Tag: You Can’t Cure Stupid

The Propaganda Arm of the Federal Reserve

I didn’t know this but it looks like the Federal Reserve has its own propaganda arm. The site includes games to indoctrinate children in kindergarden, publications full of economic falsehoods, and even lesson plans for teachers who want to get the kids believing in planned economies early.

I wonder how much funny money the Federal Reserve printed up to pay for this site? After digging through the site for a better part of an hour I can say that it contains no actual educational material. So far I haven’t found a single document explaining how the Federal Reserve’s printing of money causes inflation, which reduces the value of each person’s currently held dollars and therefore is nothing more than legalized theft. No document explains how the Federal Reserve has been bailing out European banks in secret. Hell, the name Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard doesn’t appear on the site anywhere, without referencing their material you can’t even teach economics properly.

What really gets me is the fact this site was funded through ill gotten means. The Mises Institute, which actually provides economic education, is entirely funded through voluntary donations and transactions.

Self-Righteous Hypocrisy in Action

A marketing group,Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), decided to try something new that stood to benefit homeless individuals, paying those individuals to carry around a 4G hotspot during South by Southwest. Instead of being commended on their rather innovative idea that benefitted all involved a bunch of self-righteous assholes decided to get offended:

A division of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) equipped 13 homeless people with 4G mifi devices in Austin, Texas.

It suggested the public pay $2 (£1.30) for 15 minutes’ access to the net.

Comments posted to the BBH’s site accused the project of being “unseemly” and “wrong”.

Members of Twitter asked “what has this world come to?” and accused the project of being a “gimmick”.

[…]

It invited comments on the idea. Early respondents seemed impressed – but later posters mocked the idea.

“My homeless hotspot keeps wandering out of range,” wrote one before going onto add “by literally labelling the person as a ‘hotspot’, you are priming an affluent, iPad-toting public to think of that person as a commodity”.

Another added: “Helping hipsters check their email is not charitable, in fact it’s potentially dangerous and detrimental to the situation the people on the street are facing.”

According to this story, the homeless individuals were being paid $50.00 a day. BBH entered into a mutually beneficial transaction with 13 homeless individual and people are upset about that. These self-righteous pricks are criticizing BBH for paying homeless individuals to provide a service while offering no help themselves. The sheer hypocrisy of these people is astounding, they rally against mutually beneficial arrangements claiming they’re dehumanizing but aren’t offering to pay these homeless individuals $50.00 a day. On top of the $50.00 a day the homeless individuals also had the opportunity of receiving more money from those using their hotspots, I’m sure people had little issue with giving a donation to use the hotspot.

This is what’s wrong with the world (well one of a billion things). People have put a higher value on self-image than voluntary association. When they see somebody entering a voluntary agreement they will jump up and scream that the agreement is dehumanizing or exploitative. “How dare this company exploit these homeless people by paying them money for a service!” they scream. When you ask them what they’re doing to help the homeless they can only give you unproductive responses like “raising awareness” and “stopping exploitation of the homeless.” Are they giving the homeless money? No. Are they offering their spare bedroom to a homeless person? No. Are they even trying to help homeless individuals get a job? No. They’re cutting off opportunities for the homeless and thus making their situations worse.

On top of that these bleeding heart pricks are also exploiting the homeless individuals for their own agendas. They point to the homeless and say, “Hark, a homeless person! His situation is an outrage! We must steal from the rich to provide for this homeless man!” This self-righteous hypocrisy is disgusting. They exploit homeless individuals and they claim the moral high ground. I don’t give a shit what some self-righteous hypocrite things, the opinion is as worthless to me as water is to a drowning man.

It’s Not a Lack of Intelligence

A recent study showing that people are “too stupid” for democracy to flourish has been circulating:

The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies.

The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people’s ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.

Where do I even begin to start with this? First let’s begin with the assumption that people are generally unable to recognize the “best political candidate” or “best policy idea.” This beginning premises is flawed because what constitutes the “best political candidate” or the “best policy idea” is entirely subjective to the individual making the decision. This is an idea collectivists have a very hard time understanding.

