The Next Book on my To-Read List

So I saw today’s column by George Will of the WP about a new book that I definitely want to read:  “The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America” by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch.  Will’s summary alone is a (much-better-worded) statement of something I’ve thought about since taking a course about analysis and different types of bias a couple of years ago:  existence bias.  Existence bias, as described by Will (about the book of course) is the American peoples’ and systems’ assumption that if something exists, it will continue to exist.  In the military I’ve already referred to this as the “no we can’t change it; we do it that way because it’s the way we’ve always done it” bias, and no matter how you tag it, like most biases, it’s caused and reinforced by mental laziness.

The review also points out how the younger generation today has essentially grown up in a libertarian-type culture, where choice exists for everything:  don’t like what’s on tv?  thousands of channels, plus streaming movies.  Music? Pandora, XM, Sirius.  3,500 books at any time on your Kindle, and access to every newspaper in the world.  But government?  The great ossified behemoth that never changes.  In fact, when it fails, it grows larger and even more powerful.  And apparently the book argues that this situation won’t be able to stand for much longer.  I wonder if Gillespie and Welch have considered getting their data together with Malcolm Gladwell (of The Tipping Point fame) to see if they can figure out the how and when?

Even though I haven’t read the book yet, I can already see having some issues with it, the biggest being the definition of Libertarianism.  Libertarians span a very wide gauntlet ranging from pseudo-conservatives, across the span of small government covering only infrastructure and basic services, to full-out anarchists.  Almost anyone who’s not far rght or left could be considered one.  Nonetheless, I’m willing to give the book the benefit of the doubt until I’ve gotten through it, and we’ll see what falls out.  I’m looking forward to it.

Will’s review here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/declaration-of-independents/2011/07/29/gIQAJrUAiI_story.html

Monopoly Claims the State Wants to Replace Them with… a Monopoly?

So basing off this story here:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/16/union-opposes-pennsylvanias-plan-to-privatize-liquor-stores-citing-5000-job/?test=latestnews…

Pennsylvania is one of the few states left where you can only buy wine and liquor at a state-owned and operated store.  Notice I’m not saying “state-licensed;” the state government actually directly runs all wine and liquor sales in the state, and has for decades.  I know; I grew up there.  Now a state representative wants to privatize sales, auctioning off liquor licenses and enabling free-market economics.  The union that covers the ~3,500 employees that work in the state stores is crying foul, claiming that the plan will actually lose money for the state and cost 5,000 jobs (the suspicion starts here, since there are only 3,500 liquor store employees).  There are 620 state liquor stores and the plan calls for auctioning off 1250 liquor sales licenses (and likely, more to follow in later years, as in most states allow and have many more than that).

What really caught my attention though, was that even though the state rep’s plan for auction licensing calls specifically for 750 “large retailer” licenses (read:  Sam’s Club, Costco, etc) and 500 “small retailer (mom-and-pop-type) licenses, the union still claims that jobs will be lost, since somehow ALL the licenses will still go to Sam’s and Costco, who will use existing employees instead of hiring the now-unemployed state store employees, in effect turning all liquor sales in PA over to a small economically-controlling faction.

This is another case of the union making a huge fuss to try to sustain itself.  There was a time when most industries in this country DID need unions.  Some industries STILL DO need unions, but for the most part, IMHO, many of them are parasitic dinosaurs, living of the dues of their members without giving back a value greater than those dues in return.  The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 is no exception.  Short-term, yes, those 500 small-retailer licenses will be bought, open stores, and each may hire as little as two or three workers, so some of those liquor store employees will be out of a job and stay out of a job.  However, having lived in many states with open liquor stores, demand will grow, and more licenses will be issued, and more small outlets will open, and more folks will be employed, and more business taxes flow into the economy.

The area I grew up in, in Central PA, is probably less than or around 100,000 people.  There are currently five PA Liquor Control Board stores and one “kiosk” to service that population.  Quite frankly, if privatized I can easily see a demand for more than a dozen small liquor outlets in that area, which will likely bring as many, if not more, jobs than they state stores currently employ.  I suspect, with only 620 stores across the state, including such huge cities as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, that if privatized, the growth of liquor retailers per capita – and accompanying jobs – will be similar.

Here in Colorado, there’s probably a liquor store every half mile or so, and while we only use it a couple of times a month, the convenience of having one just down the street when friends are coming over or we’re heading out to a bbq and we need a bottle of wine is great!  Plus, those retailers are our neighbors and friends.  The closest one to us is a small mom-and-pop store that raises funds to support our local dog park.  State-owned stores in PA don’t – and probably by law can’t – create those kinds of ties.

So the union needs to, frankly, shut the hell up and realize that it’s a relic from another century, and Pennsylvania needs to pass this law to help bring it into the current century.

Arrogance, selfishness and “patriotism” make us our own worst enemy

An excellent article at the Wall Street Journal on Sweden’s economy and how it’s bouncing back:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/five-economic-lessons-from-sweden-the-rock-star-of-the-recovery/2011/06/21/AGyuJ3iH_story.html

Economic issues truly make me the most disappointed in our government, as lawmakers truly show their selfishness with an inability to put the good of the nation ahead of their own polls in their own districts.  I do realize of course, that they represent their constituents, but I don’t believe that the intent of representative government was to represent your district AT THE EXPENSE OF your fellow citizens.  Congress needs to realize that a huge deficit and unstable budget are the biggest threats to our nation, and be willing to enact some short-term pain in favor of long-term stability.

