Much is being made of the fact that Rand Paul’s position on civil rights laws prioritizes property rights over civil rights. This is a well-known feature of the Libertarian Party platform, and the American variant on libertarianism in general. That this was drawn out of Dr. Paul by a blogger rather than a journalist comes…

David Brin writes of what he calls the ‘diamond-shaped society;’ shape in this case being the shape of the socio-economic structure of society. This is proposed as an alternative to the ‘pyramid-shaped society,’ which is very small at the top and very large at the bottom: Ever since human beings discovered metals and agriculture, nearly…

More mixing board shenanigans at Clear Channel’s WDTW AM Said station is billed as “Detroit’s progressive talk,” which is fair enough, given that it is the local outlet for some fraction of Air America Radio’s feed, about half even carried live, as well as Thom Hartmann live, Ed Schultz on 3-hour delay, and even, giving…

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Quotations with links “I found out I would rather be a brat and take whatever I got than lose my identity. I learned that you could be screaming and begging and curled up in a corner, and still in your head be thinking about your next move. I learned that there was a part of…

Quotations with links “In a worldwide capitalist system, different nations contend against each other to furnish the most congenial environment for investors. This intends that low tax is coerced, and consequently low province spending. This successively intends that public goods will be underestimated, and because welfare programs are so expensive they would besides should be…

FOR ALL THOSE BORN BEFORE 1945 FOR ALL THOSE BORN SINCE 1955 WE ARE SURVIVORS!!!! CONSIDER THE CHANGES WE HAVE WITNESSED: WE ARE SURVIVORS!!!! CONSIDER THE CHANGES WE HAVE INHERITED: We were born before television, before penicillin, before polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, Frisbees and the Pill. We were born after Hiroshima,…

Quotations with links “Competition among individuals and even individual cultures, in order to empower a broader base to a unified multicultural society, goes too far when dominance over the other individual or individual cultures degrades and demeans our very existence.”–Ed “A Website that can’t be viewed with Lynx is a Web site not worth visiting.”–Jurily…

First, I would like to direct the reader’s attention to Nicholas Wilt’s Overview in his apparently defunct blog Transparent Century. The subject matter is dear to my heart, and I hope blogging will resume there. First, I would like to comment on the tone of the post. It’s not so subtly stated that the author…

People who appeal to the laws of economics with visible glee also love conjuring up derivations illustrating what they call the tragedy of the commons. The punch line is that there ain’t no such thing as a free goods, and the theorem being derived is that so-called free goods or public goods are an inherently…