There is another reason why democracy in Hong Kong should be welcomed by the government in Beijing: Hong Kong could serve as a laboratory for political change on the mainland, as it earlier served as an economic model.
 | First Circle—The Virtuous Heathens: Those who care strongly about liberty in one particular sphere (e.g. freedom of speech, freedom of religious practice, the drug war, etc.) but don't care much about it other spheres. These people are infuriating for their lack of general theory underlying their politics, but at least they've sorta got the right idea and can make themselves somewhat useful. This circle contains members of the NRA, ACLU & other such single-issue organizations, and is guarded by John Stuart Mill. |
Third Circle—The Gluttonous: Those who support illiberal policies simply out of percieved self-interest, and like to paint themselves as victims despite living at a level of material comfort that most previous generations would consider luxurious. Immigration & outsourcing restrictionists, farmers, labor unions, people who want to be insulated from the costs of their health care, etc. This circle is guarded by Benjamin Franklin.
Fourth Circle—The Greedy: Lobbyists who think their peculiar obsession should be the government's top priority. Corporations pleading for protectionism, finger-wagging nannies on a crusade to enforce "public virtue", and generally anyone who wants everyone else to suffer for their sense of ideological privelege. This circle's most recent acquisition was the execrable Jack Valenti, and is guarded by Milton Friedman.
Fifth Circle—The Wrathful: People who are socialistic primarily out of an ugly resentment of the wealthy or anyone else they percieve as enjoying benefits they privately wish they could enjoy. Their instinct is not so much to see everyone doing well as to see those currently best-off doing much worse. This circle is guarded by Ayn Rand, which I think is a suitable punishment for both parties.
Sixth Circle—The Heretics: People who do seem to generally care about liberty but have an anomalous and largely sentimental attachment to illiberal policies in at least one sphere. They support freedom except the freedom to do drugs, or get an abortion, or freely migrate, or do anything they imagine undermines the war effort, etc. This circle is guarded by Ron Paul.
Seventh Cirle—The Violent: This circle is packed with tyrants large and small, politicians, bureaucrats and thugs—those who unquestionably do active violence to human freedom. (I would also add overdominat parents to this list.) They're enabled by the members of other circles, but these are the ones who do the actual trigger-pulling. This circle is guarded by Thomas Jefferson.
Eighth Circle—The Fraudulent: The Malebolge of public intellectuals—those who have a sphere of influence greater than most of us, and are negligent in their exercise of it by contributing to the darkness and confusion. This sphere contains everyone from know-nothing idiots like like Lou Dobbs of CNN and Bob Herbert of the NYT, to people who are really smart enough to know better yet resolutely avoid any systematic examination of their moral premises, like Matthew Yglesias and Reihan Salam. This circle is guarded by, who else, Friedrich Hayek.
Ninth Circle—The Traitors: Here lie lawyers & law professors, and also a significant number of economists, who have some degree of influence over actual legislation and policy. Particularly the ones like Orin Kerr & Brad DeLong who are smart, reasonable, and may even have some pro-liberty sympathies, but when the rubber hits the road they do some showy handwringing before siding with illiberal policies. This circle is guarded by David Friedman.
José Sócrates declarou esta semana, no Parlamento, que a concorrência não deve ser um fim, mas um meio para o desenvolvimento económico. Para sermos justos, o primeiro-ministro não pode ser acusado de promover a concorrência, nem como um fim, nem como um meio. Como qualquer outro político, José Sócrates tem uma relação platónica com a concorrência. Em tese é uma boa ideia, mas na prática existem sempre pretextos para não a colocar em prática. O que não é surpreendente. A concorrência só é possível se os políticos abdicarem do poder arbitrário que têm sobre a economia.
O Governo, como todos os governos, não quer perder poder e por isso tem feito tudo para preservar o controlo político que detém sobre a economia.
