How do I know that my narrative is better than yours? The experiments of the 20th century told me so. It would have been hard to know the wisdom of Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman or Matt Ridley or Deirdre McCloskey in August of 1914, before the experiments in large government were well begun. But anyone who after the 20th century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism, imperialism, mobilization, central planning, regulation, zoning, price controls, tax policy, labor unions, business cartels, government spending, intrusive policing, adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the other thoroughgoing 19th-century proposals for governmental action are still neat, harmless ideas for improving our lives is not paying attention.
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All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay… If you do not take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system. – Frederic Bastiat June 3rd, 2012 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Britain’s energy reforms are billed as a key part of the Cameron government’s growth strategy. To understand why the U.K. economy is flat-lining, look to a government that believes a policy to raise energy prices and squeeze living standards is good for growth. Unless Mr. Cameron wants to share Jimmy Carter’s electoral fate, he’d better push the reset button on his energy policy – fast May 31st, 2012 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
A Dead Statesman I could not dig; I dared not rob: Rudyard Kipling Ponder… May 17th, 2012 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
The problem is not that the BBC is on the wrong wavelength, it is that it is on any wavelength at all. That in this day and age a supposedly first world country has a tax funded state broadcast institution is simply absurd. May 14th, 2012 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Poverty is a solved problem – all they have to do is abolish taxes and regulations which cripple those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women and destroy their productive capacity, then stand back and watch the economy boom. – L. Neil Smith May 9th, 2012 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority – Edmund Burke May 6th, 2012 | 55 comments - (Comments are closed)
April 28th, 2012 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
Politicians can’t reform Social Security because they can’t talk about it honestly, and they can’t talk about it honestly because the median voter doesn’t want to admit a basic fact: Grandpa is an embezzler. April 25th, 2012 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Unlike terrestrial radio transmissions, satellite transmissions come from a point source in the sky. One must point their antenna in the right direction to receive such signals. Different people may launch satellites in different positions and broadcast without interference. The case for licensing radio spectrum is already weak. There can be no argument for the need for a third party to license satellite radio spectrum. In satellite television, the satellites are privately owned and launched by private space vehicles. And yet in the UK one needs a broadcasting license from Ofcom to squirt photons encoded with television signals towards the Earth from space. In addition, Ofcom gets to decide who is “fit and proper” to hold such a license. There is no definition of “fit and proper”. This is the rule of the whim of bureaucrats. March 27th, 2012 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
March 18th, 2012 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is good, because it shows how reasonable most people consider their government’s existence and demands to be – and because it shows how misled those people are. (I have put this under the Humour category, but I find it rather depressing. Those who can be emotionally detached about these things may laugh, though.)
Video via Richard Nikoley March 9th, 2012 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
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