As we prepare to enter 2009 in a cauldron of economic fail, this one seems particularly appropriate, predating the World Wars, the Drug War, Prohibition, the October Revolution and the Federal Reserve Act.
I ran across this today while reading between wrapping gifts. The saying is attributed to Victorian tradition, and might grease the gears when thinking about suitable gifts:
Something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read.
By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population.
Ignoring that the United Nations is little more than a soap-box for tin-pot dictators and socialist states, how does voting confer a right? How did this even come up for discussion? Rights are inherent, or they mean precisely nothing. Furthermore, the United Nations could vote to add the right for every human to own a flying pink unicorn that craps rainbows and Skittles; obviously, no one gets to collect on that.
That said, and acknowledging that inherent rights by virtue of being inherent are not bestowed, gifted, voted, granted, wished, signed, conveyed or otherwise given by government to the governed, it is asserted that life, liberty and property are the most general rights inherent to a person:
So what?
Well, the problem with the "official" recognition of invented rights is that once the rights are showered upon the teeming masses, the newly-drafted responsibility of providing pink flying unicorns justifies anything and everything that the government cares to rationalize in the process of executing its responsibility. The law of unintended consequences is absolute, and we are getting it good and hard by way of that law for inflating our currency and removing the need (in its most absolute sense) to completely back it with gold reserves, payable on demand*.
More than 33,500 tonnes of food aid has been delivered to Somalia by the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) since the start of the year. But in Marere district in the lower Juba valley, farmers and elders said the food distribution had brought chaos and driven down the price of maize by 60 per cent...
Musa Yusuf Ahmed, 44, was a policeman before the Somali government collapsed in 1991. Now, he tries to make a living from farming, growing maize, beans and watermelons. He normally sells a 50kg bag of maize for 100,000 Somali shillings (about £3.10), but Mr Ahmed said it had dropped to 40,000 (£1.25). "For we farmers it is a big problem," he said. "The food will benefit the people with no money but it will hurt the farmers."
Some recipients of the food aid have also claimed that the quality is so bad they have had to feed it to their animals.
Big surprise: the quality of the United Nations' foodstuffs is on-par with their "peacekeeping". Clearly, the land is able to produce food once worked and improved through responsible cultivation, and clearly the knowledge and desire to produce it is present. Shouldn't the bulk of the aid to such areas consist of the facilitation of a free-market and the necessary technology to improve their means to independently do so?
Perhaps, if the United Nations was interested in their independence.
Small wonder the locals are supporting the recently successful pirates as they are; at least the pirates are influencing the local free-market in a positive fashion. What will happen when the United Nations votes the masses a right to wealth?
* For those of you interested in the history behind this that are not participating in Voxiversity, you may download America's Great Depression from the Mises Institute for free.
Now, I'm far from the overly-sensitive type, and I'm aware that life isn't fair. Most of the time, life is a whole lot of gray drudgery between blissful moments, punctuated by pangs of crap.
That said, I will be mailing little Hannah a Christmas card tomorrow with a smile and a prayer.
The older I get, the more I realize that the happiest time in my life was when I was blissfully ignorant of the nature of evil in this world, and you can see that same bliss in her face.
There is no amount of money that would buy that kind of happiness.
Christmas-themed music renditions of songs that were tiresome in their original format (now exhumed and injected with syntha-pop) play in every building in this town equipped with a speaker-system. Changing buildings doesn't help, either. They're all tuned to the same feed with a time-delay, so the odds are that you'll be hearing the same song presently that drove you out of the previous shrine to consumerism.
It's everything I imagined pearl-diving would be like: after five minutes, a grimace appears on my face, and I need to resurface before I start thrashing and black-out.
Using a speech last night in Madrid to issue his stark warning, Dominique Strauss-Kahn argued that government efforts to tackle the economic downturn so far have been uncertain and largely insufficient, which could lead to severe consequences. He singled out the eurozone nations as he attacked the inadequate global response.
