Litmocracy

An Aura of Moral Legitimacy

2011-08-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

From voluntaryist.com:

Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.

My discussions at eons.com have made me realize the importance of this idea. In an effort to help spread the word, I thought it would be a good idea to post it there in the Political Discussions group because in order for education to get more people to reject electoral politics, it has to be directed to people who do not reject electoral politics.

How can I "reject electoral politics" and support Ron Paul or the Tea Party at the same time? My support for them is based on the fact that both Ron Paul and the Tea Party provide opportunities for people to learn why voluntaryism is really the way to go. All the other parties and political groups tend to suggest that "the masses" are stupid and have to be forced to behave properly. It's malarky.

Here are some examples of the "Aura of Moral Legitimacy" our federal government has used as a cloak, and if you'd like to add some, that would be great!

The central bank was created in order to stabilize prices
The FDA protects us from bad food
The Department of Education helps make children smarter
The Iraq War was waged in order to spread democracy
The 9/11 attackers attacked us because we have freedom
Free people will become vicious and mean if they aren't threatened into being good

So what can we do about it if we reject electoral politics? Oh, ok, so I have to add one more to the list:

Your moral responsibility to help the country go in the right direction should be fulfilled by voting

Actually, I think the best thing we can do is for each of us to find his or her own moral compass through education about peace, freedom, and compassion, and then follow it and encourage others to do so as well. Jury duty is where our power lies. Check out the Fully Informed Jury Association and start judging the laws as well as the defendants. Some people commit crimes in order to make the world a better place, and if you're on a jury, it's your responsibility to recognize when that is the case and repudiate the law that criminalized the defendant's behavior.

When you agree that the federal government's damage to our country is proportional to the taxes it collects, you may wish to learn about the Tax Honesty movement. Tom Cryer points out that before you stop contributing to this destruction by simply following the letter of the tax laws instead of doing whatever the IRS tells you, you should be prepared to lose and go to prison, because the IRS can do that (see the transcript of Dr. Phil Roberts' trial). But if you ever get on a jury in a federal tax case, you'll have an opportunity to explain things to your fellow jurors and help stop the destruction.

The Existence of Great Evil

2011-07-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

After this? Keep Reading. Send me questions. Use the comment feature. Whatever.

I've been asking around about "great evil" - because I think a "Central Bank" is one, and I suspect any institution that uses a majority vote to force the minority into covering the cost of what that minority feels is unethical is also a GREAT evil. Obviously, forcing someone to pay for what they believe is unethical is evil itself, but it isn't great - I think - because we can individually fight against it. But when democracy is used to magnify the injustice of such an arrangement, it becomes a great evil. In my mind, it explains why "Blowback" has proven to be such a problem for America, why we had a financial crisis in the first place, and why we're heading for a double-dip recession.

Many of the people who talk to me remark that my input is very helpful. I seem to have a knack for identifying the crucial differences when people disagree, and I can represent each side in a manner that shows both sides that the other side isn't unreasonable, but just starts from a few different axioms. I often have to tiptoe around the axioms because when they are starkly described, they are shameful. And really, the people who start from an axiom like "People are generally stupid," will gradually back away from it, and also from their opposing positions, as I lead them to see that the shameful axiom is partly to blame for their position.

Since you're here, I have to assume that you mostly will agree with me, which suggests that staying here to read more won't help you much - that it's just confirming what you already understand. But represent your toughest opponents to me. Ask me what I might look for to convince them.

Here's an example where I may have at least weakened my friend Scott's conviction that a stronger central government is better:

Scott Smith -

Ahhh, there is a difference. You see yourself as a victim of society, wherein I see myself as a participant IN society.

The fact is, there is always a need for balance. Society and a democratically run government is in constant flux to keep balance. They are (we are) ever adjusting and never stagnant. The greatest destroyer of our system of government and way of life will be when we no longer go to the polls.

Dave Scotese -

What distinction is there in your mind between our system of government and our way of life? What distinction is there in your mind between society and government? I certainly see myself (and most everyone else) as a victim of government, but I see myself as a beneficiary of society. So I'm not sure where you got the impression that I see myself as a victim of society. The distinction for me is choice. One provides me with opportunity, and the other takes opportunity away. One expands the choices I have, and the other eliminates some of my choices.

In the adjustments and constant flux you mentioned, what are the two poles between which balance is being kept?

Scott Smith -

Transpose society for government if it makes better sense to you. Indeed, both are different and separate, but I participate and strengthen government, wherein you choose to see yourself as a victim.

Always question authority is a motto I truly believe and live by, but to think myself a victim is to equate my life with that which my mother lived (under a totalitarian regime)...
...we are not that world.

Dave Scotese -

- How are they different and separate? Why is it government that you wrote that you participate in and strengthen, rather than society? What are the two poles between which balance is kept?

Isn't there a gradual movement between one extreme, being the totalitarian world in which your mom lived, and the other extreme? How would you characterize that other extreme? If we are moving in the right direction, would we ever be able to move in that direction faster by ending or shrinking certain institutions, or does the existence of an institution of any sort indicate progress in the right direction?

Aren't we all victims in some way? I know it's usually not too useful to see things that way, but how can we know when it is useful?

Scott Smith -

Great wordplay and trickery...

    ....of course, government and society are different, especially in the USA. We, as a society that is of us, by us and for us. At least that is what we continually strive to keep. I am for a strong central government as a representation of what I desire for society and self, and am ever skeptical at a power structure that tries to deny anyone a fair shake at life. Today's power structure is the corporation(s) that are overly dominant on our government. To rid that we must speak out and fight for our government to speak for us and not them.

    If we go the route you prefer, you are allowing free reign by those very corporations trying to takeover now, but without the buffer of a government with which we can block them through.

    Once again, I am not, nor will ever be, a victim. Your words and your choice (which is exactly what you prefer).

Dave Scotese -

"Today's power structure is the corporation(s) that are overly dominant on our government."

That's it exactly. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Victimhood isn't really important here, right? What's important is that we recognize the ways in which power can transfer from those who are not "overly dominant" to those who are. I heard that Judo tends to use the power of one's enemy against that enemy. In this case, it seems that is what happens as we work to strengthen the government to reduce the overly dominant position - it backfires. Stigler's theory seems to back up that impression, and that is why I thought the idea of a strong central government should be challenged.

Scott Smith -

And it is backfiring, for those that are trying to control government want nothing more than to have government get out of it's way. A lesser impediment to controlling society are those believing that small government is better for all.

Welfare vs Charity

2011-06-21T21:42:00.001-07:00

Michael E, thank you for posting. I'd like to drive your point even further:

Let's pretend we know someone is in need. I mean, everyone reading this knows there's this, say, family, that is in need. We have two ideas on the table about how to help them:

1) Let's agree to have everyone put $100 in a fund. We'll have an election to see who will collect the money and deliver it to the family. We'll provide that person with a few percent of the fund in return for making sure everyone contributed. If anyone refuses, either we'll get their employer (or whoever owes them money) to put it in the fund before paying them, or else lock them in a cage for a while. Maybe both.

2) Let's each provide whatever we feel like providing, directly, to the family.

Many people very strongly believe that the family will benefit more if we use the first idea, which is the one our government has implemented. Whether or not it's an ethical plan is something they haven't considered (isn't it obviously unethical?) because the amount isn't $100. It's more like 30 cents or maybe three cents.

But let's pretend for a moment that there isn't anything immoral about it. Pretend you're a member of the family in need.

Do you have dignity? Do you have honor and integrity? What is your response to the elected official bringing you money to help you out? A fund, you have to remember, that you were forced to contribute to when you weren't needy enough. Are you grateful? Or would "expectant", "entitled", or "demanding" be more accurate? Perhaps you are grateful.