Case in point, some people believe that the best policy with regards to taxes is to entirely abolish taxation, which others believe we need to tax more. These two groups oppose one another because the former believes services currently provided by the government should be voluntarily provided by individuals while the second group believes it is just to forcefully take the produce of each person’s labor in order to distribute it for the “greater good” (can you guess which camp I’m in). Another example is that some people believe the best method of preventing violent crime is to make the tools used by violent criminals illegal while other people believe individuals should have access to those tools to counter the violent criminals. The former believes that criminals will actually obey prohibitions while the latter holds no such delusions.

Democracy fails not because people are too stupid but because people have different desires, beliefs, and goals. What is good for one person isn’t necessary good for another. I’ve gone into detail about why democracy isn’t legitimate, nor should it be seen as a desired societal goal. Individuals must be allowed to pursue their own goals and not be beholden to the whims and desires of others. If my goals align with the goals of another then we can certainly work together but nobody should force such cooperation. Democracy is an attempt to force cooperation but claiming a majority agreement justifies an action. Such a belief is a type of logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum and its falsehood can be easily proven by the following fact: early in human history the common belief was that Earth was flat and through scientific research we learned that Earth is actually spherical. Even though the majority of people believed Earth was flat it wasn’t true.

When a group democratically agrees on something it means some majority agreed to that thing. That majority will almost always use the threat or application of force to make others comply with the demands of the majority. People are too stupid for democracy, democracy is incompatible with species composed of individual creatures capable of reasoning.

The primary failure of this study can be found in the statement that there are best politicians and policy ideas. Such a statement is a gross display of the self-centered nature of those conducting the study. They assume that they know what is best for everybody and based on that false assumption have arrived at an equally false conclusion. Their conclusion is based on other individuals failing to agree with the study conductor’s definition of what is best. It is the epitome of arrogance to believe that you know what is best for another person and any study based on such a premises is doomed to failure. A more accurate title for this story would have been Arrogant Scientists Demonstrate their Arrogance .

It’s a Good Thing the State Bailed General Motors Out

It’s a good thing the United States government bailout out General Motors otherwise we wouldn’t have the great Chevrolet Volt that nobody wants:

General Motors has temporarily suspended production of its Volt electric car, the company announced Friday.

GM, which is based in Detroit, announced to employees at one of its facilities that it was halting production of the beleaguered electric car for five weeks and temporarily laying off 1,300 employees.

A GM spokesman told The Hill on Friday that production of the Volt would resume April 23.

“We needed to maintain proper inventory and make sure that we continued to meet market demand,” GM spokesman Chris Lee said in a telephone interview.

Maintain property inventory is a friendlier way of saying that inventory isn’t reducing because nobody is buying our shitty electric cars. A basic economic lesson exists in this story, the state can’t simply make a market by dumping funding into a program it approves of. While the state keeps trying to create a market for electric cars nobody is willing to pay the Volt’s asking price, partially because most people aren’t setup to charge an electric car.

If Only They Had Funding

I’m not sure Bill Gates realizes the sheer amount of idiocy he just spouted:

Bill Gates told an audience of energy entrepreneurs, scientists and investors at the ARPA-E energy conference on Tuesday that “It’s crazy how little we’re funding energy.” Energy research is underfunded by a factor of two, Gates said, referring to the amount of current U.S. government investment in energy research.

If only there was a source these energy companies could get funding from. What we really need is a multi-billionaire who is also an advocate of investing in energy companies. I wonder where we could find such a person?

Gates has expressed similar sentiments before. He is part of the American Energy Innovation Council, which about two years ago called for a government investment of $16 billion per year into basic research to deliver energy innovation. Since that foundation launched, he has said that he has been stunned that the government hasn’t been able to rise to the occasion.

$16 billion? It’s too bad we don’t know somebody who had an insane sum of money, say $59 billion, that could be invested into this market.