Nesta hora crítica em que uns protestam contra a perseguição política dos delitos de opinião face aos teóricos e operacionais do Totalitarismo Em Curso (T.E.C.), enquanto outros guardam um ensurdecedor silêncio e outros descobrem a protectora nuance, agradeço as manifestações de solidariedade e apoio que, por diversos modos, têm sido corajosamente afirmadas nos blogues e media (mesmo secretamente...) e pessoalmente comunicadas, identificadas ou não (quando o exercício de funções públicas ou actividade privada dependente do favor da administração impede a sua assunção). São muitos e não indico ninguém para não cometer a injustiça de esquecer de algum.
Como primeiro passo, o que defendemos é que a liberdade de escolha deve começar por ser feita entre escolas públicas. São escolas abertas a todos, gratuitas, como neste momento são as que pertencem ao Estado e aquelas que, sendo privadas, têm contratos de associação. As escolas que têm outra organização, que querem cobrar propinas, podem existir, porque há espaço para elas, mas o que queremos é que, no sistema de acesso universal, possa haver escolha da escola.
- ¿Qué sucede cuando el gobierno intenta controlar el precio de las caraotas? Las caraotas desaparecen del mercado.
- ¿Qué sucede cuando el gobierno intenta controlar el precio del azúcar? El azúcar desaparece del mercado.
- ¿Qué sucede cuando el gobierno controla el precio de la electricidad? Usted tiene que vivir de apagón en apagón y sufrir "racionamientos".
Entonces, ¿Qué cree usted que sucederá cuando el gobierno impone controles de precios a los planteles educativos semi-privados? Si ha entendido más o menos como va la cosa, usted sabrá que la respuesta a la pregunta anterior es que lo poco de educación privada que queda en Venezuela va a terminar de ser destruida.
To regard the obstacle as the cause—to mistake scarcity for abundance—is to be guilty of the same sophism in another guise. It deserves to be studied in all its forms.
.... if one scrutinizes social phenomena in detail and the attitudes of men as they have been modified by exchange, one soon sees how men have come to confuse wants with wealth and obstacle with cause.
The division of labor, which results from the opportunity to engage in exchange, makes it possible for each man, instead of struggling on his own behalf to overcome all the obstacles that stand in his way, to struggle against only one, not solely on his own account, but for the benefit of his fellow men, who in turn perform the same service for him.
.... each man sees the immediate cause of his prosperity in the obstacle that he makes it his business to struggle against for the benefit of others. The larger the obstacle, the more important and more intensely felt it is, then the more his fellow men are disposed to pay him for having overcome it, that is, the readier they are to remove on his behalf the obstacles that stand in his way.
.... each profession has an immediate interest in the continuation, even the extension, of the particular obstacle that is the object of its efforts.
Seeing this, theorists attempt to found a system on the basis of these attitudes on the part of individuals and declare that need is wealth, that labor is wealth, and that the obstacle to well-being is well-being itself. To multiply obstacles is, in their eyes, to encourage industry.
To get at the root of this sophism, one need only remind oneself that human labor is not an end, but a means. It never remains unemployed. If it removes one obstacle, it turns to another; and mankind is rid of two obstacles by the same amount of labor that used to be needed to remove only one .... To maintain that the time will ever come when human labor will lack employment, it would he necessary to prove that mankind will cease to encounter obstacles.
Cinco federações regionais de associações de pais exigiram hoje que seja atribuída a todos os alunos que realizaram o exame nacional de Física e Química A a cotação máxima da questão que foi anulada devido a um erro.
Na sexta-feira, o Ministério da Educação decidiu anular uma questão daquela prova .... A pergunta valia oito pontos, no conjunto dos 200 correspondentes à cotação total da prova, pelo que, sem essa questão, o exame passava a valer apenas 192 pontos .... Para não prejudicar os alunos na classificação final da prova, a tutela decidiu que a nota de cada um dos estudantes que realizou o exame será multiplicada por 1,0417 [200/192].
 | Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. |
Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property.... For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood truth.
