Category: Freedom

I, Pencil

An essay from 1964 that I just became aware of. This shows how inferior a command and control socialist/communist economy is to freedom and free markets. All illustrated by a simple pencil… which isn’t really as simple a product as you might think.

The above is what I meant when writing, “If you can become aware of the miraculousness that I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing.” For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand — that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive masterminding — then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.

Source: I, Pencil

How social media censorship demonstrates the horrors of driverless cars

What do the driverless car and its accompanying freedom trade-off have to do with social media censorship?  Perhaps everything.  Government bureaucrats will not personally program the massive database upon which the driverless cars will depend.  Instead, the database will rely upon the same tech-savvy talent pool that has revolutionized every aspect of mass communication in recent decades.  The same ideology that controls our online communications will now be controlling the destinations of our driverless cars.

Do we expect the driverless car database to operate any more “fairly” than social media?  Will we be surprised when conservatives find themselves locked out of the GPS database after voicing conservative opinions on social media?  Facebook has no rational explanation for the censorship it now practices.  The company ultimately apologized to Franklin Graham.  But it ignores protests from its less famous users who find themselves blocked or censored.

We have no reason to believe that Big Tech will treat us any better once its GPS system controls our transportation.

Liberalism is just plain evil. I would never have thought of this. But then, I, and my fellow conservatives, believe in freedom and don’t go around trying to control your life.

Source: How social media censorship demonstrates the horrors of driverless cars

‘Social Justice’ and the Death Gap

As you will note from the chart above, roofing is one of the top 5 most dangerous jobs and the workforce is 97.7% male. Why do you think that feminists are more concerned about increasing the percentage of women in high-tech jobs than in helping women become roofers — or working in the logging or fishing industries? Isn’t obvious that these are jobs women don’t want to do? Toting heavy bundles of shingles up a ladder is rigorous exercise, but women would rather pay money for a yoga class or a gym membership than to get paid for the kind of exercise my son does, and yet feminists believe women are victims of discrimination.

What feminists want is not “equality,” in the sense of basic fairness — the equal application of recognized standards of merit — but rather they seek to impose quotas in hiring for certain categories of employment. Feminists use a rhetoric of “diversity” and “inclusion” to justify discrimination against males in certain occupational fields.

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It is only such jobs — sitting at a desk in a nice air-conditioned office — that feminists care about when advocating “equality” and, by filing lawsuits over dubious claims of sexist discrimination, feminists have succeeded in compelling universities and corporations to institute de facto hiring quotas that favor women.

I did not know that truck driving was so high on the dangerous list. Maybe I should rethink my new career? Read the whole thing. And remember what RSM says about feminists:

 

Source: ‘Social Justice’ and the Death Gap

Maine’s Food Sovereignty Law Is a Hit

What’s behind the FSO movement? Mainers’ fervor for food sovereignty began to solidify in the state at the beginning of this decade, in the wake of the state’s prosecution of a raw milk farmer. Another key impetus for the movement was a state exemption for farmers who wanted to sell less than $1,000 in poultry annually. Those who wished to sell poultry under the so-called exemption first had to spend tens of thousands of dollars to comply with state regulations.

Source: Maine’s Food Sovereignty Law Is a Hit

E-Mail to a Liberal Professor

The phrase “white heterosexual male” has become a popular term of demonization in the rhetoric of the Left, and you cannot expect white men to enjoy being assigned the role of Emmanuel Goldstein in this 21st-century version of Orwell’s dystopia. If the reaction of white men to being scapegoated is sometimes irrational and violent, this is to be lamented, but the irrationality of their reaction doesn’t mean that they are incorrect in their perception, or that they are wrong to be angry about being unfairly demonized as “privileged” by the college-educated Left.

How is the ordinary working-class white man, toiling in a low-status job to support himself and his family, “privileged” in any meaningful way? And how is it that the people accusing him of “privilege” are almost exclusively members of the college-educated elite? The average salary of a law professor at the University of California is over $270,000, whereas the median household income in Wisconsin is $66,432. Is the working man in Sheboygan more “privileged” than you, Professor Williams?

Read the whole email.

Source: E-Mail to a Liberal Professor

The Intoxicating Effects of Socialist Benevolence

These folks mean well. They seek to boost all mankind up to their own plane of enlightenment. Inequality outrages their sense of justice. They regard conventional habits of behavior as so many obstacles to be overcome on the path to perfection. They see tradition as the enemy of innovation, which they embrace as a lifeline to moral progress. They cannot encounter a wrong without seeking to right it. The idea that some evils may be ineradicable is anathema. The notion that the best is the enemy of the good, that many choices are to some extent choices among evils—such proverbial wisdom seems quaintly out of date. The result is a campaign to legislate virtue, to curtail eccentricity, to smother individuality, to barter truth for the current moral or political enthusiasm.

For centuries, prudent political philosophers have understood that the lust for equality is the enemy of freedom.

The Constitution was written to ‘secure the blessings of liberty’ not equality. That’s why Democrats hate the Constitution.

Source: The Intoxicating Effects of Socialist Benevolence

Justin Welby reimagines a poorer and less free Britain

Economic mistakes permeate Welby’s ideas, but they stem from a deeper philosophical omission: Forced actions do not have the same moral value as actions which are freely chosen. It is more valuable for an individual to freely decide to pay for healthcare for someone who cannot afford it than for that same individual to be forced by the government to provide that care.

Exactly.

The United States Constitution was adopted to “…provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty…”. Note it is Liberty, not force, that is to be established. Force is evil and is to be used sparingly.

Source: Justin Welby reimagines a poorer and less free Britain

‘Involuntary Celibates’ Are The Next Manifestation Of Sexual Socialists

Taken at face value, incels’ demands are nothing less than the socialism of sex. From each according to her ability, to each according to his needs, sex is to be taken out of the control of the individuals having it, placed in the hands of the state, and distributed equally. How will this bureaucratic nightmare of state-sponsored rape work? As with the usual plans of statists, the answer is simply “We’ll pass a law.”

Source: ‘Involuntary Celibates’ Are The Next Manifestation Of Sexual Socialists