Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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So Bill Gates sold me some software when he was still in that business. He was then immensely rich, compared to me. How unfair, you say? But Bill took his gains from this trade and used it to feed starving African children, while I used the software I bought from him to do something utterly trivial on my computer, like writing a dull column. Now was this a fair trade? Impossible to tell. Trade is never fair — the entire notion of fairness is very difficult to apply to trade as would be the idea of blue or funny. When I...
Enthusiast for increasing government regulations of people in business, including those in the financial markets, never bother to answer the one basic question that any rational person would need to have answered before joining them as champions of their proposed remedies of our economic wows. This question is, “Why would those in governments regulating those in markets manage to be incorruptible?” For incorruptibility is a presumption of the policy that these enthusiasts are committed to. Otherwise what’s the point? Where is...
Enthusiast for increasing government regulations of people in business, including those in the financial markets, never bother to answer the one basic question that any rational person would need to have answered before joining them as champions of their proposed remedies of our economic wows. This question is, “Why would those in governments regulating those in markets manage to be incorruptible?” For incorruptibility is a presumption of the policy that these enthusiasts are committed to. Otherwise what’s the point? Where is...
No one in his right mind denies that people in commerce can become criminals. That’s because people in any walk of life can — it is a basic human capacity not only to do something wrong but to hurt others with it. No other known animal is like us in this respect, which is why the courts aren’t flooded with cases of animal crime. Despite what all the champions of animal rights and liberation suppose, people are basically different from non-humans. And the source of that difference is free choice. Without it, all hum...
No one in his right mind denies that people in commerce can become criminals. That’s because people in any walk of life can — it is a basic human capacity not only to do something wrong but to hurt others with it. No other known animal is like us in this respect, which is why the courts aren’t flooded with cases of animal crime. Despite what all the champions of animal rights and liberation suppose, people are basically different from non-humans. And the source of that difference is free choice. Without it, all hum...
In matters of human conduct it is vital to distinguish between actions that coerce others to do something they must be in charge of choosing either to do or not do, versus resisting their attempts to coerce someone. If I try to make you eat your vegetables and you aren’t my child for whose health I am responsible, I am being coercive. If, however, you come after me with a knife to cut me up and I successfully resist your attack, this isn’t my being coercive but acting in self-defense, protecting myself. The criminal law rec...
In matters of human conduct it is vital to distinguish between actions that coerce others to do something they must be in charge of choosing either to do or not do, versus resisting their attempts to coerce someone. If I try to make you eat your vegetables and you aren’t my child for whose health I am responsible, I am being coercive. If, however, you come after me with a knife to cut me up and I successfully resist your attack, this isn’t my being coercive but acting in self-defense, protecting myself. The criminal law rec...
So we have it on the good authority of The London Times that all is well with the Obama Administration’s latest interference with the market place. Here is how The Times reported on this long-desired development, admittedly desired by but fraction of those concerned: “In a coup that achieves something President Clinton promised but never delivered, President Obama has forced the big three U.S. carmakers, and their unions, to accept tough mileage rules for cars and SUVs. The rules will cut emissions from vehicles by more tha...
The New York Times reports that according to a ruling by a federal judge “a Mississippi school board was grossly discriminatory and mean-spirited when it told Constance McMillen that she could not attend her high school prom with her girlfriend.” According to the court, “Ms. McMillen’s constitutional rights had been violated.” Ms. McMillen, who is a senior at Itawamba Agriculture High School, is and has for many years been a lesbian and government schools are not permitted to discriminate against lesbians. Never mind the...
Here is what some would consider a hard case: Someone very ill is attempting to purchase insurance but companies refuse to provide it because they have a pretty good idea that covering the illness will cost big bucks, way above what the insured and others with similar conditions can help cover. The policy costs far less than what they expect to have to spend on the sizable number of patients in this situation, so they don’t want to take on this expense. This is a picture that may seem to tell just one story, namely, how g...
Here is what some would consider a hard case: Someone very ill is attempting to purchase insurance but companies refuse to provide it because they have a pretty good idea that covering the illness will cost big bucks, way above what the insured and others with similar conditions can help cover. The policy costs far less than what they expect to have to spend on the sizable number of patients in this situation, so they don’t want to take on this expense. This is a picture that may seem to tell just one story, namely, how g...
The point deserves to be made over and over: majorities have no just authority to trump individual rights. That old dependable standby of the lynch mob is a perfect illustration of this. Just because the whole town wants to hang the suspect, it doesn’t follow that it would be right to do so. The sheriff will defend the process due the accused because justice demands it. Why? Because no one may be punished or indeed imposed upon without it first having been demonstrated that the punishment or imposition is justified, d...
The point deserves to be made over and over: majorities have no just authority to trump individual rights. That old dependable standby of the lynch mob is a perfect illustration of this. Just because the whole town wants to hang the suspect, it doesn’t follow that it would be right to do so. The sheriff will defend the process due the accused because justice demands it. Why? Because no one may be punished or indeed imposed upon without it first having been demonstrated that the punishment or imposition is justified, d...