Now suppose that we used idea #2 instead, and you didn't get enough money, because people just aren't generous enough. Are you more "demanding/expectant/entitled", or more grateful? Let's suppose that you are more demanding simply because your needs haven't been met. You sarcastically say "Gee, Thanks A LOT!" to the people who give you quarters and pennies. But because of that need, wouldn't you be pretty motivated to find and engage in useful work to earn what you need?

Now let's switch back to idea #1, where you do get enough, and it comes from an official fund. How motivated are you in that case?

You can argue that you would be just as grateful and kind with #1 as with #2. You can also argue that you'd be just as motivated with #1 as with #2. If that's true, then you're an angel. I know that I'm a pretty good person, but not that good, and I can't believe that anywhere close to half the people in need are that good either.

Welfare damages motivation, which makes it impractical. It also requires what most would consider stealing or kidnapping. It's an immoral and impractical solution to the problem of poverty.

Facebook: "The message could not be posted to this Wall."

2011-06-21T20:08:00.001-07:00

Solution for Facebook wall posting problem. I was trying to post to my own wall and FB gave me this error: "The message could not be posted to this Wall."

If you get this error, you might want to log out and log back in. This seems to have fixed the problem for me at least once.

I tried updating my status and got a message that said something like it couldn't be done at this time - try again later.

Bad Internet Citizens

2011-06-19T21:49:00.001-07:00

Just about everyone on the Internet has suffered because of bad Internet citizens. They drop spam in our forums. They drop it in our email boxes. They create elaborate methods of copying code to thousands of machines and then use it to attack a business and extort money from it, raising the costs of everything. What's sad is that the best of them could be writing video games or logistics algorithms or advertising copy. They could be useful, but instead, they are attracted, like flies to poop, to the freedom the Internet gives them, and our failure to cooperate in an effort to frustrate their depravity.

My proposition is this: Website owners should have a place to register bad IP addresses. Such a centralized database will provide a method of tracking the decisions of the individuals who are misbehaving, but it provides a valuable resource to everyone with a website. While spam in forums and email is bothersome and wastes a lot of time, Denial of Service attacks cause much more concentrated damage. Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks are much much worse.

Many DDOS attacks are executed on botnets, which consist of computers belonging to naive Internet users. These users have executed some "unsafe" code which installed "malware" on their computer. It doesn't do much harm to them, but en masse, it can be directed to wreak havoc on a website business until the owners pay a ransom. But here comes the catch...

Those users undoubtedly sometimes use other websites that also suffer from DDOS attacks from time to time, and those sites would also benefit from educating the naive owners about the compromise of their systems. Armed with the fact that several "other victims" have reported their IP address as that of a compromised system, some will choose to deny access for a time, or perhaps until the naive owner submits a log of the output from a cleaning program like Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware. Others will simply offer the info.

But none will be able to use the system until someone compiles a database of IP addresses used in a DDOS attack, and then puts in the effort to keep it up to date. That's me. Can you help?

Weiner vs Libya

2011-06-09T09:10:00.001-07:00

What should be done is that anyone talking about Weiner should be directed to information about Obama's violation of the War Powers Act in Libya, and furthermore, the War Power's Act's own violation of the Constitution. Or perhaps the Paul Ryan "VoucherCare" proposal that someone claimed is another possible media story that is getting crowded out by Weiner.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/20/lawmakers-demand-explanation-white-house-libya-deadline-arrives/

Don't you think this story is crowding out much more important news?

Dear Rep. Mary Bono Mack

2011-06-08T09:15:00.001-07:00

Thank you for contacting me with your views regarding one of the recent congressional bills. I value your opinions on this and all other legislative matters and appreciate your efforts to keep your constituents informed.

As you may know, the boilerplate letter you send out in response to email inquiries does not include the recipient's original email. As a result, I have no idea what email you're responding to and can't really put the information you've provided to use. If you could please begin including the original email in your response, or at least the subject line or a brief summary, your effectiveness as a representative would be greatly enhanced.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your views with me on critical legislation. Rest assured I will keep pestering you whenever your representation seems lacking. For example, you placed security at a higher level of importance than adherence to the Constitution when you voted for H.R. 514. You may have heard of Ben Franklin, who said "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." As you'll see in the coming months, this was a mistake you may soon regret. Your regret will stem not from any kind of violence (which we abhor), but rather from the PR headache of dealing with persistent supporters of the constitution who demand that you do your job of protecting their freedom, as opposed to keeping them secure by passing laws that violate the Bill of Rights.

For your convenience, you can sign up to receive regular email updates from me at litmocracy.blogspot.com. Please feel free to contact me on other matters of mutual concern.

Open letter to the IRS

2011-05-07T19:56:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Dave Zuniga, I have started down the long road of understanding the tax code. I will be relying on answers from the IRS to my questions as I go about determining what "the tax imposed upon... a head of a household, [or] a married individual filing a separate return," as described at the beginning of Title 26. This is because I am afraid that despite the horror of the situation in which it has placed us, powerful agents of the federal government continue working to enforce it. My first request was for a link to or the text of "subsection Sec. 1(b)" or of "subsection Sec. 1(d)" of section 1, as indicated in Title 26, § 1.1-1 Income tax on individuals, (a)(2)(i):

Hi IRS Folks,

I have a few questions, as I am attempting to establish what tax is imposed upon me, given that I have a choice whether to file as a Head of household, a married couple filing jointly, or a married individual filing a separate return, or, presumably, not filing a return at all:

Are the contents of "subsection Sec. 1(b)" or of "subsection Sec. 1(d)" of section 1, as indicated in Title 26, § 1.1-1 Income tax on individuals, (a)(2)(i) available anywhere on the Internet? If not, I will need that information in order to determine and pay any income tax I owe.
One of the options on the 1040 is "Married filing jointly", but Title 26, § 1.1-1 Income tax on individuals, (a)(2)(i) does not mention where the imposition can be determined, that is, none of the rows in the table there indicates which subsection of section 1 contains the "appropriate table" for a married individual filing jointly.
If I must file a return, please send me the list of possible IRS forms and the text of the law that imposes the requirement on me. There are 2 occurrences of "file" near "shall" near "1040" in the e-CFR data as of May 5th, and neither of them asserts that anyone shall file the form. I tried the word "must" as well, and got three more hits, but they all apply to "Coordination of United States and Virgin Islands income taxes."

Without this information, I will unable to determine or pay any income tax I owe.

I do have another question which only affects my personal moral Scylla and Charybdis, which may or may not be more important to you than upholding the requirements of your job:

Is there any recourse for a victim of the imposition of the income tax to avoid supporting immoral government programs without imposing on his or her fellow countrymen the added tax burden of supporting another prisoner convicted of not paying taxes? For example, does the IRS prosecute War Resistors despite the gross immorality of doing so?

Thanks!

After doing some more research, I have determined that any information from the IRS may not be useful anyway. It appears that we need a new justice system. However, asking the questions might help existing IRS personnel to follow the law more carefully.

