[swalsh81]

agree with most of the above. I found it interesting one year when we got a lot of snow. I had to take my sister to work (in a mall) because I was the one driving a all wheel drive grand cherokee. I crept across the road because it was a slanted road (they are not well maintained here) that pulled my car to the side of the road. when I got to the mall, the circle around the privately owned mall was cleared better than the road I drove on. the parking lots were not clear but there was enough cleared (including the major driving ways) to accommodate some customers.

[swalsh81]

First thanks for the kind words. Actually, The response to the IP (#3) was mostly my own deduction based on both the fact that information is not a scarce resource but there is still a right to privacy. I do think that there would be a difference between some home video not intended for any public release and the OS for an iPod which is released publicly with every device sold. The same would go for publicly sold movies, music, books, art etc.

I could very well be wrong in some of my reasoning. Intellectual property is one of the things I have not quite reconciled yet. If you do get an answer from Stephen Molyneux I would be very interesting to know what it would be.

[swalsh81]

If those numbers are correct, then no you are not missing much of anything. While the US government was originally designed to be a small, heavily restricted entity beholden to the people, politicians have found that they can both increase their own power and then sell it. This is what has happened to GM.

OpenSecrets.org shows that the UAW has spent a large amount of money in campaigns and lobbying and that 1/5 UAW officials have also previously held government positions. It also says that all the money spent on campaigns goes to democrats. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000070

That being said, I believe this is a simple case of selling favors. Campaign contributions, lobbying money, and government connected lobbyists bought the fact that GM was not permitted to go through a structured bankruptcy like every other (non-politically connected) bankrupt company where pensions and contracts would be renegotiated etc., and, instead, was bailed out ending in the big benefits seen by the unions.

[swalsh81]

Thank you for the time you have put in. I only recently joined and have not yet gotten to watch your lectures. History was never one of my favorite subjects in school and I look forward to learning some real history and not just memorizing a list of dates.

[swalsh81]

#1 As was said before, the LAW would not distinguish because a person also has a right to say whatever he pleases (While others, of course, have the perfect right to treat a person differently based on things that he has said but my not prosecute based on speech). A specific punishment would be the same whether a person paints a bunny or a swastika on their house, but it would be the social punishment dealt through freedom of association that would serve to worsen the punishment for the racist graffiti.

For instance:
If a 14 year old kid paints, say, his name (he would be stupid but lets suppose) he may still be able to find an acceptable first time job and move on with his life. If a man paints a swastika on a holocaust survivors house, based on freedom of association, that person may well be fired from his job, businesses may refuse to deal with him, and he may have a very hard time finding another job. If he tries to move, a home seller and perhaps some kind of neighborhood association would do a background check and may deny him the ability to move there. In short, I believe that the social punishment that would come around would be far greater than what a court would deal out and the difference between the kid writing his name and the man drawing the swastika would be much larger.

#3 The data on my computer, while it may not be a scarce resource, is still private data. I gave the illustration before, if I were to put video cameras in your house (ignoring trespassing problems on property for the moment) and recorded you throughout the day, could I then do whatever I wanted with that video because it is not a scarce resource? I dont think so.

This would be different from, for instance, an iPod sold by Apple. In the absence of copyright etc. any person could reverse engineer an Ipod and its operating system, copy, improve and sell. But this it because this data has been released to the public. The same would go for music and movies. In my view, personal video such as you described would be personal until it is in some way released to the public, not that someone else has copied it without the knowledge of the author. Should personal medical records necessarily be public information simply because a record is not a scarce resource? I dont think so either.

Hacking into a computer is accessing private property without the knowledge or consent of the owner. that would be against property rights. This would be different than hacking the OS of an iPod you bought

[swalsh81]

I would mostly agree with Sons on those points.

#3 If the person has not specifically said that they can view or use such a video, then, even if permission was given to use the computer, this kind of a video is not a matter of private property but a matter of privacy. Copying such a video (I am speaking of the content as opposed to the specific action as in #1) without permission to view, copy and duplicate the video would have the same result as installing a hidden camera in a bedroom and posting the video on the Internet.

#5 as was stated, a known criminal would have a difficult time both getting to a country because of private airports, would have a difficult time buying land, and I would venture to say that real crimes would be more heavily enforced in a private society than what we have now because the victim would either rely on the best private police force they can afford, or would go after the criminal themselves.

[swalsh81]

Gerard unless you have some over zealous adblocker, its on the right hand side on a link that says “Windows Media” http://media.ihets.org/vod/supremecourt/wmv/10302012_1100am.wmv

[swalsh81]

Specifically, the right to use guns for self protect could be argued under the 10th amendment since the constitution never gives the power to regulate them within the enumerated powers of A1S8. However, and I would argue more importantly, The Constitution does not grant any rights. The Constitution is a limit on and enumeration of the power of government; it does not limit or enumerate the rights of individuals. This is because the founders believed that rights were supreme to any government.