In Second Life — unlike real life — business is completely unregulated. The only “protection” granted to consumers and producers are the IP rights and the successful transactions (which only fail due to technical difficulties, and although they can be hacked by experts, the horror stories about these are largely myth and urban legends). From there on, it’s a “free-for-all” system — laissez-faire capitalism like on the 1850s in the US and UK.
.... we can argue as loud as we can, but LL will simply say: “organise yourselves and implement whatever you wish; we won’t interfere”. This mostly means that you’re free to create your own system (as long as you’re able to, ie. from a technological point of view), since LL will never prevent you from doing anything. Difficult moral questions like ageplay are left by the residents to decide — LL washes their collective hands from the issue, and with every week that passes, it’s more and more likely that they’ll simply ignore it (and publicly admit as much).
Thirty-five years ago, Milton Friedman wrote a famous article for The New York Times Magazine whose title aptly summed up its main point: "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits." The future Nobel laureate in economics had no patience for capitalists who claimed that "business is not concerned 'merely' with profit but also with promoting desirable 'social' ends; that business has a 'social conscience' and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers."
Friedman, now a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, wrote that such people are "preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades."
John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, is one businessman who disagrees with Friedman. A self-described ardent libertarian whose conversation is peppered with references to Ludwig von Mises and Abraham Maslow, Austrian economics and astrology, Mackey believes Friedman's view is too narrow a description of his and many other businesses' activities. As important, he argues that Friedman's take woefully undersells the humanitarian dimension of capitalism.
 | My search for meaning and purpose led me into the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. I studied eastern philosophy and religion at the time, and still practice both yoga and meditation. I studied ecology. I became a vegetarian (I am currently a vegan), I lived in a commune, and I grew my hair and beard long. I'm one of those crunchy-granola types. Politically, I drifted to the Left and embraced the ideology that business and corporations were essentially evil because they selfishly sought profits. I believed that government was "good" (if the "right" people had control of it) because it altruistically worked for the public interest. At the time I started my business, the Left had taught me that business and capitalism were based on exploitation: exploitation of consumers, workers, society, and the environment. I believed that "profit" was a necessary evil at best, and certainly not a desirable goal for society as a whole. However, becoming an entrepreneur completely changed my life. Everything I believed about business was proven to be wrong. |
I love profit. Profit is good and it is socially necessary. However, some people in the freedom movement have long argued that the only social responsibility that business has is to maximize profits. I believe that profits are an essential purpose of business, but I would argue that they are not the sole, or even most important, purpose of business. Profit is the most important purpose to the business owners. But owners do not exist in a vacuum. I believe the best way to think about business is as an interdependent system of constituencies connected together in a "harmony of interests."
What I love most about the freedom movement are the ideas of voluntary cooperation and spontaneous order when channeled through free markets, leading to the continuous evolution and progress of humanity. I believe that individual freedom in free markets, when combined with property rights through rule of law and ethical democratic government, results in societies that maximize prosperity and establish conditions that promote human happiness and well-being.
Um dia, num meio dia qualquer, vou saber que me esqueci de algo. Primeiro, de um lugar sem importância. Depois, de uma hora, de uma vontade e até de uma fotografia, que fica para sempre num bolso sem valor. Até chegar aos nomes e às palavras que escolhi para me lembrar de quem gosto. Sei que não vou somar tantas falhas, esquecendo-me eventualmente de todas elas, uma e outra vez. Porque sim, que ainda há coisas que escondemos de nós próprios. Para me descansar, passarei em revista os rios e os reis de Portugal, sem esquecer regentes e afluentes. Mas até esses falharão, sempre com razão. O calor, a indisposição, o cansaço, o tempo, os nervos. Escondo de mim próprio e sei que outros farão o mesmo, para que eu não saiba não saber. Quando forem falhas demais, quando as palavras forem demais, já não sei nem estou. Já trocarei o tempo e o lugar, suspenso numa teia com outras presas surpresas que só temem o novelo que lhes enrola o corpo e desconhecem a ameaça da aranha.