The theory of the big (but good) lie goes back to a certain reading of Plato’s most famous dialogue, the Republic. There are more or less crude versions of it but the gist of the theory is that for reasons of state — to secure the chance of the ruler to rule smoothly — telling lies can be justified and may even be necessary. Indeed, the big lie could well have been the very idea of the perfect political system itself that Socrates sketched in that dialogue. Some have concluded from this that Plato (Socrates) n...
The theory of the big (but good) lie goes back to a certain reading of Plato’s most famous dialogue, the Republic. There are more or less crude versions of it but the gist of the theory is that for reasons of state — to secure the chance of the ruler to rule smoothly — telling lies can be justified and may even be necessary. Indeed, the big lie could well have been the very idea of the perfect political system itself that Socrates sketched in that dialogue. Some have concluded from this that Plato (Socrates) n...
A powerful and vital aspect of the fully free society would be that only those burdens may be imposed on citizens that they have been convincingly shown, via due process of law, to deserve. This is roughly how the criminal law works. This is why the prosecution carries the onus of proof and not the defense — all the defense needs to do is point out serious holes in the case being mounted by the prosecution and the jury will acquit. In contrast, when in the old Soviet Union a police officer suspected someone of criminal...
A powerful and vital aspect of the fully free society would be that only those burdens may be imposed on citizens that they have been convincingly shown, via due process of law, to deserve. This is roughly how the criminal law works. This is why the prosecution carries the onus of proof and not the defense — all the defense needs to do is point out serious holes in the case being mounted by the prosecution and the jury will acquit. In contrast, when in the old Soviet Union a police officer suspected someone of criminal...
Often those who study the history of philosophy and compare it to the history of other disciplines, especially science, complain that in philosophy no progress is made, that philosophers keep talking about the same thing, that nothing ever gets resolved. It appears clear that in each age most of the same philosophical issues are debated, theorized about or reflected upon as are explored in others, albeit in somewhat different terms. Thus the topic of free will may get rechristened “human agency” yet the basic problem in foc...
Often those who study the history of philosophy and compare it to the history of other disciplines, especially science, complain that in philosophy no progress is made, that philosophers keep talking about the same thing, that nothing ever gets resolved. It appears clear that in each age most of the same philosophical issues are debated, theorized about or reflected upon as are explored in others, albeit in somewhat different terms. Thus the topic of free will may get rechristened “human agency” yet the basic problem in foc...
Meg Whitman is running for governor of California and I haven’t a clue what her chances are. I know I don’t want someone like Arnold to get elected, but then I don’t want hardly anyone to be either re-elected or elected. And Meg Whitman offers a good example of why. Her ads on California TV stations are all about giving stuff to people. Yes, her big, novel, revolutionary political pitch is to provide more and more stuff to the electorate. She says so explicitly in her television ads. And this pattern is repeated all around th...
Meg Whitman is running for governor of California and I haven’t a clue what her chances are. I know I don’t want someone like Arnold to get elected, but then I don’t want hardly anyone to be either re-elected or elected. And Meg Whitman offers a good example of why. Her ads on California TV stations are all about giving stuff to people. Yes, her big, novel, revolutionary political pitch is to provide more and more stuff to the electorate. She says so explicitly in her television ads. And this pattern is repeated all around th...
It has been my experience that people who take politics seriously tend to want to have their idea of a good or just system of laws fully implemented. Yet these people aren’t ignorant about the poor prospects of achieving their goal. Unless a society is being ruled by some incredibly powerful individual or tight-knit group, the public policies and laws will be a reflection of a hodgepodge of ideas, principles, objectives and so forth. No such mixed system is likely to remain in place for very long because the percentage of tho...
It has been my experience that people who take politics seriously tend to want to have their idea of a good or just system of laws fully implemented. Yet these people aren’t ignorant about the poor prospects of achieving their goal. Unless a society is being ruled by some incredibly powerful individual or tight-knit group, the public policies and laws will be a reflection of a hodgepodge of ideas, principles, objectives and so forth. No such mixed system is likely to remain in place for very long because the percentage of tho...
It has puzzled me for some time why campaign contributions are considered a First Amendment constitutional issue. If I write a check to some candidate, I am not talking, writing an essay, carrying some poster in a parade or anything that could be construed as speech or writing, so the freedom to speak or write is moot in this context. What I am doing is making use of my own money or resources and that, of course, everyone has the right to do. Suppose now that I have started a company and others are voting stockholders in it...
It has puzzled me for some time why campaign contributions are considered a First Amendment constitutional issue. If I write a check to some candidate, I am not talking, writing an essay, carrying some poster in a parade or anything that could be construed as speech or writing, so the freedom to speak or write is moot in this context. What I am doing is making use of my own money or resources and that, of course, everyone has the right to do. Suppose now that I have started a company and others are voting stockholders in it...
