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
Gyges, (to your post December 16, 2010 at 2:13 pm)
Yep … you are correct. Yeah, we can talk music for a bit:
Sonata Allegro form or “ABA'” form.
The A section is called the “Exposition”
The B section is called the “Development” (of A material)
The return of A section is called the “Recapitulation,” (A material returns relatively intact)
Essay Form:
Introduction (Thesis statement similar to Exposition in
Sonata Allegro)
Body (Each paragraph expands on the Thesis Statement
similar to Development in Sonata Allegro)
Conclusion (Return to Thesis idea similar to
Recapitulation in Sonata Allegro)
The organization of musical piece is like a well written piece of literature. Should we also mention the role mathematics plays in music composition? That is why one finds so many scientists, mathematicians and English teachers who play a musical instrument all their lives. It is also why computer generated music took off without a stumble. It’s all related. Pay close attention the next time you hear a good country music piece. Listen for the thesis statement in the lyrics, then to the development of that statement and then to its restated conclusion … then play it again and listen for the music itself as it accompanies the lyrics … The song, The Gambler, as a story and a metaphor on life is a good example … the music that accompanies the lyics and the buuum dah bum heartbeat of the rythmn is perfectly related to the human body (heartbeat). What follows are the lyrics, music and visual interpretation:
Buddha,
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awigb9BWDmU&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]
And now, the Chan L. theme song, performed by Mr. Aldo Nova . . .
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miSMxBP42W0&fs=1&hl=en_US]
@Chan: You can also have private for profit grading/testing agencies that give a mark of approval.
That wasn’t in your hypothetical, and it is ridiculous in any case. Shall we have such a system for every one of the ten thousand foods on the market? Sure. If it is a for profit system, who pays for it? The consumer.
So it is just a tax on the consumer, but now a HIGHER tax than the government charges for the same service, because the government is doing it for ZERO profit.
Can you see yet how stupid that statement is?
As for the rest: Do you deny that carcinogens can be put into food? Do you deny that people buy and eat food they couldn’t possibly trace to a source? Do you deny it is possible to be exposed to a carcinogen without having any clue as to where or when that happened?
If you deny those things you are either a liar or an idiot, if you accept those things then my scenario is not far-fetched in the least. You just do not want to deal with it honestly because it is devastating to your central premise, so instead you claim it is a fantasy.
@ekeyra: The fact that people reject free markets is not me agreeing with the masses, it is the fact that history provides plenty of confirmation of my central premise, that free markets do not work. People revolt against them because they do not work.
Theories are tested and refuted or confirmed empirically. Einstein’s theory that gravity could bend light was confirmed by a natural experiment, during an eclipse, with starlight. Virtually every scientist on the planet accepted that result.
When it comes to free markets, the experiments have been done time and again. The Constitution did not include laws on workplace safety, people demanded those laws loudly enough when they found it impossible to achieve a free market solution.
The same goes for minimum wage, and laws against advertising drugs as “cures” that did nothing at all, and on and on. People demanded these laws as their last resort when all else failed, including the “free market.”
Citing the historical facts of what people have done is not me agreeing with them, it is providing evidence for my logical argument that free markets always fail. If they succeeded, no new laws would have been necessary. Why would these people have resorted to years and years of demanding laws if there were an easier way? They simply would not have. They did it because there was no alternative route to relief.
All the standard tripe of free markets did not happen; no trusted private drug tester emerged to offer cheap and effective testing, no alternative drug vendor emerged that was safer and more trustworthy than the snake oil salesmen. Nobody decided to compete honestly with safe and effective drugs. Why? Because nobody would believe them, in a free market system you have to believe any rating agency is just as corrupt as the company it is rating, and may be in collusion with it.
None of the citizens demanding drugs be inspected and tested for safety and efficacy before being sold to the public profit from that any more than any other citizen, but they all profited by stopping the lies and fraud that was killing people.
Like . . . thalidomide.
The Ford Pinto.
Toys with lead paint on them.
Black pepper adulterated with graphite shavings.
Wasn’t the FDA around in the 50’s?
Can you name a couple of other cars? One out of how many thousands of models?
Isn’t government responsible for controlling lead?
and as far as graphite in pepper:
http://www.astaspice.org/files/public/SpiceAdulteration.pdf
“Self Regulation – As the trade association representing the spice industry, ASTA’s position is that the industry needs to take responsibility for the integrity of the products we buy and sell instead of waiting for regulatory bodies to do that for us. The Self Regulation Program was introduced in October 2004 as a way for members to report suspected adulterators. ASTA members who believe they have received adulterated spice are encouraged to file a complaint through that program.”
Where does the adulteration take place? In foreign countries, from the article most adulterants are benign.
Out of the many people engaged in the spice trade in the US, this paper sites one individual who was taken to task by the FDA and apparently he didn’t know it was being done.