 | E eis que já temos o quinto número da indispensável Obscena, a revista de artes performativas dirigida pelo Tiago Bartolomeu Costa. Como novidade, temos o suporte papel, que vem somar-se ao formato digital já nosso conhecido e que pode ser descarregado aqui. O formato papel pode ser encontrado em vários locais, constantes da lista que pode ser consultada aqui. |
Está nas bancas a última edição da revista Atlântico. Nela, poderão encontrar, entre outros pontos de interesse evidentemente, um artigo meu, intitulado A Reforma da Administração Pública segundo Miss Marple, que pretende oferecer uma nova forma de encarar a reforma da administração pública. As primeiras linhas do artigo, que poderão ler na íntegra na revista, estão nos meus Pontos de Fuga de ontem, n'O Insurgente.
Contudo, é nos EUA que tem sede a mais perigosa entidade económica socialista: a Reserva Federal Americana [RFA].
Quando a recessão chegar – que penso ser inevitável - muitos vão atribuir culpas ao que designam de “capitalismo selvagem” sem saberem que, afinal, a verdadeira causa está nas políticas socialistas da Reserva Federal Americana (e do Banco Central da China).
The revival of Colbertism suggests fewer market freedoms, less competition, more economic nationalism and trade protection, exchange rates managed by politicians, and a macroeconomic policy based on short-sighted goals. Europe's future does not lie in ideas of the pre-enlightenment era.
Those concerned about the gradual erosion of market freedoms would be well advised to regroup and select a new target. Forget about the constitution. The new treaty is a done deal. Do not waste your time campaigning for a referendum in the vain hope this may derail the process, unless you want your country to leave the EU. The constitution and its various technical and institutional innovations are little more than a deflection from the real threat – the re-emergence of European mercantilism. This is the fight that needs fighting.
 | Human rights group, Human Rights Right This Minute! (HRRTM) has condemned what it calls "inappropriate remarks bordering on racism and bigotry" that came from an English journalist Joe Snuffy as he was beheaded on a recently surfaced Al Qaeda video. The official transcript of the tape attributes to Mr. Snuffy the following statement: "Islam and Mo..." While the rest of the message was censored by Western news agencies out of respect for non-Western religions, human rights watchdogs at HRRTM claim that with the help of hired lip-reading and body-language experts they reconstructed Mr. Snuffy's statement, which appears to contain inflammatory hate speech. "Just as we had suspected all along," says spokesbeing for HRRTM Sarah Fulano. |
O líder parlamentar do CDS-PP, Telmo Correia, anunciou esta terça-feira que os democratas-cristãos vão pedir na Assembleia da República a reavaliação da lei que descriminalizou o consumo de drogas leves, refere a Lusa.
Inicio aqui novo blog com o objectivo de discutir a Constituição da República Portuguesa segundo uma perspectiva liberal.
Once upon a time there were, in China, two great cities: Chin and Chan. They were connected by a magnificent canal. The emperor judged it desirable to have enormous blocks of stone thrown into it, in order to put it out of service.
Seeing this, Kuang, his chief mandarin, said to him:
"Son of Heaven, you are making a mistake."
To which the emperor replied:
"Kuang, you are talking like a fool."
(Of course I am reporting here only the gist of their conversation.)
After three moons had passed, the celestial emperor sent for the mandarin and said to him:
"Kuang, look yonder."
And Kuang opened his eyes and looked.
And he saw, some distance from the canal, a multitude of men at work. Some were excavating, others were raising embankments, still others were leveling the ground, and others laying paving stones; and the mandarin, who was very well read, thought to himself: They are making a highway.
After three more moons had passed, the emperor summoned Kuang and said to him:
"Look yonder."
And Kuang looked.
