Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.
The original conception of the modern Olympics was flawed. Its bedrock notion of an “international” contest unduly accented the “national.” This directed attention away from individual achievement and towards “national” competition, especially to the “national teams” and how many medals countries win.
The Olympics became a venue for Big Government in action. And so of course, that means: waste of money. The current events in London are way over-budget. CBS takes a look at this:
It seems there’s a trick to putting together a winning Olympic bid: You have to have a flexible relationship with reality.
The London bid that beat out New York and Paris won, at least in part, because it promised value for money.
And after the extravagance of the Beijing Games, London promised, in 2005, to deliver a more measured approach, games that would cost under $4 billion — a bargain.
But that figure turned out to be an underestimate. A whopping underestimate, if $15 billion meets your definition of a whopper.
No surprise, of course, as Katherine Mangu-Ward explains at Reason.com: “Hosting the Olympics is virtually always a big fat money suck, despite what you may have heard.” Nick Gillespie, at the same site, opines, “Mega-activities such as staging the Olympics are often sold as economic development programs for dreary local economies, but they almost never deliver anything other than big bills and useless infrastructure.”
This applies to sports stadiums and league franchises, too. It’s time to separate sports and state.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40 percent of our national income.
Society doesn’t have values. People have values.
There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
The late Prof. Milton Friedman, whose birthday is on the 31st, exerted influence on a number of policy issues, none more important than “the draft”:
There are some things people with different values just won’t “get” about their opponents. Folks who support gun bans and greater gun control just don’t “get” arguments for the Second Amendment and for “more guns” in peaceful citizens’ hands. And so, when confronted with a scholar and analyst of gun control like economist John Lott, they shy away from actually arguing with his points.
Their approach? Scattershot. Sniping. Crossfire.
Thus it was, this week, on Piers Morgan’s CNN interview show. Morgan grilled Lott in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater atrocity. Lott ably started making his case numerous times, but Morgan refused to engage Lott’s points, instead unleashing a barrage of “isn’t your positions just ridiculous?” non-questions.
The lack of engagement with ideas is astounding.
When Alan Dershowitz joined the “debate,” it only got worse. Dershowitz repeated an accusation of “junk science” without really demonstrating how the science marshaled by Lott was unsound, and engaged (falsely) in the favorite ad hominem gambit of the age: “research funded by the NRA.”
The sad thing about this is not the inability of Morgan and Dershowitz to understand Lott. The sad thing is their unwillingness to even give it a good ol’ college try. It was downright uncivilized. Dershowitz is a lawyer, so his resorting to base rhetoric in a no-holds-barred attack is understandable. But Morgan is allegedly a journalist, on the advance guard of history, a seeker of truth.
But Morgan is not seeking truth; his mind is already made up. Facts be damned. That doesn’t lead to good interviews.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it’s only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.
I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.
In education circles, “lifelong learning” is a mantra, a piety, a cliché. For the rest of us, it’s how we maintain sanity.
Take words. It’s worth learning a few new ones now and then. After all, with new words can come new insights. Mostly, it’s just fun.
Yesterday, I learned a new word: Listicle.
This gem courtesy of Jesse Walker with Reason. He blogged about a Cracked “listicle” entitled “The 6 Most Popular Crime Fighting Tactics (That Don’t Work).” If you are on the Internet (and, since you are reading this, you almost certainly are) you’ve seen plenty of “listicles.” These are articles constructed in the form of a list. They are very popular, often linked on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter. Walker defends his recommendation: “Don’t sneer. Many listicles are excellent. I’ll take the average listicle over the average op-ed any day.”
I’d never heard the word before, but I am certainly aware of the art form. The listicle in question was concocted by Robert Evans, and he makes some great points:
Walker excerpts the “dry county” prohibition story, which is well-reasoned. I’m against capital punishment, but not moved by Evans’s take on it. Still, a tip of the hat to his red-light intersection revelation . . . which I won’t quote, because, like the most popular listicles, this one contains a plethora of words that, were I quoting, would contain a superabundance of aster**ks.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.