People fear what they do not understand.
People hate what they fear.
People attack what they hate.
Most people in this country don’t understand the economy and see Wall Street as an amorphous body that is somehow the economy. Therefore: Occupy Wall Street. I think a certain percentage of Ron Paul supporters are the same way with the Federal Reserve, though I think the majority really do understand the problem.
You may have heard about H.R. 3261, better known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. It is a bill in the US House of Representatives that seeks to expand the Federal Government’s power for the purpose of putting an end to piracy online. This has caused much debate and concern, so I thought I’d weigh in with my two cents. Interestingly enough, I could not find anything on the websites for Mises, Lew Rockwell, Freedom Works or the Libertarian Party about SOPA. I figured it would be something that would be lighting up their circuits. Apparently not.
Now I don’t know all of the details of this bill, but I don’t think I need to. Whatever the particulars of such a measures are, they all boil down to the same basic issue: using federal authority to stop the exchange of copyrighted material for no cost and without the consent of the original publisher. I’m aware that copyright law does exist, and I’m also certain that a deep read of the act would simply involve nothing more than a specification for new authority and powers given to the Executive branch for the purpose of enforcement of the existing law. I highly doubt that any new laws are being defined here. But even given these factors, H.R. 3261 cannot but have four basic, fundamental flaws that preclude it from being a legitimate use of Federal power.
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Why is scalping a crime? I’ve never been able to figure this out. What’s scalping?
To resell at a price higher than the established value: scalping tickets to the baseball game.
What is “established value”? Established value refers to the price printed on the ticket. In other words it’s the price that the box office of the venue or the performer has decided to sell the ticket for. So the simple answer to this question is, scalping is a crime because you’re ripping someone off by selling them something that isn’t worth what you asked them to pay you.
But is that a crime? Continue reading
“A great silent collapse, an enormous unspoken disappointment, has in our time fallen on our Northern civilization. All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions, that the most that we can do is to set up a few notice-boards at places of obvious danger, to warn men, for instance, against drinking themselves to death…” – G.K. Chesterton, Heretics.
No wonder we have so many public service announcements on TV and so many Nanny State laws!!!
I was listening to Scott Sloane on WLW this morning while driving to the bookstore. He was talking about the BP oil spill in the gulf. He was generally noting how everyone is out to blame somebody over the disaster and he thinks that’s premature. Fix the problem first, then assess blame.
However, he and some of the callers were talking about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of infrastructure in place to protect us against this disaster. Generally speaking this was “our well”, but there are other wells out there in the Gulf that don’t belong to us. They belong to other countries like China or whoever. So if those wells aren’t ours, who’s responsibility would it be to protect our shores if something like this happened to one of those? We don’t have authority to tell the Chinese what to do – not in the kind of direct way that we can BP. (aside: not that I’m in favor of Congress dragging in the owner of BP, and not that I’m in favor of the Attorney General discussing criminal charges).
The point is, shouldn’t the coast guard and the federal government be concerned with protecting our borders in this kind of a situation? Isn’t this part of their job? Sloane then went into a discussion of all the money that’s poured into this and wondering where it’s going. He also mentioned the FAA and the FDA and how they don’t come close to accomplishing their jobs sufficiently in terms of Airport infrastructure, and pharmaceutical regulation respectively, despite untold billions of dollars funneled into them.
Then I had a thought. Think back with me about two years – maybe more. Think early on in the 2008 presidential campaign. Think back before the housing crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression (that isn’t even as bad as the Carter years). What was one of the hot button issues at the time? Oil prices. What are we going to do about this dependency on foreign oil? Continue reading
Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t legislate morality?” Ever wonder whether it’s true? People love to debate this topic. The fact of the matter is, people seem to think that you can. Whether it is the militant religious right attempting to push Biblical morality on the nation, or whether it’s those godless commie liberals who want everyone to hug trees1, many people – at least those in power – seem to be interested in behavior modification. But what’s a Biblical Perspective on this? I’ve written before on Theonomy, but here’s another observation: Continue reading
Our church lately has had a discussion about Theonomy. What is Theonomy? The Greek words are Theos and Nomos. The former is translated “God” and the latter is translated “Law”. Therefore Theonomy directly means “The Law of God”.
Theonomy isn’t simply merely an informational subject, defining what God’s law was and is. It centers mostly around a debate regarding what’s to be done with the Law. Should we individually obey the very letter of the Mosaic Law? Are we comletely freed from the Law such that we don’t have to bother with it? Should we expect the United States of America (or whatever country you happen to be a citizen of) to have laws that directly reflect the Mosaic Law?
Preach it Brother Paul!!!!
This is good stuff. As a “conservative” and “religious” I really don’t think Stephen Baldwin speaks for me. I agree with Ron Paul on this one. No I don’t think people should smoke marijuana any more than I think they should put guns in their mouths. I just do not believe it’s the government’s job to tell us what we should and should not do, unless we are infringing on someone else’s liberties. Continue reading
Apparently I open up this site with a post about politics. Politics isn’t really on my list is it? Continue reading