And he saw that the highway was completed, and he noticed that at different points all along the road, inns were being built. A host of pedestrians, carts, and palanquins were coming and going; and innumerable Chinese, overcome with fatigue, were carrying heavy burdens from Chin to Chan and from Chan to Chin. And Kuang said to himself: "It was the destruction of the canal that provided jobs for these poor people." But it never occurred to him that their labor had been diverted from other employments.
And three more moons passed by, and the emperor said to Kuang:
"Look yonder."
And Kuang looked.
And he saw that the inns were always full of travelers, and, grouped around them, were the shops of butchers, bakers, and dealers in swallows' nests, to feed the hungry travelers. And, inasmuch as these worthy artisans could not go about naked, there had also settled among them tailors, shoemakers, and dealers in parasols and fans; and since people do not sleep out in the open air, even in the Celestial Empire, there were also carpenters, masons, and roofers. Then there were police officials, judges, and fakirs; in brief, a city with its suburbs had grown up around each inn.
And the emperor said to Kuang, "What do you think of it?"
And Kuang replied: "I should never have thought that the destruction of a canal could create jobs for so many people"; for it never occurred to him that these jobs had not been created, but displaced, and that the travelers used to eat just as well when they went along the canal as they did after they were forced to use the highway.
However, to the great astonishment of the Chinese, the emperor died, and this Son of Heaven was laid to rest.
His successor sent for Kuang and said: "Have the canal opened up."
And Kuang said to the new emperor:
"Son of Heaven, you are making a mistake."
And the emperor answered:
"Kuang, you are talking like a fool."
But Kuang persisted and said, "Sire, what do you have in mind?"
"I have in mind," the emperor said, "facilitating the movement of men and things between Chin and Chan by making transportation less expensive, so that the people may have tea and clothing at lower cost."
But Kuang was all prepared. The evening before, he had received several issues of the Moniteur industriel, a Chinese newspaper. Knowing his lesson well, he asked permission to reply; after obtaining it, he prostrated himself nine times and said:
"Sire, by facilitating transporation, you hope to reduce the price of consumers' goods, in order to put them within reach of the people, and to this end, you begin by making them lose all the jobs that the destruction of the canal gave rise to. Sire, in political economy, low prices..."
The emperor: "You seem to be reciting this from memory."
Kuang: "You are right; it will be more convenient for me to read it to you."
And, after unfolding L'Ésprit public, he read:In political economy, low prices for consumers' goods are of only secondary importance. The real problem consists in establishing an equilibrium between the price of labor and that of the means of subsistence. The wealth of a nation consists in the amount of employment it provides its labor force, and the best economic system is that which provides the greatest possible number of jobs. The question is not whether it is better to pay four cash or eight cash for a cup of tea, five taels or ten taels for a shirt. These are childish considerations unworthy of a mature mind. No one disputes your thesis. The problem is whether it is better to have to pay more for a commodity, but to have, thanks to the abundance of jobs and the higher price of labor, more means of acquiring it; or whether it is better to limit the number of job opportunities, reduce the total quantity of domestic production, and transport consumers' goods by water, doubtless at lower cost, but at the same time denying some of our workers the possibility of buying them even at these reduced prices.
Since the emperor was still not entirely convinced, Kuang said to him: "Sire, deign to wait. I still have the Moniteur industriel to read to you."
But the emperor said:
"I do not need your Chinese newspapers to know that to create obstacles is to divert and displace labor. But that is not my mission. Go out there and clear the obstacles from the canal. After that, we'll reform the tariff."
And Kuang went off, tearing at his beard and lamenting: "O Fô! O Pê! O Lî! and all other monosyllabic, circumflected gods of Cathay, take pity on your people; for there has come to us an emperor of the English school, and I can see that before long we shall be in want of everything, since we shall no longer need to do anything."
«É fundamental a revisão do PDM e uma maior responsabilização dos autores dos projectos de arquitectura. São dois aspectos essenciais para os tais atrasos», afirmou, após uma visita à III Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, no Pavilhão de Portugal da Parque Expo.
