my reach is short.
What I do when I want breakfast is go to my fridge, which somebody else made, and get out eggs, which somebody else harvested, and cook them in a pan somebody else made using heat produced by natural gas somebody else drilled, refined and shipped. All of which were made possible by a combination of individual actions and ideas, societal protections, and government projects. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve eaten that didn’t come in part from other people’s labor. That includes the stuff from my garden and the deer and antelope in my freezer.
Welcome to being a modern human. We’re all dependent on each other, and others are all dependent on us. Specialization has lead to greater efficiency, but it’s also led to greater dependence.
Gyges, I guess all those jews in germany aroundthe 1930s and 40 were just shit out of luck? Same for the japanese that were here in america about the same time? Same goes for the millions slaughtered by moa, stalin, pol pot, Idi amin? Just bad luck on their part to be born into the wrong “pack” at the wrong time?
As for individuality, when you wake up do you decide what you want for breakfast or do you wait to see what everyone else thinks you should eat? Do you do what you want with your day or do you take a poll to see what the “pack” believes you should be doing with your time? If thats really how you feel shouldnt you be weighing those considerations with every decision you make?
Tony, until i have proof, i refuse to believe you successfully managed anything.
“As it relates to government, I don’t care about minimizing cost or maximizing efficiency”
Of course you dont, its not your money so why should you care?
Reportedly, Mr. Assange is released.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/16/wikileaks-latest-julian-assange-bail-appeal
@ekeyra: To answer your question more directly, I have no faith in either choice you present, and believe both are flawed. I do not wish to exploited by unregulated sociopaths in the private sector, and I do not wish to be exploited by unregulated sociopaths in government. To me, those are the choices you offer: Ruthless Bastard #1, or Ruthless Bastard #2.
This is a good, current summary of the Wikileaks saga.
“The Media Gets It Wrong on WikiLeaks: It’s About Broken Trust, Not Broken Condoms”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-media-gets-it-wrong-o_b_797436.html
Gyges,
“It wasn’t a failure, it succeeded in a questionable goal.”
I take no issue with that statement.
Ekerya,
The whole basis of your argument is “it’s not fair that I didn’t get to choose the society I’m born into.” Well, life isn’t fair. It will never be fair. You were born into a society, and you benefited from that from the word go.
Mom gave birth at a time when the infant was likely to survive? Thanks Society! Grew up in an area where high vaccination rate leads to a reduction in deadly and crippling diseases? Thanks Society! Didn’t get pressed into child slavery? Thanks Society! Got birthday cards from Grandma? Thanks Society! You owe society a great big hug, and a little chunk of the money that exists, and that you’re alive to earn and enjoy.
Further more, you want to pretend that we’re all just individuals working in isolation. Humanity isn’t a bunch of individuals, it’s a bunch of individuals who live in a pack. You want to ignore the pack part of that. That’s why your philosophy will never work.
Pack ALWAYS have a structure. Since we can’t change human nature, we can do our best to make sure that it works for everyone, not just the one or two who get to be the Alphas.
Puzzling,
I never said profit wasn’t a motive. I just happen to think that profit isn’t the only motive. I’ve never met a rational self interested human being, and hope I never do.
Puzzling and Buddha,
At the risk of restarting an old argument. I still say CFC did exactly what it was designed to do. It wasn’t a failure, it succeeded in a questionable goal.
@puzzling: I agree with that, government should be powerless to promote corporate interests. I do believe government should have the power to thwart some corporate interests, particularly the abusive and exploitive and other oppressive and irresponsible “interests.”
@ekeyra: Tony, efficiency, accomplishing one’s goals with, and heres the important part, MINIMUM of time and effort, is the utmost priority of any business
From my expert point of view as a successful business manager for most of my life, you don’t know what you are talking about.
Any fool in business whose “utmost priority” is to “minimize time and effort” will probably fail because they are working on the wrong thing. Profits (and growth) are properly seen as a happy side effect of customer satisfaction.
Profits are the bottom line, but trying to manage from the bottom line is foolish. Smart managers go after the top line because that is something easier to influence. The top line is revenue from sales.
Low price does not sell that well. Reducing the price of bad coffee doesn’t sell more bad coffee. Raising the price to cover the cost of good coffee can increase sales and margins and profits: Just ask Starbucks. For the super-majority of people, price is not the deciding factor in a sale, and about 15% of American consumers prefer the higher prices, on the assumption that the higher price is there for a reason and therefore reflects better quality.
In business what matters is satisfying customers. Managers should avoid waste but minimizing means driving to the lowest possible value; and that is a fool’s errand, because it results in a system that is too fragile to deal with the unexpected (like a person quitting or a factory run gone wrong or a critical machine breaking down). That means it produces poor quality and service, and that means dissatisfied customers and bad word of mouth and fewer sales. It can cost far more than it saves.
As it relates to government, I don’t care about minimizing cost or maximizing efficiency, I care about results. Reasonable cost and mediocre efficiency are just fine by me, because in government, quality and service are more important to me than saving a dollar, or saving a hundred dollars. I don’t want my police and firemen cutting corners and trying to be efficient, I want them to be effective. I want them to deter and catch criminals and stop crime and protect my property. If that costs 30% more than it might have cost, I don’t care.
A good business is a machine that is designed to consistently satisfy customers at a profit. That is not that easy to do, so once a working design is found it should not be messed with lightly. We don’t risk messing with the internals of the machine with some naive idea that changing a few gears around to cut costs won’t affect the real output, which is the consistent satisfaction of customers. If we screw that up we might not be able to recover. Smart managers do not try to fix what isn’t broken because the fix might break it.
The reliable formula for successful business management in the real world is to aim for “good enough” on business expenses and margins, and then devote one’s energies toward maximizing sales and increasing the consistency and level of customer satisfaction. That is the “utmost priority.” Maximizing the bottom line is accomplished by maximizing the top line.
The government becomes powerless to promote corporate interests when corporations are not allowed to contribute to either policy making or campaign finances. As Tony said above, “Government is the opposite of business.” Or, more accurately, it is when corporations and their lobbyists aren’t allowed to write the laws.
BIL,
I’m in full agreement but would state it differently:
Government works when government is powerless to promote corporate interests.
Tony,
I have been reading your posts and am not sure where to begin. It’s likely that we actually agree on many so-called controversial issues in our society today, but we are worlds apart on the fundamentals that drive these conclusions.
I have previously endorsed this argument and justification of a free society.
CFC. As with any economic action, ask who benefits.
Who benefited from cutting inventory from the ever expanding used car market?
Manufacturers looking to sell new cars.
What drove the adoption of such a plan?
Politicians bought and paid for by the automotive manufacturing lobby, benefiting from “campaign contributions”.
Government works best when corporate interests have no say in it.
ekeyra,
You make excellent points.
On the one hand we hear arguments articulating the awesome and corrupting power of the profit motive. In the next breath we hear that profit is actually not a motivator at all… and that government and government employees are equally efficient and productive.
Some time ago there was an extended debate here on Cash for Clunkers. While my attempts to link back to the article on this blog are banned again, google “CFC palin death panel puzzling” for a good read.