Send the IRS a Certified Letter

2011-05-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

The IRS provides a live chat help function, and I figured I'd use it to find out where I can send my questions about taxation. Unfortunately, the live chat wasn't much help. For your entertainment, here is how it went:

Thank you for contacting the IRS Web Site Help Desk, one of our representatives will be with you in approximately 1 minute(s). We would like your feedback regarding your chat experience. At the conclusion of this chat, you will be invited to take a short survey. Thank you.
You are now chatting with 'Andrea'
Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK4190162860788X
Andrea: Thank you for contacting the IRS.gov Web Site Help Desk. How may I help you?
Dave Scotese: If I want to send something certified mail to the IRS, what is the best address to use?
Andrea: We apologize, but the IRS Service Centers do not list their street addresses on the IRS Web site. For any mailing alternative not available on the IRS Web site, please call our toll-free assistance line at: Individuals: 1-800-829-1040 Businesses: 1-800-829-4933 Outside the U.S.: 215-516-2000 TTY/TDD: 1-800-829-4059 IRS Hours of Operation: 7:00 am to 10:00 pm, Monday through Friday
Andrea: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Dave Scotese: So there is no way to get a written address from the IRS for the address to use?
Andrea: The IRS website does have address available on the website to mail particular items, but the do not provide the actual street address for these locations.
Andrea: If you need the actual street address you will need to call one of the numbers provided above related to you specific situation.
Andrea: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Dave Scotese: I looked through those items, but none of them fit the requirement. The certified letter I would like to send is a list of questions.
Andrea: I do apologize, you will need to call the number provided above for further assistance.
Dave Scotese: Thanks for trying anyway.

I heard there was an address for them in Fresno, so I'm going to try this one:

Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
Fresno, CA 93888-0002

Accurate Perceptions of the IRS

2011-04-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

In a previous article, I wrote about juries acquitting perpetrators of bald-faced tax evasion because they exhibit believable convictions that supporting the parasitic institution government has become is immoral. The IRS' own publication on the issue of taxpayers who point out the immorality of collecting taxes to be spent in ways that violate the taxpayers' religious beliefs does not mention a single jury decision.

The document consists of 27 examples of the legal system protecting the government's right to your money. The first mention of a jury is one that acquitted, but it is immediately followed by a similar case in which the jury convicted.

All of the other seven mentions of jury decisions are convictions, in favor of the IRS. Nobody likes to admit their mistakes, but wouldn't it be wise to keep a healthy record of the mistakes that a government bureaucracy makes? In fact, shouldn't that be one of the functions of the IRS? The website, irs.gov, contains five documents with the words "jury acquitted" and 52 with the words "jury convicted". The Internet itself contains about 85,000 (according to Google) pages with IRS and "jury convicted" in them, and about 25,000 with IRS and "jury acquitted".

So why is the ratio of convictions to acquittals on the Internet so much lower than it is on the IRS site? Perhaps a clue can be found in the case of the Rutherfords, who may have suffered from a jury whose judgment was compromised by a fear of audits. Bullies only retain their power as long as they continue being bullies. If they wish to have power some other way, they must learn to cooperate instead of intimidate.

It's also interesting to note that the IRS first suggests that it's Ok for the court to interpret the law for the jury, even though later, on the same page!, they explain that the Supreme Court said it is NOT OK. Search for occurrences of "Cheek" in that IRS publication.

The popular perception of the IRS as more like a ring of thugs than a helpful "Accounts Receivable" department of the government appears to be quite accurate. This perception should, and will eventually translate into jury decisions, and that explains why out of the 178 cases mentioned in the IRS publication, jury decisions are mentioned only seven times. Prohibition was repealed because of popular demand, and the pressure against the government brought by juries who refused to honor the law.

The 16th amendment will go the same way, along with the cushion it offers to the federal government as it overspends. The income tax is only a cushion because it dampens the effect of borrowing money. The federal government spends at least 1/5 of the income tax revenue on interest on the national debt.

Another good reason to expect the 16th amendment to either be repealed, or, more accurately and honestly, recognized as having never been ratified, is the state constitutions that barred some of the allegedly ratifying states from actually ratifying it.

A Subjugated Government

2011-04-03T22:52:00.001-07:00

We have a constitution that defines a government that has been subjugated to serve us. We are living under a subjugated government, but it is subjugated not to us, but to what seems to be a conglomeration of corporations, most notably a collection of international central banks. When the colonies found themselves living under an intolerable government, they had already formed their own governments, and found it convenient to put these local governments to use in throwing off the more distant imperial British government. We have that too, but we have not yet begun our tea parties.

The Boston Tea Party happened because colonists who opted not to import the tea from British ships found that Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. Rather than accept the burden of taxes that was being forced upon them, they broke the law that protected the property of the British merchant who was shipping tea to the colonies, which was, in fact, one of the very first corporations that paved the way for the modern corporation, the East India Company. When the law is oppressive enough, people will start breaking it, and their choice of what to break is often not very precise.

What saved the colonists from anarchy and chaos was the twin social principles of the common law and existing local government, which I would prefer to call customs. All we have to do is refuse to obey the laws we feel are doing the most damage to our country. In my opinion, there are two.

The first is legal tender. Breaking the law of legal tender means that courts can require that the defendant restore value to the plaintiff in some form other than Federal Reserve Notes. This, of course, is a great hurdle because of the incestuous relationship between our court systems and our federal government. I'm sure there are courts where it can start, but even better, if the defendant and plaintiff can at least agree that the legal tender laws are screwing up our country (Audit the Fed!), they may both be willing to go to arbitration, where I believe legal tender no longer applies.

The second is the income tax. People break this maybe-a-law all the time ("maybe-a-law" after studying Aaron Russo's documentaries about the fact that the federal government has never produced a law that requires a free citizen to pay taxes, and that the passage of the 16th amendment seems to have been "deemed" rather than real). When the public begins acquitting perpetrators of bald-faced tax evasion because they exhibit believable convictions that supporting the parasitic institution government has become is immoral, the ball will really get rolling. The IRS will get nasty, and perhaps nasty enough to... I don't know... get itself shrunk? Maybe government contractors will find a way to do productive work, having seen the writing on the wall all these years, and finding that the Federal Reserve Notes they've been collecting are no longer doing them much good.

I cannot advocate tax evasion, because that is against the law, but I can predict that it will happen more, and that as it happens more, it will provide this country with a good opportunity to heal from all of the wounds it has suffered under the federal government.

IRS Form CO69

2011-03-30T09:41:00.001-07:00

This is a proposal, and it may need to be undertaken by the public and supported by juries before it is honored by our governments. I have written this proposal for the federal government, but it should be relatively easy to adapt it to state and local governments. This is Conscientious Objector Form 69, a standard mechanism through which taxpayers can avoid paying for programs to which they have conscientious objections.

Because I have children and believe that our federal government will take me away from them if I lead the way in using this form, I can't do it. I think it's a great idea, and I'm looking for information on how the brave citizens who use it can prepare for the attack on them from the IRS that may result from filing form CO69.

The form consists of the following seven fields. You may use more than one form.

Line 1, Source: Enter the document from the government that you used for your amounts.

Line 2, Explanation: If the revenue department of your country offers a code for explanations, you can use the code. Otherwise, enter an explanation of how you used the source document to gather the amounts entered in the next three fields

Line 3, Total Expense: Enter the total of what the government spent, according to the source document listed in Line 1.

Line 4, Unsupported Expense: Enter the total spent by the department, branch, or program which you do not support, according to the source document listed in Line 1.

Line 5, Unsupported Percentage: Divide Line 4 by Line 3 and multiply by 100.

Line 6, Your Total Tax: Enter your Total Tax (line 60 on the 2010 form 1040)

Line 7, Tax Credit: Divide Line 6 by 100 and then multiply by Line 5

On tax return (Line 71 of your 1040), you would include the sum of all the Line 7 amounts from your various form CO69, and you'd have to add a note indicating the credits are from form CO69, and attach that form to your return.

Running a batch file on your IIS 6 server

2011-03-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

You'll probably run into the same problem I did:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0046'
Permission denied
/<file>.asp, line <line>

MS discusses it a little here, but they say to make sure the windows account have access to all the files necessary to execute the code without identifying what files those are. The ultimate solution that worked for me, after giving IUSR and IIS_WPG and NETWORK SERVICE access to everything I could think of, was to give IUSR and NETWORK SERVICE access to cmd.exe. I don't have time to mess with it, but I suspect that IUSR hands the task off to NETWORK SERVICE and doesn't need permission on all the other items. Maybe I'll play with it later to figure it out.