The American Spice Trade Association
http://www.astaspice.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1
“Testing Spices is their speciality.” And they probably do a far better job than the FDA would. Greed it works every time.
Ekerya,
There is a difference between being perceived as beneficial and being beneficial. I may think I’m benefiting from a transaction, but I’m not. I’d still enter into the transaction without physical coercion, and it wouldn’t be mutually beneficial.
Ayn Rand might have used the term “rational self interest” but so do economists. If I’m using a word or phrase incorrectly, please correct me. If you think I’m using it for purely rhetorical reasons, feel free to call me out. Otherwise, keep your aesthetics out of my writing.
http://faculty.lebow.drexel.edu/McCainR//top/prin/txt/Neoch/Eco111t.html
The point of the fridge example was that we live an function in groups. If you agree with that than there’s no need to discuss it further. It wasn’t a great example, but it’s what worked within the context of the conversation.
At this point, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what your beliefs are, and I think you’ve got a handle on mine (if not please ask for clarification). Since I think we’ve reached the fundamental disagreement, I suggest we call it a day.
Safe products!
Like . . . thalidomide.
The Ford Pinto.
Toys with lead paint on them.
Black pepper adulterated with graphite shavings.
Tobacco that’s good for you.
Yeah. Business cares about your money alright. Period. How to get it at as low a cost to them possible. If you die in the process, then their focus simply shifts on getting your money from your heirs. Business doesn’t give a damn about you. Business cares about one thing: money, that ol’ bottom line.
You’ve chosen a system alright.
A delusional system where everybody gives a damn about you personally so they can be counted upon to not work against your best interests when it is in fact not in their best interests to work for your best interests – especially if it costs them money and lowers their profit margin.
Tony C:
you make the mistake of thinking everyone who owns a business is a sociopath. They are not. If they sell tainted eggs they go out of business.
Anyway your example is ridiculous. If the moon is in the 7th house and Jupiter is aligned with Mars the Mockingbird will sing Handles Messiah.
A free market will protect people better than government.
You can also have private for profit grading/testing agencies that give a mark of approval. Think UL, JD Powers, Consumer Reports.
I have never had to sue anyone, my assumption is that people who are willing to sell things to me could care a less about government regulations. What they care about is my money, that concern causes them to provide safe, good services and products. Government regulation is a smoke screen created for political/bureaucratic reasons.
Keep believing the lie of the left, I choose a more effective system.
A government pogue would be easier to buy off, they have jobs for life and cannot be fired. I think I will stick with the private sector and greed to protect me. It has worked pretty well so far.
“No, it is economic activity that is certain to do it.”
Care to offer anything more than a single sentence to back that up, considering governments murder their own citizens daily, and the vast majority of individuals and businesses do not harm anyone? Even the ones who do cannot hope to match the scale of destruction and slaugher put on display by our own government.
“With a governmental system, the farm can be inspected, the feed can be tested, and it can be made a crime to cover up a potential consumer health issue.All for less than a dime per dozen.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GKD4jYzwNw
Long story short, FDA doesn’t make a profit and cannot expand its operations to meet the increased demand of inspections. A bastion of effeciency I think not. Also wasn’t that recent outbreak of eggs making people sick under their oversight? Hmmm I wonder why noone in the FDA was held accountable for their failure?
“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. ”
Those sound like you condemning free markets because other people have condemned free markets. If you take that observation personally I have no idea what to tell you? Calm down?
@ekeyra: No, it is economic activity that is certain to do it.
I don’t know WTF you are talking about with deference to masses, I presume that is some kind of personal attack. I defer to nobody, my logic is my own. You don’t have any logic, so now you will resort to personal attacks.
@Chan: I want a dozen eggs and the eggs are tainted and I get sick, I sue the guy for lost wages and medical expenses.
Not if you are dead you don’t, not if you are in a coma you don’t, not if you are brain-damaged by the taintedness you don’t.
Suppose the eggs contain a carcinogen passed on from tainted feed, and six months after eating them you are diagnosed with rampant and inoperable cancer. You won’t ever trace the cancer to the eggs you ate six months ago, or to the feed, both are long gone and forgotten and you’ve eaten a thousand things since then.
So you die of cancer, somebody destroyed your life with their sociopathic ruthlessness and brutality for profit. The feed guy taking shortcuts in cleaning his feed, and the egg farmer that didn’t want to get sued so when his chickens started dying of cancer he just incinerated the bodies, but certainly never recalled the eggs he had already sold, that would lead to massive losses, and would not be in his selfish best interest.
Libertarians ignore the fact that one-way actions exist, there are things people can do to you, both physically and financially, which prevent you from ever taking recourse.
They are always saying, like you, “I’ll just sue!” I suspect you have never sued anybody, because as often as you would have to sue in a free market, you’d spend your entire life in court. Since that would be true of everybody, the courts would be clogged and the lines would be years long. Which then means yo don’t really get to sue, your case will never get to court and you will never get justice. Either that, or the court will be a free market system too, and you will have to pay huge court costs to gain any access, so much so the courts are unaffordable for the majority of people and only the rich get to sue.