Champlin Police Chief Lies About Minnesota HF 1467

As the Senate debated HF 1467 the anti-gunners brought up the usual nonsensical arguments. One of these arguments, as I’ll demonstrate, was entirely false:

“This bill provides a loophole for a defense of what I would call cold-blooded murder,” said Champlin Police Chief David Kolb of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association.

Kolb recounted being 10 years old and sneaking onto a neighbor’s south Minneapolis property to steal apples from a tree.

Based on the proposal, “now the property owner can use force, and even deadly force, against that 10-year-old apple thief,” Kolb said. “You can see the disconnect here with reality.”

Let me say this as nicely as I possibly can, Police Chief David Kolb is a lying sack of shit. I say this with confidence because unlike him I actually read the bill and the scenario he describes, even with the passage of this bill, is clearly illegal. Let’s look at the language:

Subd. 3. Degree of force; retreat. An individual taking defensive action pursuant to subdivision 2 may use all force and means, including deadly force, that the individual in good faith believes is required to succeed in defense. The individual may meet force with superior force when the individual’s objective is defensive; the individual is not required to retreat; and the individual may continue defensive actions against an assailant until the danger has ended.

In order to legally employ the use of deadly force one must first in good faith believe it is required in defense. One does not have good faith that deadly force is needed to prevent a child from stealing an apple. While the bill gives a person using deadly force the presumption that such force was necessary the following must be remembered:

Subd. 6. Justifiable use of force; burden of proof. In a criminal trial, when there is any evidence of justifiable use of force under this section or section 609.06, the state has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s actions were not justifiable.

Section 609.06 describes the legitimate scenarios in which a person can use deadly force in Minnesota, a kid stealing an apple isn’t one of them. Ignoring 609.06 we still have the fact that even the dumbest of lawyers could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person who shot an apple stealing child had no reasonable expectation that such force was necessary.

The fact that an anti-gunner said this statement doesn’t surprise me, the fact that a police chief said this statement demonstrates how unqualified he is. If he can’t even read the law how does anybody expect him to enforce it?

Klobuchar Brings More Legislation that Ignores True Problems

Amy Klobuchar, one of the two idiot clowns elected to be senators in Minnesota, is presenting an amendment to a transportation bill that will supposedly address the shortage of medicinal drugs in the United States:

The recent shortage of a critical medicine for childhood cancer has prompted Senator Amy Klobuchar to attach her bill on drug shortages to transportation legislation under discussion in the Senate, the lawmaker said on Tuesday.

Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, along with Robert Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, introduced a bill that would force drug companies to tell the Food and Drug Administration about looming shortages. The FDA said early notification helped it to prevent 99 shortages in 2011.

This legislation fails to address the actual problem. An interesting fact I came across in a previous, but related, post was the fact that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) put quotes on the amount of drugs pharmaceutical companies can produce. I did some looking around and came across a Department of Justice (DoJ) report [PDF] that flat out stated this fact:

DEA limits the quantity of Schedule I and II controlled substances which may be produced in the United States in any given calendar year. By utilizing available data on sales and inventories of these controlled substances, and taking into account estimates of drug usage provided by the FDA, the DEA establishes annual aggregate production quotas for Schedule I and II controlled substances. The aggregate production quota is allocated among the various manufacturers who are registered to manufacture the specific drug. DEA also allocates the amount of bulk drug which may be procured by those companies which prepare the drug into dosage units.

Klobuchar is forcing pharmaceutical companies to report shortages to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who will, I guess, report the shortage to the DEA who will raise it’s production limit. A simpler solution that would take care of this entire mess in one fell swoop would be to remove the DEA’s quotes on drug production. Instead of attacking the actual problem, the DEA’s power to create artificial shortages, Klobuchar has decided to put more burden on manufacturers.

The war on drugs has far wider implications than illegal drugs. Along with trying to control verboten drugs the DEA also attempts to control legal drugs and part of their scheme involves restricting the quantities that can be produced by pharmaceutical companies. These restrictions are responsible for shortages of other medical drugs yet the government refuses to attack the actual problem, instead they pile more bureaucracy on top of the already thickly layer bureaucracy. It’s not turtles all the way down, it’s bureaucracy all the way down.