Resolving your PHP, MSSQL, msdblib, FreeTDS headache on Linux

2011-02-27T19:30:00.001-08:00

The last thing I searched for was "Adaptive Server connection failed" because I kept getting that without ever telling it that I was trying to make an "Adaptive Server" connection.

James K. Lowden explains this in http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/freetds/2008q2/023506.html: When FreeTDS is unable to find whatever you entered as the "$Servername" parameter to mssql_connect in the freetds.conf file (which I found in /usr/local/freetds/etc - as in "--with-mssql=/usr/local/freetds" from my PHP configuration string), it falls back to it's default settings, which happen to include TDS Version 5.0. Apparently, that TDS version isn't supported by SQL Server 2005 (unless it was something else that caused my connection to consistently report "unable to connect").

Since I had already added a [TDS] section to my freetds.conf file, my Servername is now "TDS". Here's the code that gives me a workable connection:

$con = mssql_connect('TDS','user','password')
or die('Could not connect to the server!');
echo "con: "; print_r($con);
// Select a database:
mssql_select_db('Database')
or die('Could not select a database.');

// Example query: (TOP 10 equal LIMIT 0,10 in MySQL)
$SQL = ...

I hope this helps someone out there. It took me about 4 hours to figure it out.

Paypal and the Government

2010-09-13T21:23:00.001-07:00

Paypal recently sent me an update to their privacy policy. It states:

Federal and state laws allow you to restrict the sharing of your personal information in certain instances. However, these laws also state that you cannot restrict other types of sharing.

I have the right to restrict the sharing of any and all of my personal information because that is a basic human right. If you disagree, then I can write you off as a slavish fool, so you might was well quit reading now. How I restrict it and what that costs me is a different matter.

What I think Paypal means is that the laws require Paypal to provide tools that its members can use to prevent Paypal from sharing certain information. They don't want to say it that way because it makes the implication too obvious: Paypal will share whatever it can without your permission as long as it isn't legally required to get your permission or provide you with a way to revoke that permission, which they may as well assume (since they aren't barred from so assuming by the federal and state laws).

Or perhaps the people (shall we call them people? Yes, we shall) who wrote this have simply fallen prey to the idiot trap that is set up by oppressive authorities from bad parents to pimps to drug suppliers (both legal and illegal) to foolish police and horrible politicians. That trap creates a sense of foreboding for all behaviors which have not been expressly permitted by whoever rules you. The trap gives you the feeling that you can't do something new and unique unless you check with the authorities first. The trap slowly but surely kills off those cultures that are not aggressive enough to violate the wishes of authorities, leaving only cultures that encourage childlike dependence on authorities. Slaves, in other words.

The sad thing is that there is a tremendous amount of beauty in such cultures, and we lose it because oppressive authorities continue to set this trap wherever they can. We can do something about this. When someone tells me "It isn't done that way," I laugh at them. If they are puzzled enough at my reaction, I will explain that using the fact that "it isn't done that way" as a reason not to do it that way is a recipe for stagnation. It's the kind of basic instinct (like herding, a specific example of this kind of reasoning) that the human brain developed to overcome. We have big brains because they enable us to overcome basic instincts when there is a (recognized) possibility of a better outcome.

We can also encourage and champion experimentation, marvel at the bravery and innovation of anyone who expresses freedom by simply being different. I have done my best to teach my children that "weird" is a compliment. When people ask "Why change it if it works?" the simple answer is the same answer we have for bothering to get up in the morning. It's fun. Sometimes, it's a change for the better, and if you never change it, you'll never know. Thomas Edison, Lewis Carrol, Einstein, Nietzsche, and even Beverly Cleary and Dr. Seuss understood this.

I don't think Paypal really will do everything against their customers' privacy that they are legally allowed to. I think they have some writers who have fallen into and continue promulgating a horrible and subtle trap that has been destroying beauty for millenia. I'm doing my part to expose it.

Reinvestment plan sparks FOMC debate

2010-08-31T11:35:00.001-07:00

As investors, we encourage what we anticipate, even government stupidity. As humans, we discourage stupidity. As quasi-government agents, they ought to be more intelligent about seeing how every action they take blossoms into a new problem. As members of the ruling class, they probably do, and new problems mean a bigger role for them - at least until the masses catch on. But with enough TV and terrorism out there, they can prolong such a day of reckoning. Hopefully not indefinitely.

I think our best bet is to get in tight with our state legislature and start working on nullification of most federal regulation, especially the tax code, legal tender, and the central bank charter. One of the states will get this right first, and that will be a watershed moment.

Compare and Contrast Critiques

2010-08-21T22:23:00.001-07:00

There are a few very useful tools that make certain people stop and think. I don't want to call them "bad" people, but that's how I think of them. Usually, they aren't really bad, it's just that they put more effort into avoiding the truth when they're wrong about it than into actually figuring out that they're wrong. Yeah, that's a lot of people. It is unfortunate that most of them have good hearts, and so I like to try to help them. This essay is one of my attempts. Let's call them Flamingos, since they tend to bury their heads in the sand.

There are some people that understand the truth, but they work to hide it. Think Big Tobacco, or Timothy Geithner, or Ben Bernanke (sorry guys, but I've seen you sweat and I've heard you grasp authoritatively at straws. They are both convincing acts.) I won't bother coming up with a word to describe them, and these useful tools I referred to usually won't make them stop and think because they already know their best bet is to alter the subject enough to distract you from the truth that these tools uncover.

The tool I'd like to describe here is a comparison of critiques. The general strategy allows you to distinguish between a critique that is propaganda and one that is honest without considering the actual facts presented in the critique. It is the style of the critique that matters.

When critique is propaganda, it tends to subtly (the smart authors are subtle, at least) describe its subject in a poor light, and works on generalities. It tends to address the weakest pieces, or those most difficult to understand, or sometimes the least well-known. It generally ignores any elements that are agreeable to the author, or agrees with them in a sentence using the word "but". It tends to use opinions that are popular and often based on differences in belief systems (for example, some believe that legislation is the best way to increase good behavior, while others believe freedom works better) to conclude that the elements that are addressed are incorrect or bad. Having brought together several elements and conclusions, the critique finished up by providing a feeling that the thing being critiqued is just no good.

In comparison, an honest critique will generally identify both the agreeable and the contentious elements (in the author's opinion). When it does rely on popular opinion to judge an element, it often explains what the popular opinion is and how a person who does not share the author's belief would not have a problem with that element. It openly identifies problems that stem from beliefs. Of course, some honest critiques don't do this because their author isn't bright enough to recognize that there is a belief system difference. An honest critique attacks the elements of its subject, rather than the subject itself.

Here's the nutshell version: An honest critique will not leave you with the feeling that there's no use looking into the subject discussed. Only a fool (or a propagandist) would spend time critiquing something they believed had no value. When you read something that leaves you with a feeling that its subject isn't worth studying further, be sure to check for the subtle digs and denigrations, and the failure to honor the good intentions of those who support that subject. For example, try an Internet search on Krugman and Austrian.

Helpers Who Fear Arrest

2010-08-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

"Frustrated by red tape, some officials have been warned they'll be arrested if they take matters into their own hands."
- Patrik Jonsson, July 1, 2010, in The Christian Science Monitor, regarding Deepwater Horizon cleanup.