His hard-hitting comments came as fears of a prolonged slumped intensified after China showed signs that its economy could be in more trouble than initially expected next year. Factory output in the rapidly growing economy registered the weakest growth in almost a decade last month.
The IMF's managing director said such news signaled that a world recovery may not take place until late next year or into 2010 unless swift action is taken.
Translation: Y'all are screwed, and we might be able to fix it if we really wanted to, but half of us don't know our rear-ends from our elbows, and the other half would rather ride out the ensuing chaos and rebuild from the rubble after-the-fact, no matter what the cost.
On a related note, posting frequency has been low in the last week owing to a host of factors, including epic allergies, copious research regarding possible retreat/settlement areas, the usual ridiculousness that comes with the holiday-season... Oh, and the hand-numbing cold in this dump makes me a tad sluggish.
Also, I've been stepping up the prep-work for an eventual (and likely lengthy) economic depression. Now, owing to the fact that I'm the only one in my immediate family that seems to be taking this somewhat seriously, the onus of labor is upon me. Not that it bothers me to any large degree; I will confess to a level of paranoia that makes many people uncomfortable, but as the saying goes, it's only "well-prepared after-the-fact".
I know this is a market-correction that has been a long-time coming, but I'm still anxious. This is bitter medicine for a great many people, and some will use it to justify rash behavior, to say the least.
This one's dedicated to Triton, and anyone else that decided to investigate the ways that the body shouldn't bend a la UFC.
"There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed. "
I'm finally recovered from this weekend, which was a bit of an ordeal. As I had mentioned a few weeks ago, I signed up for a class through the Log Home Builders' Association, and I flew out Friday afternoon for Seattle/Tacoma.
Without further embellishment, I'll say I had a great time. The instructors were friendly and knowledgeable, and I'd recommend the class to anyone that has an interest in building their own house, living in a more financially-independent fashion, and just generally sticking it to the Man wherever and whenever possible (philosophically speaking; the class seems to attract libertarians, for some odd reason). Be prepared for a long weekend, though, as there are about 20 hours of instruction and a host of topics and techniques to cover, and I'm not including time I spent reading the textbook and supplementary material in the off-hours.
Now, I won't say it was an inexpensive weekend, but relative to the expenses to the Canadians that were visiting, or some of the others from upstate New York, or Indiana, it wasn't wallet-breaking. Moreover, I'm viewing it as an investment in myself, as it is most certainly a practical skill, and profitable if done correctly.
All in all, a fun and educational weekend; I'd gladly do it again.
Tonight is the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition – of 5 December 1933 when Utah became the deciding 36th state to ratify the 21st amendment to the constitution, and restore to the country's citizens the basic human right to go out and have a drink.
They didn't restore it; that's the totalitarian view of government power, that it may give and take away "basic human rights". Today is a day for the libertarians in the crowd, a day commemorating the end of an idiotic rather than "noble experiment".
Now, if we could hammer out the rest of the mala prohibita in the legal code with the 9th and 10th Amendments, then we'd be on our way to a week-long party celebrating the kind of liberty and justice you can't beg, buy or steal.
Gordon Brown has insisted ministers were not aware of the arrest of Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green.
The MP was arrested, held for nine hours, and his homes and House of Commons office searched by police probing alleged Home Office leaks.
Opposition MPs have described the move as a "Mayday warning for democracy", while questioning the government's role in the matter.
I think this is exactly what it looks like, over protests to the contrary: brute intimidation. Like the increasingly frequent military-style raids for serving warrants here in the USSA, when Der Staat is given a shiny hammer to play with, sure enough, it's going to find some nails. Any nail will do; Der Staat only requires grist for the mill, not justice.
Police say Mr Green was held on suspicion of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office" and "aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office" - an obscure and little-used offence under common law.
One legal expert said it was doubtful whether any case would be brought against Mr Green.
The primary reason I watch the UK like I do: the UK is our canary in the coal-mine, a reliable indicator of the future in the USSA. As Cardinal Richelieu said: "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
Friends, if we are to be sinners in the eyes of the State, let us sin boldly for that most treasonous cause: liberty.
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