Of course Klobuchar is going to be cheered on as a proponent of the people for this amendment because the average American doesn’t understand or care about the actual causes of problems.

Reductio ad Somalium and Roads

Whenever a libertarian argues with a statist either reductio ad Somalium or reductio ad roads comes up. For those who don’t know reductio ad Somalium is akin to the Internets general Godwin’s Law. That is to say when an argument between a libertarian and a statist goes one long enough the likelihood the statist will bring up Somalia approaches one. Reductio ad roads is the same thing except you merely replace the word Somalia with roads.

In the statist’s delusional world Somalia is the unavoidable result of too small or a lack of a state. On top of that statists also believe that it’s impossible for roads to be built or maintained without a state. Following such logic Somalia should be entirely devoid of roads, right? Think about it, Somalia apparently has no government and roads can only be built and maintained by states. Taking a look at Somalia on Google Maps showed me something unexpected… roads. Thinking that Google Maps must be inaccurate I checked Bing Maps, which also displays roads in Somalia. Thinking there must be some kind of corporate conspiracy I decided to check an independent project that claims to be compiling data about roads in Somalia, and surprisingly found the data they obtained wasn’t entirely empty!

What gives? Something fishy is going on. Either Somalia has a state or roads can be built and maintained without a state. Perhaps I’ve found a logical fallacy in statist thinking? I will have to research this more in depth and get back to you guys with my findings.

Stop Playing With That Thing

When I’m out and about carrying a gun I leave it in my holster unless a situation arises where I need to utilize it for my defense. As far as I know most people who carry practice the same discipline because so long as you leave your gun in the holster it’s not going to be used to negligently harm anybody. Sadly this man decided to ignore that rule and somebody is now in the hospital because of it:

The pastor’s daughter, 20-year-old Hannah Kelley, was shot in the head and transported to Bayfront Medical Center by ambulance.

Here’s what deputies say happened:

Following the church service, several members of the congregation were gathered in the church’s rec room.

According to detectives, 20-year-old Dustin Bueller approached 48-year-old Moises Zambrana and said that he would soon be turning 21 and was interested in purchasing a gun for himself.

Deputies say Zambrana agreed to show Bueller his firearm, a Ruger 9mm.

Zambrana, Bueller and a third man, 19-year-old John Penu, stepped into a small closet adjacent to the rec room, where Zambrana proceeded to show the men the weapon.

Removing your gun from its holster unnecessarily is a bad idea, but doing in a location where numerous people are present is asking for Murphy to come up and bite you in the ass. The situation was entirely negligent and avoidable. You can easily make a case for all four basic firearm rules being broken although I would certainly say the rule of keeping your finger off of the trigger, being sure of your target and what’s beyond it, and treating the firearm as if it’s loaded at all times were certainly ignored (I would say he also violated the rule of pointing your firearm only at what you intent to destroy but that may be redundant with the violation of not being sure what is beyond his target).

Firearms are not toys, they are weapons and need to be treated as such. So long as you observe the four rules of firearm safety nothing bad will happen. Keeping your gun in its holster while out and about will ensure you don’t violate any safety rules. If you want to show your firearm to somebody do it at home where you have far better control of the environment.

Politics, The Reality Television Show for Suckers

This week on Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers, Obama puts forth a new tax plan that he claims will increase government revenue by $1.5 trillion:

US President Barack Obama has proposed to raise taxes on the wealthy in his 2013 budget, prompting an election year spending showdown with Republicans.

The proposal includes $1.5 trillion (£950bn) in new taxes, much from allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire.

Who will win this entirely pointless debate that completely misses the point that the government is simply spending too much money? Could Obama and the Democrats pull off a tax increase that will fail to raise enough money to effect the deficit in any notable way or will the Republicans shut down the attempted tax increase that is ultimately without consequence? Join us all week on Days of Our Lives Politics as the debate rages on!

While we don’t know who will claim victory, we do know nothing of value will be accomplished!