In my opinion, the best strategy to handle this is PR, but it must contain names. The same article has Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen (incident commander) saying "There is nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops," and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal relaying an instruction from the White House saying "Coast Guard and BP had to authorize individual tasks." Is Thad Allen unaware of instructions issued by President Barack Obama? We have the names of these two, and since Allen was directly quoted, but Obama was not even named, and there wasn't any explicit threat, this isn't a very good example of warning officials of arrest if they act responsibly. Who warned officials of arrest if they take matters into their own hands? Were any officials brave enough to try anyway? Were any of them smart enough to do it in a way that helped? Were they arrested? If so, what are the names of the agents responsible for arresting them?

Every species swarms, and when they do so, it is generally in the best interest of the species. The behavior is an evolved response which, evolution has proven, is beneficial. Humans do it too, though to a lesser degree because they fear each other in addition to Mother Nature. When that fear of each other is private, it protects the cautious from the crazies who go out and kill each other. But when that fear is institutionalized with laws and the threat of arrest, it ceases to protect, and merely hinders.

Contrary to the foundation of most of the legislation that attempts to control us, humans are not idiots who blunder around all the time and mess everything up. Such behavior requires centralized control and limited liability: governments and corporations. Individuals acting in their own self-interest nearly always trump centralized control when it comes to effective solutions. For one thing, they provide myriad competing solutions, the best of which are recognized and copied, rather than monolithic solutions that fail catastrophically when they fail. For another, individuals have a sense of reputation to be maintained. They have names to protect. Adam Smith called these effects the "Invisible Hand" because they seem to bring about balance without any centralized control.

So I appeal to Mr. Jonsson and other journalists, officials, and anyone who would like to help in any situation where problems are big: Please name those who show more respect and honor for laws than they do for life. I must admit a bias against centralized control, and if that rubs you the wrong way, please go be a mindless slave on some other planet. This one needs real human beings.

The Purvis-Ness club

2010-04-19T11:51:00.001-07:00

Next time someone rings your bell or knocks on your door, be prepared. There's a new club that has decided to "promote the general welfare" of the neighborhood, and this is the story of how the club got started. You'll want your wallet.

They first decided among the five of them to pay $5/month dues so that they'd have some money to spend on the supplies they needed for their programs. The first was to interview the neighbors about any recent thefts or vandalism, and for that, they needed some microcassettes.

In time, their membership grew and the money they collected at the beginning of each month was a sizeable sum. As their income grew, so did their ambitions, and they were soon working on weather-hardened webcams in strategic locations around the neighborhood feeding video into their private surveillance system. But there was a problem. Some of the members had not paid dues for a few months, but they still showed up and still insisted on being heard when they had input to the future plans. One of the issues on which they disagreed with everyone else was the formation of a dues squad. This was a team of 5 members who would stay on the case of any member who failed to pay his dues on time.

One of their best ideas was the outreach group. This was an extension of the original idea to interview residents of the neighborhood about recent crime. The outreach team would knock on neighborhood doors to spread the word about what the club was doing and find out if the neighbors would like to help. Many of the neighbors, after getting to see some of the positive results of the club's work, were happy to pitch in a few dollars or even sign up to provide a monthly donation and become honorary members.

The trouble started when the outreach group and the dues squad started cooperating. In time, everyone in the neighborhood was badgered into providing some money every month.

Whether the knock on your door from someone who will eventually force you to provide their club with some of your money against your will comes from the IRS or a wiseguy, you hopefully now have an idea how it all got started, and perhaps you have an idea of how it might have gone wrong, and what we ought to be teaching our children.

Deep-Soul Knowing

2010-03-28T21:29:00.001-07:00

"Deep-soul Knowing"

This is a term Alice Sebold attributes to her dead heroine's father in reference to the identity of her killer, George Harvey. I believe this kind of knowing is the root cause of many horrible things, such as the Crusades, gay-bashing, the KKK, cults, and terrorism. I think about half of what is known by humans in the "deep-soul" knowing kind of way is simply not true, and her support of the concept disturbs me.

However, it only disturbs me as much as her portrayal of the dead among us, which most will agree is something that cannot be known. I am more open to that possibility than I am to the possibility that a person who feels "deep-soul knowledge" has a better grasp on reality than one who merely suspects an assertion's truth or is "quite certain" of it.

In fact, I think peace and goodwill are generally furthered by the idea that the dead may be among us, while "deep-soul knowing" generally diminishes it. Will you join me in encouraging the kind of skepticism that would have made Mr. Salmon's efforts with Len Fenerman blossom into justice, instead of requiring the use of just an icicle to give us closure on the case?

Why some Democrats are beginning to follow Ron Paul

2010-03-05T16:25:00.001-08:00

Ron Paul has been considered further from the political space between Democrats and Republicans than the Republicans themselves. How is it, then, that some Democrats have started siding with him, rather than with Republicans? One of the reasons is Paul's promotion of the Constitution itself. It is a sound basis for government and Democrats understand that. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been ignoring it for decdes, but Ron Paul has been promoting it and railing against them the whole time. Finally, people are demanding that our leaders respect this important founding document.

Another reason a Democrat might gravitate toward Ron Paul is that Democrats enjoy a good joint as much as Republicans. They might not inhale, but they still enjoy it. This particular enjoyment suffers from stifling and oppressive government control, and Democrats don't like it. Whether you belong to one of the parties or not, it's pretty easy to recognize that there are some areas of our lives in which government shouldn't interfere.

Welfare and Warfare. Voters in the Democratic Party traditionally care more about the underprivileged than those in the Republican party. This has always been used by rulers to justify taking money away from all citizens, regardless of their party afiiliation to be spent on helping these underprivileged. Democrats, however, have noticed that a great portion of what they give up for this good reason ends up being spent on foreign policy - Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the messing around the US did in the middle east to foment 9/11 in the first place. While Ron Paul argues that the state shouldn't be taking money from its citizens in the first place, he also argues that Defense Department expenditures are tremendously wasteful. He promotes the libertarian argument that citizens should decide how their own money should be spent.

Oddly enough, the Bush tax cuts have helped Democrats realize the benefits of keeping their own money and being responsible for using it. They are able to help the underprivileged on their own. They find their own decisions, even as a group, are better than those of the government which is as likely or more likely to spend it on foreign wars and CIA black operations than on helping poor people.

Corporatism vs Capitalism. As Ron Paul's campaign to Audit the Fed and eventually End the Fed goes on and on, everyone is realizing that this country is under the thumb of big business, and there's something wrong with that. One of the deceits that people are now seeing through is the idea that this trend is a natural result of capitalism. It has come to light that most of the big banks and insurance companies have friends in high places, and the power of government is what produced the bailouts that have kept them alive throughout the financial crisis. As awareness of the taxpayer as support-system for corporations that are too-heavy-to-fail and the pain of carrying them spreads, Democrats feel it too. Capitalism without the big government to support it creates goods and services that allow the underprivileged to prosper, encourages the competition that employs them, and promotes the environment that supports diversity.

Fighting for taxpayers

2010-01-25T15:59:00.001-08:00

The University of California has engaged me in an effort to lobby California legislators to spend taxpayer money on higher education. At least in my case, their plan backfired. They created a system through which letters could be sent, along with some sample text to use. I edited it for the cause of freedom and independence:

I write to you today as an advocate for the taxpayers of California and the United States and to encourage you to move the UC system toward independence from the state, if that is possible. The University is requesting that $913 million be restored to its budget in order to sustain its commitment to students and families and all the residents of California, but this is money which must be taken directly out of the pockets of taxpayers in one way or another, and that kind of thing has been destroying this country bit by bit.

It is vital that the State reinvest in the taxpayers rather than the UC System which could easily survive independently by leveraging the intelligence of its students.

UC is a powerful engine of economic growth and social advancement and will be essential in the knowledge economy of the future. Any money spent on the University by the state of California should be viewed as a crutch that is allowing the best parts of this engine to atrophy.