Whenever another nation does it right (no matter what the topic), we have all these idiots on the news screaming “we’re America!  We LEAD, we don’t follow what other countries do!”  Well guess what, suck it up cupcake, because while we still do a lot of great things, we’re not the best at everything anymore, and it’s time we realized that being a stubborn, arrogant, “patriotic” ass isn’t going to get you anywhere except in the opinion polls of a public that’s in denial.  We should be looking not only to Sweden for it’s fiscal practices (and yes, I know that we can’t, or perhaps even shouldn’t adopt all, or even many of them, but have an open mind people!), but other countries that are doing well in other areas, and find out what we can take from them.

A chance to come clean from hypocrisy

Darrin Bell’s Candorville comic is very good at pointing out hypocrisy within both government and the populace at large.  This is this past Sunday’s comic.  Quite frankly, I’m not upset that politicians may chance their stance on issues over the years; I know I have, so I can’t begrudge them doing the same thing.  However, I think they’d gain a lot more credibility if they came out and admitted it.  Why don’t our representatives realize that this habit/tradition of never admitting you’ve ever been wrong (unless you’re REALLY busted, aka Weinergate, in which case you put on “the face” - http://imgur.com/gallery/vE6mW) makes them look ignorant and untrustworthy?  I respect anyone who says “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you” or even “over the years I’ve changed my viewpoint” a lot more than someone who attempts to deflect a question or push it away with vague answers.

Pre-Blog: Comment on the US celebrations over the death of bin Laden

This was posted on my personal social media site in the days following the announcement of the death of Usama bin Laden (UBL).  I was amazed that I got more comments than on almost anything else I’ve ever posted, and more amazed that most people liked and agreed with what I said.

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Over the past week and a half I’ve watched the arguments in various news sources and social media about Usama bin Laden – not as much about bin Laden’s death or whether he actually deserved to die (even the Dali Lama weighed in on that, to my surprise), but whether we, as Americans, had devolved to the level of animals or “the enemy” for visibly and boisterously celebrating it in the streets.

I’m not the sort to actually take part in such celebrations, but don’t begrudge those who do, because I don’t think it demeans us or makes us “just like them.”  I agree that celebrating death and an act of killing isn’t normally a good thing.  If people were out there yelling “kill all Muslims” then I’d be really upset, but I think that people aren’t celebrate the acting of killing itself.  They’re certainly not celebrating the end of terrorism, for bin Laden’s killing was, realistically, purely symbolic – of both the fight against terrorism and the resolve of the United States.  I think people are actually just celebrating the act up waking up from a long bad dream.

Remember Fall 2001?  For days after September 11^th the nation was effectively locked down.  For weeks – in some cases months – people wouldn’t leave their homes or neighborhoods out of fear.  For years afterward people wouldn’t go to cities or national monuments on major holidays or attend major sporting events out of fear, or even go out to dinner on Sep 11 (and I know, because it’s my wedding anniversary and for several years we never had trouble getting a reservation anywhere).

As children, we all had our little rituals for hiding from or exorcising the monsters in the closet or under the bed each night, whether it was a song, having a parent check, leaving the door cracked open a few inches, leaving the closet light on.  But what if you’d had a way of banishing the monsters altogether?  I think that’s what has happened here in the national psyche, to a degree.

People aren’t celebrating the action of killing in itself. But they’re happy because we’ve finally killed the Boogeyman that really did torment us:  who limited our lives by day, kept us awake at night, and invaded our dreams while we slept; the Boogeyman who took the lives thousands of family, friends, acquaintances or fellow citizens from us.  The threat is still real, but its most visible symbol is gone, and the closet is empty.

Or to put it more flippantly, we were the munchkins, and ding dong, the wicked witch is dead.

Welcome to what will hopefully be clear, direct, insightful and definitely debatable commentary :-)

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to look at this.  Largely drawn from my Profile description, a bit about me and why this blog is here.  The first thing I should point out is that this blog is a mirror from freerangereason.wordpress.com

I’m a career military member, and for many years a registered Independent.  I’m not a particularly type-A personality, and believe that people can disagree on a topic while still being respectful of each other’s opinion – everything doesn’t have to be a “you’re either with me or against me” philosophy.  I DON’T believe that everything is black or white, I DO believe that most rules have exceptions, and that most situations have to be judged on their own merit rather than following a blanket “party line.”  I DO believe that while elected officials do represent their districts and constituents, they also have an obligation to act for the greater good of the nation as a whole, and that leadership should be by example, not a “do as I say, not as I do” philosophy.  I also believe that the national debt is our biggest issue as a nation right now; without solving that, it’s unlikely we can successfully accomplish much else, because everything we do – military operations, humanitarian assistance, social security, and space exploration – is all tied to the debt.

I started this blog because I’ve reached a point where I feel many aspects of local, regional, national and global life are just plain disgusting me and I needed someplace to vent, and I’ve had enough positive feedback about the letters, notes and commentary on various subjects that I’ve posted to friends through email and/or social media that I thought this might be worth it – at least to me.

Many of the earliest posts to this blog will be, for all intents and purposes, out of date.  This is because I’ll be posting some of the earlier notes and commentaries I’ve made on past events, both to archive them for myself, and, if interested, to give you sense of what I think and how I write.