With a governmental system, the farm can be inspected, the feed can be tested, and it can be made a crime to cover up a potential consumer health issue. All for less than a dime per dozen.
And please notice I am talking about the hypothetical YOU outlined with tainted eggs, not something I invented.
ekeyra:
you might like this article:
http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/why-cornering-a-market-doesnt-work-1292524790364/
salient point:
“Attempts to corner free markets have always ended painfully, at least for those pursuing such gambits. As we wrote a few years back, prices might temporarily rise as a result of a speculator making massive bullish bets, but because the investor has to eventually sell to someone, and because nobody is bigger than the market, prices inevitably end up quickly correcting long before the operator can capitalize on the scheme.”
A real world example, I suppose it will be dismissed as an anomaly. Principles matter but not to these yahoos. Economics isnt a science dont you know and there are no principles. Maybe that is why most liberals dont have any money, they dont use principles to invest and they ignore reality.
Gyges,
“Two things. First: “In this light all free market interactions are mutually beneficially, because absent violent coercion, both parties perceive a net gain from interacting,” is only true if you assume that both parties are perfectly informed, which is an unrealistic assumption. ”
I made no such assumption. Information is decentralized and dynamic, noone can be “perfectly informed”. Also, as I stated before, if both parties did not perceive the exchange to be beneficial, it would not occur. Your opinions as an outside observer are irrelevant. Also you can stop putting rational in front of self interest, that was an ayn rand fetish. If someone believes covering himself in raw meat and swimming with sharks is in his self interest he is free to do so.
Your refirgerator argument is also incoherent. It is true that if there were no other humans in existence, making refrigerators would lead me to starve because i would have spent my time doing that instead of securing basic resources. It does not follow however, that because other people exist to sell my refrigerators to, that I am obligated to give them part of what i earned making and selling the refrigerators simply because their presence makes creating refrigerators an economically viable pursuit. Point being, noone can act with the interest of humanity as a whole because that knowledge does not reside in one place at one time waiting to be discovered.
Tony,
“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.”
Potential and certainty are vastly distinct qualities and Id suggest you familiarize yourself with them quickly. I would also suggest that it is not economic activity that brings about suffering and death with any certainty, but political activity. You can find an endless number of individuals and companies that have never harmed anyone in the business of their daily lives. Name me one government that has never murdered even a single member of its own population.
Beside that one sentence, the rest of your objections are a deference to what other people decide about free markets. I ask you the same question I posed to gyges, if the masses are all knowing, do you consult with them on what to eat for breakfast?
And not long after the FDA was created in 1906, its vast scientific expertise was used by the federal government to poison prohibited alcohol in an effort to convince consumers that alcohol was evil. Ten thousand people were killed.
Decades of scandals later, the FDA also managed to deny emergency contraception to thousands of women by withholding approval of the contraceptive Plan B from 1999 – 2009.
Just today in the news the FDA announced hearings to pull breast cancer drug Avastin from the marketplace. This cost-driven calculus will result in the premature deaths of many thousands more.
Gyges:
” is only true if you assume that both parties are perfectly informed, which is an unrealistic assumption.”
we have regulated markets and both parties are still not equally informed. But why does that even matter?
I want a dozen eggs and the eggs are tainted and I get sick, I sue the guy for lost wages and medical expenses.
What is your point?
It is in the self interest of the fridge guy to make a good product so he will be employed. Seems like self interest to me.
It is precisely because humans are social and rational that free markets are necessary and why coercion is a bad idea.
Tony C:
“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.”
Can you provide some back-up information on those assertions? Like deaths/injuries before and after OSHA and the FDA. Or age of child labor in the late 19th century and now.
As far as pollution goes, some pollution is lost BTU’s and as technology is improved more BTU’s are captured and able to be used. It has nothing to do with the EPA but industry trying to improve it’s bottom line.
Clarification “based solely on rational self interest.”
Ekerya,
Two things. First: “In this light all free market interactions are mutually beneficially, because absent violent coercion, both parties perceive a net gain from interacting,” is only true if you assume that both parties are perfectly informed, which is an unrealistic assumption.
Second: I get the basic assumptions of economic theory. Rational self interest and all that (although, I honestly have never met someone who makes their decisions based on rational self interest). They’re simplifications, but are useful simplifications. How on earth does that contradict what I said? I mean, the guy who makes the fridge only benefits if there’s customers to sell to. Thus, “Humans are individuals in a pack.”
You’ll notice I’m not saying “humans are a pack.” I recognize that human beings are individuals and to some extent (depending on the person) act in their own self interest. I just also recognize that we all depend on each other to continue to be those individuals (as opposed to food for something else).
Ignoring the second part is leads to just as evil of behavior as ignoring the first.