.... assim de repente, eu diria que a Opus Dei é uma organização privada, que procura reunir o que há de melhor nas sociedades onde está, em mérito, em trabalho, em dinheiro, em poder, e dar-lhe um sentido religioso da vida. Como é boa nisso, não precisa do Estado para nada. Aliás, em muitos domínios, substitui com vantagem o Estado. É óbvio que favorece e privilegia aqueles que a ela pertencem. Mas estavas à espera de quê, que favorecesse quem a ataca e desdenha? Eu não sou da Opus nem tenciono vir a ser. Mas a minha costela liberal e as minhas costelas capitalistas acham-na admirável.
«É inadmissível dizerem que a Madeira gasta dinheiro ao Estado português, quando Lisboa também gasta», afirmou Jardim, pedindo por «instrumentos que permitam ao território ir encontrando os seus caminhos».
| Rob Reiner: | Oh, God-damnit, do I have to explain this again?! Smoking is bad, people! So if we have to be a little extreme to stop it, it's okay! |
| Kyle: | No it isn't, you fat turd! Because, I've learned something today. You just hate- [to Stan] See, I knew it. |
| Stan: | Yup. |
| Kyle: | You just hate smoking, so you use all your money and power to force others to think like you. And that's called fascism, you tubby asshole! |
| Rob Reiner: | GOD-DAMNIT THERE'LL BE NO MORE SMOKING!! |
| Stan: | It wasn't the tobacco companies' fault that we smoked. It was our fault, us! We should all take personal responsibility instead of letting fat fascists like him tell us what to do! |
Libertarianism is the political position according to which every adult individual is sovereign, self-governing, not a subject of government or king or society or even God unless he or she has freely chosen such a status.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this position is that no one may be coercively forced to serve other people, even the most needy. Only voluntary associations are proper, none that involve any subjugation of some people by others, even by the majority, let alone some monarch, czar or dictator.
No one has a right to other people's services no matter how much such services are needed. That would amount to involuntary servitude. People do not belong to others, even in dire circumstances, unless they have freely joined them in families, fraternities, corporations, partnerships, teams and other associations.
The idealism and the goals of the United Nations are laudable. The results, at least in recent years, have often been nothing short of a disaster. One example will suffice---the recently created U.N.’s Human Rights Council, begun a year ago this past week. This council is sadly typical of the modern collapse of the U.N. The Human Rights Council consists of 47 members, almost half of which are “unfree” or “partly free” nations, at least as ranked by Freedom House. Trying to get China, Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia to reach an agreement on violations of freedom in various countries is like trying to get the mafia to give up crime.
Esta tendência para confundir medidas socialistas em desespero de causa (social) com medidas liberais....
Ou seja, a pretexto de um direito positivo das crianças à educação sexual criamos um outro, bem mais grave: o direito de cientistas e psicólogos definirem o que devam ser factos científicos tidos como válidos para efeitos de educação dos filhos (dos outros).
"Are you a decentralist libertarian or a centralist who wants to impose liberty (and ends up creating despotism)?"
For many, the solution to an increase in inequality is to make the tax structure more progressive—raise taxes on high-income households and reduce taxes on low-income households. While this may sound sensible, it is not. Would these same individuals advocate a tax on going to college and a subsidy for dropping out of high school in response to the increased importance of education? We think not. Yet shifting the tax structure has exactly this effect.
.... Attempts to raise taxes and impose other penalties on the higher earnings that come from greater skills could greatly reduce the productivity of the world’s leading economy by discouraging investments in its most productive and precious form of capital—human capital.
The libertarian anti-war theorist Jeff Hummel once observed, every state that declares war is actually declaring open season on three distinct groups: the enemy's ruling structure (government); the enemy's general population; and, its own population of dissenters. The latter are often called "traitors." To the self-interested elites, there is no more treacherous or dangerous a human being than one who demands to exercise his own rights according to his own judgment. The human being who resists nationalization.
