This isn’t typically a sports blog, but I guess it is just that time of year. I must admit, I sort of caught the Davidson bug, but since I’m from Kansas, my heart isn’t completely broken.
Pretty cool that the four top-seeded teams made it to the final four. Not sure if that means that the selection committee did a better job than normal or that the teams that “should have won” actually did this year?
Should be fun to see how it turns out.
So it appears that the well dried up there for a bit. But, it is time to get back to business. The presidential race is really down to three people who are spending millions of dollars to get power over us. We’ve had all sorts of political corruption that no one should have been surprised by.
I wonder why people are afraid to ask themselves the big questions, such as, “If the political process breeds so much corruption, do we even need it?”
That’s right, Jack Kevorkian is running for Congress:
(CNN) – Jack Kevorkian, the assisted suicide advocate currently on parole from prison, is planning a run for Congress, a Detroit newspaper reported Wednesday.
According to the Oakland Press, Kevorkian is planning to mount an independent bid in Michigan’s 9th District seat currently occupied by Republican Joe Knollenberg.
Hey, at least we know what we’re getting with this guy.
For the record, there’s no reason why the government should have intervened in the Kevorkian situation. Consent should automatically trump government action.
In Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions are replaced by their direct opposites.
Gov. Spitzer was disgusted by his own behavior that he started putting OTHER people in jail for it.
Nothing quite like political corruption to bring me back from my little unplanned blogging hiatus!
The who said these words in a movie…
Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
At least he knows what he’s getting!
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the question, “What do I believe?,” in regard to government or the lack thereof. I think, when you boil it down to the basics, I believe two key things about politics and economics.
Coercion is wrong. I believe that the coercion of one person by another person or group is immoral. I define coercion as forcing someone, with the threat of harm, to behave in a certain way. I want to live in a society where that type of coercion is minimized. I tend to believe that competing institutions, rather than governments, have the best chance of bringing out my desired end. Sure, people should always be free to form protective institutions. However, they run afoul of my anti-coercion stance when they, like all governments, use their coercive force to require participations from unwilling parties.
I am, however, still a bit undecided on one thing. If it happens to be that, in EVERY situation, a single hostile force will arise before competing protective forces are available, then I could be convinced to endorse a “night watchman state” as a best case scenario against greater coercion. Make no mistake about it, even a government that only protects citizens from violence is a coercive one. It requires funding (taxes) from people who will never use its services. I believe that such activity is immoral. However, if it turns out that such a scenario is the “least immoral” I may be convinced to go that direction.
Coercion is the single most important “issue” to me. No matter the source, I believe that it is wrong. It is just as wrong for you to put a gun to my head and take my money as it is for the government to throw me in jail for not paying taxes.
Markets are powerful. I believe that markets are capable of a lot more than people give them credit for. In fact, I believe that people don’t really understand how markets work. (For example, if you believe that we like in a free market society, you are unequivocally mistaken.)
Take roads as an example. Most people, from all sides of the political spectrum, believe that the government should build roads. I disagree. A quick look at the incentives shows that there are plenty of people with all sorts of incentive to build roads. The primary example is the big bad oil companies. They NEED you to keep driving. Without roads, they’d go out of business. My guess is that, if they had to, they would build roads and pass the cost on to the consumer through gas prices. It would be like a use tax, much like the tax on gasoline now. The difference? Privatization would bring in the forces of competition, thus lowering the cost passed on to the consumer.
Markets can be used to solve many more problems than people realize. Furthermore, the things markets struggle to maintain are things that the government, with its coercive power, hasn’t proven itself to be particularly good at either.
While reading this article…
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) — Officers who found the deadly poison ricin in a Las Vegas, Nevada, extended-stay hotel room also discovered firearms and an “anarchist-type textbook” with an entry about ricin bookmarked, police said Friday.
…I glanced over at my copy of this book…
…and quickly realized that I am one container of poison away from being lobbed into a jail cell with the guy from the article!
P.S. For the record, my “anarchist-type textbook” doesn’t have any recipes for ricin in it. It is really more of an academic study 
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