I hope you appreciate the magnitude of the State's budget gap and the difficult choices you will face. It's imperative to our long-term prosperity that you look beyond the immediate fiscal crisis and unburden taxpayers not only in CA but, as Arnold's efforts to get federal money start succeeding, across the country so they can develop new industries and spur job creation - two essential elements to our economic recovery. It's true that CA is a net exporter of tax revenue to the federal government, but that money should not be redirected to the state government, it should be sent back to the taxpayers from whom it was taken.

In addition to pushing the University to stand on its inherent strengths, I urge you to engage in serious discussions about exercising California's 10th amendment rights to nullify federal laws in the best interest of its citizens. While I recognize that you and your colleagues in the Legislature will develop the details, I believe it is critical to establish independence from Washington DC and the IRS which are increasingly becoming tools of oppression and even slavery.

I thank you for your time and attention and appreciate your consideration of my views.

Modern Slavery

2010-01-20T08:27:00.001-08:00

Do you think that there just aren't any powerful people who would like to have you as a slave? You have to admit that there probably are, right? But they don't have access to you, right? You're just one of millions, so how could they get to you to make you a slave?

Do you think they'd let on that they're using you as a slave, if they are? Or would they hide it? What would be the symptoms of enslavement, and could they be masked so that even if you are a slave, you wouldn't struggle against it? You'd do things you don't want to do because you're afraid of punishment, right? But the agents who inflict the punishment wouldn't be slave masters. They'd be painted to seem... legitimate, some kind of authority that you are taught to respect because they help you and protect you.

If you don't eat, you starve, and this forces you to eat. Breathing is the same way. Is there a slave master who forces you to eat and breathe? In that sense, you are already a slave to biology and physics. Does that make it ok to be a slave to other people? What's the diffference between other people and nature? Does nature have a choice about keeping you alive when you don't eat or you don't breathe? Do we have any reason to believe that struggling against that enslavement would free us from having to eat and breathe? What about other people? If they didn't spend time punishing slaves for failing to comply with the laws of their enslavement, what would they do during that time?

I see a lot of slavery that is unintentional. Many people spend time punishing each other for not yielding to each other's demands. In most cases, the punisher will recognize the ugliness of his or her behavior, and work to improve it, but exploiting those creatures around you who will yield to your threats seems to be instinctual.

I see intentional and deceptive slavery too. People in positions of power aren't all vapid thugs. Many of them understand that spending time punishing people for not complying with their demands is a black thing to do, but they do it anyway because they feel their ugliness can be hidden well enough to maintain their happiness. We all do that a little bit - hide our ugly choices so that people won't hate us. Some of us try to stop making these choices, and we find the comfort of being innocent. Even when we find ourselves punishing others for failing to comply, we retain the essence of innocence by recognizing the ugliness and trying to do better. Others don't bother. Which side are you on?

When the analysis of their own lives suggests that the stinking rot in their soul is not degrading their lives as much as freeing others from enslavement would, many people just leave it be. Those in positions of power obviously have an easier time with this, especially when that bad smell is largely transferred to agents who are made to feel it is their duty to inflict punishments on those who don't comply. This is one of the ways in which power corrupts. Do you smell that smell yet?

Abolishing slavery is going to take more than some proclamation by a government. The slave mentality ought to be recognized by the majority of us. Its disgusting scent ought to be named, and each of us ought to demand freedom. I wrote this essay in an attempt to help clear the air a bit, to give those people in power a bit more evidence that some of us know where the stench emanates from. Perhaps they will start cleaning up their act.

Hey TSA, let some planes explode.!

2010-01-12T19:29:00.001-08:00

I know I'm heartless, but I think the fear of bankruptcy would create a much richer and more robust safety solution than the US government is capable of creating with tax revenue. The idea is to allow airlines to decline passengers for any reason they want (can they do that now? I don't know.)

Once this is in place, each airline that suffers a terrorist attack would bear a significant burden to stay in business. People would blame the company for letting the nuts on the plane, rather than the nuts, who can't really be blamed because, well, they're nuts. More importantly, people wouldn't blame whole countries or invent WMDs to justify immoral and wasteful wars against them.

We are suffering from a failure to distinguish. Some airlines operate in a way that makes it slightly more difficult for the nuts to hurt us. We should know which airlines they are, and, depending on how important that kind of safety is to us, their market share will adjust accordingly. The free market is the best mechanism to calculate the portion of air-travel expense that should go toward the thwarting of terrorist attacks (as well as every other calculation of what proportion of expense should go toward what desirable outcome).

The Killing Crutch

2009-09-19T17:47:00.001-07:00

Please critique this and I will discard or rewrite as appropriate.

Dave.

This morning I heard that Michelle Obama had visited a farmer's market near the White House. I thought it was wonderful. However, having read a little Rothbard, I knew there was something wrong with this picture. How could the administration be encouraging local growers and such when the big corporate interests are so threatened by them, and when local growers create such independence and strength in the citizenry? It turns out they have a rather brilliant (albeit perverted) plan.

Google "atrophy crutch" (without quotes). Read the one at Everything2: http://everything2.com/title/crutch

Atrophy is the general goal of government and explains a lot of the seemingly unnecessary "help" it provides to people, such as what Michelle said: "I want to reinforce the fact that this market and other farmers' markets around the city participate in the WIC program, the SNAP program, the Double Dollar program, and the Seniors benefits program. And each SNAP and WIC dollar equals two dollars at a farmers' market to purchase fresh produce."

What atrophies here is the farmer's markets' motivation and ability to advertise and educate people who are not on welfare. She's basically saying, look, if you're poor, be a customer of these local food growers and we'll get all the taxpayers to help pay your way.

But why would the government have atrophy as a goal? Don't worry it isn't obvious until you think about it. The weaker you are, the more likely you are to choose the brute force of a government over the hard work of finding and building trading relationships with other citizens to support yourself. Grow weak and stupid, and see how hard it is to "just say no" when his lordship the president offers to make your neighbor give you dinner. We wouldn't sink if they weren't trying to sink us, but they know that we wouldn't need them either. This is the problem England faced in the late 1700s. They tried using their brute force to keep us enslaved, but that didn't work out too well. So now governments force support on us wherever we have strength in order to diminish it, and Farmer's Markets is an excellent example.

However, there's a whole other side to the reason government intentionally creates atrophy. We all know that DC is a whorehouse in which corporations are the tricks, the politicians are the whores, and the taxpayers are their families – the ones who really get screwed. Atrophying the specific abilities citizens have that enable them to avoid using the services of a corporation is a natural goal of the corporation. Since the corporate-government partnership is so seedy and well supported ($2.8B lobbying industry: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1461231811.html), we should expect to see government stealthily atrophying whatever they can, and generally that means competition from the little guy.

In any case, I learned that this goes a little deeper. The NPR story that I heard reports that "Tom Vilsack showed up at that farmer's market, and announced $4.5 million in grants to promote farmers markets nationwide." (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112983926). So there's another $4.5M crutch that the government will be using to destroy farmer's markets while pretending to help. If they really wanted to help, domestic military schools and camps like Pendleton and Anapolis would be buying their produce from farmer's markets. Look into that and note the great void.

You may be wondering if I see any role for the money collected through taxation - because if they use it to help, I call it a crutch, and if they use it to harm, I lambast them for harming us. True enough: I see no role whatsoever for money collected through taxation. Once money is taken by force, the only good use of it is to be returned to those who earned it. The government would have to provide services that people - the people who pay the "tax" - actually wanted. If they did this, it wouldn't be a tax - it would be a price, just like what private enterprise charges its (hard earned) customers.