Adeptly attacking drug prohibition on The Morton Downey Jr. show in 1988 (when he ran for president on the L.P. ticket), Ron Paul shows a little more energy than he typically does nowadays.
 | Paul’s doggedness in advancing the causes of individual responsibility and limited government could intimidate almost anyone who clings to the label “conservative” or “libertarian.” Perhaps that is why he avoids those abused designations and calls himself a “constitutionalist.” His philosophy is simple: “no government intervention, not in personal life, not in economic life, not in affairs of other nations.” Paul understands that electing him president wouldn’t by itself “reinstate the Constitution and restore the Republic.” He is a realist: “You just can’t turn one switch and solve every problem. You have to build coalitions. I’d put a lot of pressure on Congress to live up to their responsibilities.” He does know what he can do on day one of the Paul presidency. His first act would be to begin cleaning up the mess we’ve made in the Middle East: |
Clearly, language threatening to wipe a nation or a group of people off the map is to be condemned by all civilized people. And I do condemn any such language. But why does threatening Iran with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, as many here have done, not also deserve the same kind of condemnation? Does anyone believe that dropping nuclear weapons on Iran will not wipe a people off the map? When it is said that nothing, including a nuclear strike, is off the table on Iran, are those who say it not also threatening genocide? And we wonder why the rest of the world accuses us of behaving hypocritically, of telling the rest of the world “do as we say, not as we do.”
Alvaro Vargas Llosa of the Independent Institute writes:I was dumbfounded last week when three radio stations, one in Spain and two in Latin America, asked me to explain who American presidential hopeful Ron Paul is and why his candidacy in the Republican primaries has generated such a buzz. The congressman from Texas has hardly registered in national polls but is a political celebrity in the blogosphere and on cable TV Web sites, and has been the subject of front-page stories in The Washington Post and other major news outlets. Apparently, he is making waves around the world too.
The ideal of the State is that within its territory its power and influence should be universal. As the Church is the medium for the spiritual salvation of man, so the State is thought of as the medium for his political salvation. Its idealism is a rich blood flowing to all the members of the body politic. And it is precisely in war that the urgency for union seems greatest, and the necessity for universality seems most unquestioned.
War - or at least modern war waged by a democratic republic against a powerful enemy - seems to achieve for a nation almost all that the most inflamed political idealist could desire. Citizens are no longer indifferent to their Government, but each cell of the body politic is brimming with life and activity. We are at last on the way to full realization of that collective community in which each individual somehow contains the virtue of the whole. In a nation at war, every citizen identifies himself with the whole, and feels immensely strengthened in that identification. The purpose and desire of the collective community live in each person who throws himself wholeheartedly into the cause of war.
Beethoven originally dedicated the [Third] symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the ideals of the French Revolution, and Napoleon as their embodiment, but the composer was so disgusted when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in May 1804, that he went to the table where the completed score lay, took hold of the title-page and scratched the name Bonaparte out so violently that he created a hole in the paper. He later changed the title to Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo (Heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man).
O Bloco de Esquerda manifestou hoje a sua preocupação com a possibilidade de um entendimento entre PS e PSD na lei eleitoral autárquica que diminua a representatividade das oposições nos executivos municipais.
«O modelo que existe é um bom modelo, parte da ideia de que o governo das cidades necessita da negociação», defendeu a deputada do BE Alda Macedo, em declarações aos jornalistas no Parlamento. Para a deputada do Bloco, «qualquer alteração substancial deste modelo é uma distorção da democracia».
The European Union's 50-year-old commitment to "undistorted competition" has been scrapped from a list of the bloc's objectives, in a French coup that lawyers argue could undermine Brussels' fight against protectionism and illegal state aid.
