The Golden Gate

Tragic. The US government nationalizing and bailing out major financial institutions it helped to destoy...

I am a libertarian. To contrast this with Democrat and
Republican: we might say that the Republicans (at their core) want the
government to stay out of our financial lives, but control what we do in
our bedrooms (morality/religion). Democrats (at their core) want the
government out of our bedrooms, but control how we manage our financial
affairs (welfare/regulation/wealth redistribution). Libertarians want
the government out of our financial lives and out of our bedrooms.
Libertarians stand for the individual rights to life, liberty, and
pursuit of happiness according to our own conscience. They believe that
the purpose of government is to protect the freedom and rights of
citizens through a police force to protect us from the initiation of
force by other citizens, court system to protect us from fraud (enforce
contracts), and a military force to protect us from foreign invaders.

The libertarian stance on foreign aggression is: commerce with all
nations, alliances with none.  Libertarians not only want us out of
Iraq, they want us out of Japan! (and our other 800+ military bases
around the world!)  Let them hate us for our freedom and wealth, without
the military presence/force that forces that freedom and wealth down their
throats.

My reasons for being libertarian are simple. I believe that history has
demonstrated (in every time. and in every part of the globe) that the
more power you give to government, the more those who hold the power
will be corrupted by lobbyists (business, religious, bankers, racists,
populists, etc.).  As PJ O'Rourke put it, "When buying and selling are
controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are
legislators."  The more money and favors/regulations the government
controls, the more money and favors the lobbyists can afford to spend to
buy them, because (although it is somewhat of a gamble) the return on
investment for lobbying is typically 10 to 1. As a lobbyist, I can spend
$50 million dollars influencing various politicians in order to get a
$500 million dollar annual contract, and $1 billion to get $100 billion
contract. Smart business always follows the clearest incentives, and
competing for government largess is clearly incentived.
People/politicians are corruptible (especially through blackmail, which
money buys easily), and so governments become corrupt. The solution is
to reduce government power to reduce the scope and destructiveness of
its corruption and keep it maximally accountable to its core functions.
Hence, Libertarianism.

The American Constitution/experiment, was created by men whom, by todays
standards, are radical Libertarians, for the exact reasons stated above.
I believe that they created the most beautiful social contract in human
history, and I find it tragic that it is being increasingly ignored and
distorted. I am patriotic in this sense: I believe that the ideals and
values of life, liberty/freedom, protection of our right to use our
property according to our own conscience (as long as we are not
violating the identical rights of others) are worth cheering about and
if necessary, fighting to maintain.

Well, Al Gore’s PowerPoint Slideshow/Movie is opening today, and it got a glowing review in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The following is more “food for thought” on the subjects addressed by Gore’s film:

Instapundit — “SO I GUESS KYOTO WORKED, THEN: “Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase.” (from the Telegraph, UK)

“UPDATE: Canada is abandoning Kyoto. Just when it was starting to work!”

On the “Inconvenient” Movie itself:

From _Slate_:

“…This raises the troubling fault of An Inconvenient Truth: its carelessness about moral argument. Gore says accumulation of greenhouse gases “is a moral issue, it is deeply unethical.” Wouldn’t deprivation also be unethical? Some fossil fuel use is maddening waste; most has raised living standards. The era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of clean energy. But the last century’s headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline; and made possible Gore’s airline seat and MacBook, which he doesn’t seem to find unethical. The former vice president clicks up a viewgraph showing the human population has grown more during his lifetime than in all previous history combined. He looks at the viewgraph with aversion, as if embarrassed by humanity’s proliferation. Population growth is a fantastic achievement—though one that engenders problems we must fix, including inequality and greenhouse gases. Gore wants to have it that the greener-than-thou crowd is saintly, while the producers of cars, power, food, fiber, roads, and roofs are appalling. That is, he posits a simplified good versus a simplified evil. Just like a movie!”

“The Moral Flaws of Al Gore’s _An Inconvenient Truth_”

Brief “Inconvenient” responses (video):

(60 second spot questioning the science behind Gore’s film):

“Glaciers”

“Captain Planet”

“If you don’t fly commercial, don’t talk to me about greenhouse gases or conservation.” (Instapundit, again)
A comprehensive and humorous look at “Inconvenient” that (among other things) questions the moral congruence of Gore promoting “Inconvenient” by flying all over the country in his private Gulfstream jet (which on a single one-way LA-DC trip burns as much fuel as a Hummer does in a year). Also looks at some of the recent Hollywood Celeb “Environmental Ads” featuring Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow and others…

Video Here.

More writings:

A second look at Climate Change data in the WSJ.

Finally, here is Michael Crichton who posits that Environmentalism is our modern, western fundamentalist religion.

A match made in liberal heaven. Bill Nienhuis over at the The Pundit Guy has a great post picking apart the lastest NYT hit piece on Wal-Mart:

NYT Lobs Another Airball at Wal-Mart.

Here’s a sample:

The New York Times doesn’t like Wal-Mart, and over the years, the Old Gray Lady has taken shots at America’s Store in hopes of crippling it’s leadership and slowing its success. Goaded by the labor unions, the NYT goes to great lengths to splatter mud on Wal-Mart’s corporate practices.

They demonize Wal-Mart and characterize its management as dictators controlling an evil empire from the bridge of the death star in Bentonville, Arkansas. Why? It’s simple really. The New York Times is run by liberals living in a bubble who oppose good old fashioned capitalism. They don’t believe in an American Dream that enables a family owned business to build itself up to become the worlds largest retailer, employing 1.6 MILLION people in 3,800 stores in the US alone.

The liberals at the NYT and their ACLU brethren truly believe that Wal-Mart’s goal is to victimize and enslave their workforce. In a nutshell, they believe a Wal-Mart store is no different than a sweatshop in a third world country, and they must be stopped.

Be sure to read all of it.