This is one small example of the disease that plagues this country. Please join me in spreading the awareness that government has grown into a deceitful parasite gorging itself with taxes and destroying our independence. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It soothes us with calming words and superficial kindness as it drains our lifeblood. But it will be diminished, and sooner if you help.

The Sword of Damocles

2009-09-14T18:38:00.001-07:00

The versions of the story from modern times suggest that an imminent danger comes with having wealth. I have no idea why the story would be told that way. It seems more an injuction against the method one uses to gain the wealth rather than the actual having of it. The wealthy person, in this case was, after all, a cruel and unjust king who was known as a tyrant.

James Baldwin wrote the version I just read, and in it, he writes that Damocles says "I now see that I was mistaken, and that the rich and powerful are not so happy as they seem." Would he have said to King Dionysius, "King Dionysius, whatever threatens you does not threaten me. This is why you have hung that sword there - because my use of your riches does not put me in danger of your enemies. I did not ask for the rage and anger that you have brought upon yourself by being cruel and unjust, but only to see how the rich and powerful live. Surely there are good kings, kind and just, who also have such power and riches. You could show me that, but you chose to add the sword that your cruelty has created."

No, of course he wouldn't have said that. Instead, he plays the king's game, pretending that it is his power and riches, rather than the injustice and cruelty he used to get them, that presents imminent danger. But the story itself does this too, for it says (in Baldwin's words) "And so long as he lived, he never again wanted to be rich, or to change places, even for a moment, with the king."

Did this come through the story, or was it added by Mr. Baldwin? Does it matter? Does this story create a fear of being wealthy in you? Can we, today, tell our politicians off because they use deceit and empty promises to gain power and then abuse it to gain more? Or will the media pay more attention to the lack of decorum to which our passion drives us (Wilson), than to the unjust cruelty out of which that passion is born? Or will they invoke the Patriot Act and silence us with threats, or use previously illegal wiretapping to spy on us and stealthily degrade our livelihood in order to prevent us from making these accusations?

The meaning of the sword has been hijacked. I write to right this wrong. It is not wealth that raises the sword to your necks, my friends, but cruelty, injustice, and deceit.

Sorting in a Firefox extension

2009-08-30T17:27:00.001-07:00

If you're developing a Firefox extension, and you use Javascript's Array.sort to sort an associative array, you might not like the results. As far as I can tell, it does nothing. I built an array keyed on a field called loc, which wasn't to be used in sorting, and another field seq, which was to be used. Multiple rows could have the same loc, so the associative array was handy in allowing me to easily make sure only the latest seq for each loc was recorded. Alas, it was not to be.

However, you can get around this by giving your array numeric indexes. I needed to ensure that each loc only used one index and if it was already in sorted, I should overwrite that array element. Here's the bit of code I used to make a sortable array:

    var sorted = new Array();
    var locKeys = new Array();

    for( var r in rows )
    {
        var ad = rows[r];

        instance.seq = getSeq(ad);
        instance.loc = getLoc(ad);
        if( !(instance.loc in locKeys) )
        {
            locKeys[instance.loc] = sorted.length;
        }
        sorted[locKeys[instance.loc]] = instance;
    }

Now sorted will actually re-arrange itself when I call sorted.sort().

Modern Borrowing

2009-08-28T09:42:00.001-07:00

If you let someone borrow something, you must accept the risk that they will not willingly return to you as much value as they borrowed. Modern society allows this mistake to run rampant by providing the illusion that you can force someone to return that value. It's an illusion because the cost of forcing them to return the value quite high. The illusion and it's ugly consequences persist because these costs are spread so thinly across everyone.

Socialism, for or against?

2009-07-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

BOTH, actually!

It is my hope to show all socialists the difference between encouraging socialist choices on an individual level, which has real benefits, and forcing them, which causes real harm. I have discovered that I am very socialist when it is my choice to share or contribute, but when it is imposed on me, because I value individual choice so much, I resist.

There are two negatives when socialist behavior is legislated. The first is that those who benefit from it are weakened. We have a natural fear of wasting too much of what we get, and of not doing enough to take care of ourselves, but when we have a legislated right to "social support," these fears are weakened, and the good outcomes they produce are therefore diminished. Family ties, caring for one's community, supporting your parents when they grow old, saving, and living below ones means are all good examples of things we start losing when welfare grows.

The second negative effect of legislated socialism is that the role of charitable feelings that some people have toward the less fortunate is diminished. Being charitable makes people feel good and provides them with a sense of community and solidarity with others. When socialist programs crowd out our opportunities to feel these feelings, people become more selfish and isolated.

I have discovered that I am a champion of socialism when it is encouraged as a sign of being a good person, but very much an enemy of it when it is imposed through legislation. The surest way to prevent learning is to force it on people, and the surest way to make someone selfish is by taking stuff from them and "sharing" it with others. I think we can watch this play out in Russia because it takes decades for socialism's harmful effects to get washed out by time.

Time to play tanks!

2009-06-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Anna, wants to play tanks with me. She's playing by herself right now. My personality is quite bent on not "playing" until I've done my work. But recently "my work" has evolved in such a way that it can fill up all my time. So I have to fight against that part of my personality if I am ever to play. One way I deal with this is by doing just exactly what I want when I want to, always keeping in mind if there are new things that I want to do, such as writing. Well, writing isn't so new, but writing about myself is new. I am very very peculiar, so I think writing about myself will not only be helpfully therapeutic, but also interesting enough to possibly be valuable in the effort to re-establish the kind of freedom fought for in the American Revolution. Now I will go play tanks.

Was Hobbes an idiot?

2009-05-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Thomas Hobbes, in Chapter 13 of Leviathan, writes:

It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things that Nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself: when taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man's nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions till they know a law that forbids them; which till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it.

In other words, he's suggesting that I, because I feel that men are apt to cooperate, rather than destroy each other, consider why I would lock my doors at night, or travel with weapons when I travel. Yes, I do those things. He suggests my behavior is an accusation that I make against mankind. This is one of the things that makes me think him an idiot. Really, it's like saying that if I bring a jacket to the beach, I'm accusing the ocean of making it cold. Or, less anthropomorphically, that I'm expecting it to be cold. He appears to have no concept of insurance. Hence my conclusion. He's an idiot. Certainly there are a few men who are apt to destroy each other, but to suggest that protecting oneself from those few is an admission that deep down, we know everyone is out to get us... It's ridiculous!

And Leviathan is a foundational work in the creation of the state. What the hell?

Here is the conversation that inspired me to take a closer look at this buffoon.

The Problem with Regulation

2009-02-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

I've come up with a little analogy to make it easier to understand the problem with regulation. A child may run quickly across dangerous rocks and the chances are good that he will fall and get seriously injured. Regulation comes along to save him, prohibiting him from running quickly across the rocks. This is the child who grows up believing he is invincible because he never had the guts to violate the rules which kept him safe. But there's always a crack, isn't there? SIVs? CDOs? Pick your random letters. What does the child do, but jump without a backup 'chute and without safety checking the one he plans to use? He has come to believe that since he is following the rules, he will be safe. Yes, I know there are rules about parachutes and airplanes, but do they apply to base jumping? He may land safely several times, and then one day, SPLAT.

What if he had broken his leg on those rocks? He could be crippled or have a nasty scar, a horrible limp, etc. But these are all better than being goo on the sidewalk. Additionally, his parents and loved ones can concentrate on teaching him and enjoying him rather than punishing him for running on the rocks. I tell my kids to be careful. I say to them "I don't think you worry enough about falling on those rocks and breaking your leg." Do I stop them? Depends on the rocks. And if I do stop them, it is not with threats and yelling. It is with distraction. I pick them up and carry them elsewhere and play there with them, the whole time expressing my worry that their injuries, should they fall on those dangerous rocks, would hurt me more than they hurt them. But that takes really dangerous rocks.

