Medvedev Promises Cruelty

Imperialism, War
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President Dmitry Medvedev has pledged to be “more cruel” in fighting the Chechen rebels. While such talk no doubt is appealing to grieving Russians, actually implementing cruel measures will do nothing to prevent such attacks in the future. The attacks will get worse, and the long-suffering Russian people will find the recent freedoms they have enjoyed severely curtailed.

As has been mentioned many times before, terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. In this case, why not look at why the terrorists are killing people in the first place? The Chechens who are blowing up trains and killing women and children want to secede from the Russian Federation. Considering the terrible things which the Soviet Union did to keep regions enslaved, escaping Russian control hardly seems an unreasonable desire, even if the tactics are horrible. A slave rebellion which engages in murder hardly justifies maintaining slavery, and independence movements which engage in criminal activities do not justify centralizing power.

Russians can and should pursue the individuals who are responsible for murdering innocents. They should not, however, use such a thirst for justice as cause to engage in crimes of their own. That way is the way of the terrorist.

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Nature’s Bounty (Thanks to Man)

(Austrian) Economics, Statism, The Basics
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In the silly but eminently watchable Travel Channel show, Man v. Food, host Adam Richman visits diners that provide food challenges — dishes so big or so pepper-hot that whoever manages to eat an entire one wins some kind of honor.  Imagine such a diversion during America’s (first) Great Depression.  In fact, it should ever be as Man v. Food paints it; the only famines recorded in the last several centuries have been the direct results of the activities of forcible governments.  Societies always, always can feed themselves abundantly and inexpensively in the absence of governmental wealth-destroying interference.  Watch for evidence of this in your own life while the American economy struggles to absorb the gargantuan economic “stimuli” and control-tightening measures instituted over the last, and the next, few years.

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Night Always Follows Day

(Austrian) Economics, Statism
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Logical Fallacy or Inevitability?

There’s an inevitability to the march of totalitarian economic control which Austrian School Economists have warned about repeatedly. There’s a tipping point which exists when a state interferes in an economy beyond which a state will invariably enact the same destructive policies which have collapsed the economies of other states which engaged in similar folly. This folly consists of practices such as debasing the currency, running up massive deficits and debt, and excessively regulating economic activity. (Note, of course, that for us anarchists all state regulation of economic activity is excessive; but, for my purposes here, we can limit the purview to the stifling, bureaucratic interferences like housing acts, forced lending to “sub-prime” borrowers, GSEs, mandates by the FDA and FTC and other three-letter economy-killers, etc.) What happens is simply this:

  1. Some economic “injustice” or “inequity” or “imbalance” (it almost always starts with those keywords, so be on the lookout) exists and is too upsetting to be tolerated.
  2. The state is used to enforce justice/equity/balance.
  3. These attempts to overthrow the laws of economics succeed only in creating new problems (“unintended consequences”) which then require further state action to attempt to alleviate.
  4. A slippery slope comes into play at this point, with each new state interference into the market creating new problems until everything the Austrian School economists warned of comes to pass.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention that the state is now making it very difficult (and painful) for people to escape the country with their assets (link goes to Zero Hedge) :

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Drugs Without Patents: Profit and Cornucopia

Business, Drug Policy, Mercantilism, Science, Technology
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pattent applicationProponents of intellectual property rights and patents say that without them, drug companies could not profit. They’d just be undercut by generics, which would lead to a downward spiral of decreasing innovation, undercutting the entire industry. Furthermore, socialists argue that a truly free market would not get drugs to the poor. These arguments fail for several reasons: research costs, trade secrets, incentives for continuous innovation, and incentives for rapid worldwide distribution.

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Protecting us from Warranties

Business, Nanny Statism, Technology
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I ordered an iPad a couple weeks ago and tried to order the AppleCare warranty. I then received a notice saying this had to be removed from my order because Apple had not yet received “regulatory approval” yet for my state (Texas). I just received this email from Apple:

You were notified recently that AppleCare Protection Plan was pending regulatory approval in your state and this item was canceled from your order.

We are pleased to tell you that Apple is now authorized to sell the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad in your state.

Please reply to this email if you would like us to add AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad back to your order.

Sincerely,
The Apple Store Team

As my fellow blogger Brian Martinez noted, it’s ridiculous Apple needed the state’s permission to offer a warranty for its own product. Thank God the state is here to protect us!

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