If a person has the natural (supreme to government) right to life and (justly gained) property, then that person also has the natural right to protect their life and property by any means necessary from any and all people intent on taking that right away (of course as long as they are not infringing on the rights of other uninvolved people). Possibly more important in this case is the oft forgotten 9th amendment

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

So, yes, in a constitutional sense, you are correct that gun control would be state based. But even further than that, from a purely libertarian perspective, self protection by whatever means deemed necessary is an extension of John Locke’s fundamental rights of life liberty and property; is supreme to any government system; and, marrying that with the constitution, falls under the 9th amendment as well but would be a right recognized in a libertarian society even in the absence of the constitution.

Of course, self defense is defense not offense and the non-aggression principle also comes into play but thats my 2 cents.

[swalsh81]

I would be very interested to know if, post gun control, crimes against women rose disproportionately vs crimes against men

[swalsh81]

Heres a starting point. You can find a lot of information from John Lott http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/

[swalsh81]

I was saying that going by this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reserve_currencies.svg and you can see the IMF report from where the data was taken in the source section. There certainly are alot of countries that hold other currencies in reserve, but the dollar is the majority. Even though the governments of individual countries have given themselves a monopoly on the production of money based on fiat currency, the world as a whole is still more or less under a system of competing currencies. I would also assume that there is some amount of a “network effect” (http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=310) that comes into play in these currencies. one country might hold dollars over yen simply because it is easier to exchange with on the world economy should they need to. This might create more incentive to stay with a slightly more volatile currency.

As far as why they devalue, in the case of the US, when the central bank prints money, it is either used to buy treasury bonds so the government can spend or to be loaned out to other banks and the fractional reserve banking scheme starts. In either case, the government or the banks and the large companies they loan to are able to be the first ones to spend that money. This means that the they can spend money at pre-devalued valued since the money hasnt yet worked its way through the economy and caused inflation.

They also do it based on the false Keynesian idea that more money moving in the economy must necessarily be better.

I certainly dont understand international banking as well as I would like to so these are merely my speculations

[swalsh81]

When he says a demand for dollars what he means is more of a demand for savings. Its a demand to hang on to cash as opposed to spending or even investing.

One of the reasons that the FED has the ability to print seemingly without repercussions is that the dollar is the world’s major reserve currency. Its the currency that other nations hold in there central banks sort of as the basis of their currency. In the past this would have been the place of gold. I am not sure of all the details about this and I am sure Prof. Herbener can explain this much better. Suffice to say, as long as the central banks of other nations want to hold dollars in reserve in their bank, the FED can keep printing because the dollar will stay in demand.

If one currency becomes more stable than the devaluing mess the FED has created, countries may start switching over to that currency. Then the demand for dollars would start to drop fast and we would have the inflation problem that you are expecting to see. In short, this part of the puzzle will continue as long as other nations see the dollar as the most stable currency. I am sure this isnt the whole story but I also cant see how it wouldnt at least play a part.

[swalsh81]

The second amendment tells us its purpose. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”

It was not to hunt and it was not even specifically for individual self defense. It was for the defense of society against all those who would dismantle a free state. The militia, for all intensive purposes, at the time of the writing was the military but made up of every male civilian with a gun. (over generalization but you get my point)

The second amendment was there for individuals and groups to protect their freedom. This would include the right to life and self protection. To restrict the second amendment to a set of weapons inferior to set of weapons used by the state is, in a way, the restriction of the ability of individuals to protect their freedoms from the institution that has, throughout history, been the greatest destroyer of freedom and liberty.

[swalsh81]

@SmartMuffin the reason they do this is because they start with the bad assumption that the amount of available wealth is somehow static. They seem to think that if one group (or corporation) is making record profits then another group must necessarily be suffering record losses.

I say “seem” because you wont quickly see someone admit to these assumptions but that assumption explains a good portion of their arguments.

Of course they also seem work under the idea that money is the real measure of wealth but that is even more off topic.

[swalsh81]

I’m going to answer the Constitutionality question. According to Madison in the 42nd? Federalist, the interstate commerce clause was put in place to give the government the power to stop one state from charging tariffs on goods from other states that re simply passing through their state and things like that. The language is unfortunately overly vague and i would venture to say that that may have been the doing of Alexander Hamilton. It was not put in place to regulate production of individual goods simply because that good happens to flow from state to state. Think trade policy not individual trades.

Of course the FDA is itself no where found in the enumerated powers.

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