Doing good doesn't cost you

2009-02-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

If you do something other people like, chances are they will reward you for it. If it's really a good thing you've done, the cost to you should be negative. In other words, when you do a really good thing, you'll profit from it. This is a basic principle of human cooperation and one that is widely misunderstood. Everything you do to make money is an investment of something - your time and effort and maybe even your money. When the results are worth more to you than what you've invested, that's called profit. Good results mean that people like what you did. See the correlation? Doing good creates profit. Profit indicates that you have done good.

Of course there are many exceptions to this general rule: You can steal your way into profits without doing any good whatsoever. You can also give up your last efforts to save someone else's life, and though you did plenty of good, you'll be dead. Unless your life was worth more than that of the person you saved. Hmm... Yeah, think about that for a minute. Anyway, these are exceptional cases. Let's look at some more commonplace "doing good" that doesn't profit the "do-gooder."

Charity is giving some of what you have to someone who hasn't got as much. When this does not end up profiting you (mind you, profits come in forms other than money, such as happiness, friendship, etc.), I would argue that you have NOT done good. Why should we consider it good to give something to someone who doesn't appreciate it enough to make you feel good about doing it? I don't think that's good at all. I think the receivers of charity who are unable or unwilling to show natural appreciation shouldn't get it. Does this cut churches out of charitable giving? Perhaps. Does it cut welfare out? Of course. Then how are the poor to survive? Why, by doing good, of course!

I'm a criminal!!

2009-02-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

It figures that a company from the island that Great Britain used to exile its criminals would figure out how to make us all into criminals. Yes, Red Flex is an Australian company. This is no reflection on the people (other than Red Flex employees/criminals) of Australia. Turning otherwise decent citizens into criminals is the business of government and a sure way to make a buck in a world where people have been taught that they are incapable of self-discipline, mean, and stupid. Perhaps that's not our world, but as Adam Smith pointed out, taxation tends to make decent citizens into criminals too, and just about every country I can think of runs entirely on taxation. He did not point out that by claiming to spend the money on protecting people from nature and from each other, governments also encourage our own abilities to protect ourselves from nature and each other to atrophy. Do you lock your car and your doors at night?

I thought my beloved city of Riverside would have figured out that the red-light systems are causing more harm than good. In Fullerton, the Superior Court of California, Orange County deemed Fullerton's contract with another company to be illegal because it provides a financial incentive to the private company (NTS) to keep the number of citations high. According to theNewspaper.com, Riverside's contract with RedFlex contains a clause similar to the one that Fullerton had. So I went to trial. Here's the transcript:

Ok, right, they put on a criminal trial and there is no transcript. They also said that I couldn't have my trial unless I paid first. They also refused to let me have my trial in my own city as CVC 40502 says I can because "There's no traffic court in the county seat."

Don't wait til I'm sixty-four.

2009-02-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

Kim (my lovely wife) pointed out to me today that I am rebellious sometimes to the detriment of those I love. I know it's true. Adam (a good old friend) once suggested that my problem was that I'd test, for example, the strength of a guitar by standing on the neck and the body to see how much weight it would support. I used to break the toys that Lee (my older brother) got because... I can't remember, but I like to imagine it was because I wanted to see how they work.

So a few days ago, Jessica (CAVA Teacher) sent Kim and me an email explaining that Anna (our 4th grade daughter) would have to take a state mandated writing test on March 3rd and that there would be no make up test. State mandated??!! So I wrote back:

Hi Jessica,

I have a burning curiosity to know what will happen to those 4th and 7th graders who do not make it to the test. Can you find out? I'm sure Anna will make it, but that doesn't stop my curiosity. In fact, it makes it stronger. Is that bad?

She wrote back:

You never cease to amaze me. Both Julia and yourself have a knack for research and poking for information.

I wrote back "I hope we inspire others!" but Kim pointed out the negative part of it. It's possible that Jessica could sense and get frustrated by my rebellious nature (which wouldn't be a problem) and retaliate for it (which would be). This is why I'm asking you not to wait. Although I have put effort into being more careful with my rebellion, there might still be holes in my strategy. I'm hoping there are enough people close enough to me to tell me when I need to tone it down.

2009-02-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

In less than an hour, I'll be on Sue Vogan's radio show discussing the plight of a friend and fellow Litmocracy member Karim. As part of his job at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan, he was perusing some research by other students in the library. One thesis concluded that oxygen levels in a local river were so low that no fish could be living there, but there were fish. He decided to investigate the equipment used for some field measurements of dissolved oxygen because he didn't know the University had such field equipment. In fact, it didn't. This means the measurements were not taken in the field and explained the discrepancy.

He brought this to the attention of his superiors, such as Dr. Asif Khan, who promptly suspended Karim from his job for inefficiency and misconduct. Apparently, when you find an error in research published by your employer, you are supposed to ignore it. And you're wasting your time if you try instead to get it corrected. Karim also discovered that the student who wrote the paper was a student of the current acting director, Dr. Tahir Shah. These are people that received degrees from U.S. and U.K. universities. So what gives?

It seems to me that the incentive for the US universities is to have the story that they provide educated citizens to developing nations. Governments fund education so that they have a story - that they're helping educate leaders. If they turn out to be poor leaders, lucky for them, the people of the world aren't paying enough attention to blame the universities. More people need to understand the chain of incentives behind publicly funded endeavors such as higher eduation. Instead, citizens in both America and in Pakistan are paying taxes to support scholarships to make up for the poor leadership.

So I have a job for the universities: It's like the Olympics. Here you have several very good athletes competing for top honors. Originally, these honors were awarded to the fastest runners, the highest jumpers, and those who could throw the farthest. These are measurements based on science, not judgments that are open to the abuses of personal bias. The scientific measure of educational success is the success of the private companies that employ the graduates. Our educational and research organizations need to actively promote and publicize their relative value to the industries that hire their graduates or use their research findings. This completes the chain of incentives, and highlights who should be the true beneficiaries of higher education. Most private companies that hire graduates retrain them to fill in the holes left by their university education. The School of Hard Knocks is the most efficient school there is.

Get Your Own Blogger Gadget!

2009-01-31T08:18:00.000-08:00

I found this link to a file that represents a Blogger Gadget. It was on this page that explains how to create a gadget that has access to some of the blog owner's own data. I was trying to find a page that explained how to create a gadget from scratch, but stopped when I found this one. It assumes you know something about creating a gadget: "First things first, we need to tell the gadget to use OAuth. To do that, add the element in the gadget's <moduleprefs> section..." ModulePrefs? Whatever. So I took my usual route which is start with an example and modify it in baby steps (so that when it breaks, you know why). That's how I got the gadget displayed to the right (at the bottom). If you want to help promote Litmocracy, you can add the gadget to your own blog by following these steps:

Right-click the [[Gadget Link]] in my Litmocracy Gadget and copy the link.
Click "Customize" on your blog (you have to be logged in).
Go to the Layout tab of your blog.
On the page elements sub-tab of the layout tab, click one of the "Add a Gadget" links.
At the bottom on the left side, select "Add Your Own" from the gadget adding page.
Paste the link you copied in step 2 into the URL field and click Add.
Move the gadget wherever you want in your blog layout.

Thanks to StarLizard for the idea to make a Litmocracy Blogger Gadget!

How many blogs do you have?

2007-10-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

I lost count.

Should I post each thing I have to say to each of my blog accounts? Or should I carefully decide which blog account is best for each post I make? I am here to fight information overload by allowing people with similar tastes to help eliminate things from each other's awareness before they waste more time. How do I do this? Check out my website to find out. If you're interested.