By contrast "full employment and social progress" will remain Union objectives, offering possible cover to a country wanting to prop up a failing company or engineer a merger of "national champions".
 | .... the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously) may clash with or contradict one another; they, too, have to be integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown. - Ayn Rand |
Este argumento reveste atraentes roupagens liberais. Na sua génese está a seguinte ideia: cada qual tem o direito de fazer o que muito bem entende com a sua propriedade privada, e, uma vez que as crianças são propriedade dos seus pais, eles têm o direito de lhes dar a educação que muito bem entendem.
Posta deta forma, torna-se evidente qual é a falácia da referida argumentação: é que as crianças NÃO são propriedade dos seus pais. Estes não têm, portanto, a liberdade de fazer com os seus filhos o que muito bem entendem. Em particular, os pais não têm o direito de decidir soberanamente sobre a (não-)educação dos seus filhos.
 | What is real competition? .... "Competition is an open market process of discovery and adjustment, under conditions of uncertainty, that can include interfirm rivalry as well as interfirm cooperation." If companies decide to cooperate with each other and share data and information to make a projection for the future, they should be able to do so. After all, they would not exchange information unless it was beneficial. For instance airlines form alliances to enable passengers to collect and redeem miles and points across airlines. .... why would companies enter into an agreement unless they can benefit from it? And the only way they can benefit is by satisfying their customers, in which case all such agreements have to have more positive effects than negative ones. |
The EU antitrust law leaves many businessmen in a fog. It is difficult enough satisfying fickle consumers. On top of that, they have to devote a lot of time and resources into complying with regulations that in fact hamper competition in markets. The regulators are effectively saying that they know more efficient ways of organizing markets than those who actually buy and sell .... Such knowledge can only be gained through experience and no super calculation can compete with that.
 | Many developing countries’ liberalization of capital controls, the report adds, has enabled private firms in these nations to access world capital-markets at unprecedented levels. Private borrowing accounted for more than 60 percent of total bank borrowing in these countries from 2002 to 2006. To do this, the report notes, these businesses must be willing to conform to the higher levels of transparency and reporting that is the expectation of participating in international capital markets. |
Whatever occurs, it is unlikely to produce greater demand for World Bank funds. But, like all good bureaucracies, the World Bank has proved adept at creating new activities with marginal significance to its original purpose. Most recently, the World Bank hitched itself to the global-warming band-wagon as part of its quest for relevance. The Bank is seeking $250 million from the G8 nations to reward developing countries for “avoiding deforestation.”
Whatever one thinks of this goal, the rationale for the World Bank’s particular involvement seems tenuous. The fact an institution exists is not a reason to prolong its existence indefinitely. Perhaps it’s time to say, “Adieu, World Bank.”
A “formação contra a homofobia” é a versão progressista da velhinha ideia conservadora da "cura para a homosexualidade". Substitui-se uma "doença biológica" por um "thought crime", de resto o conceito de tolerância é o mesmo.
The reasonable solutions of these problems in a free society would seem to be that, while the states provides only a uniform minimum for all who are unable to maintain themselves and endeavors to reduce cyclical unemployment, any further provision required for the maintenance of the accustomed standard should be left to competitive and voluntary efforts.
It is true, of course, that even the provision of a uniform minimum for all those who cannot provide for themselves involves some redistribution of income. But there is a great deal of difference between the provisions of such a minimum for all those who cannot maintain themselves on their earnings in a normally functioning market and a redistribution aiming at "just" remuneration in all the more important occupations— between a redistribution wherein a majority takes from a minority because the latter has more. The former preserves the impersonal method of adjustment under which people can choose their occupation; the latter brings us nearer and nearer to a system under which people will have to be told by authority what to do.
A posição polaca “será defendida implacavelmente, não existe plano B”, disse Kaczynski numa conferência de imprensa.
Por outro lado, numa rejeição às exigência britânicas de mais isenções de políticas comunitárias, Barroso também disse que essas situações de derrogação não podiam tornar-se a regra na UE, sob pena de comunidade poder acabar por se desintegrar.
A social-democracia é perigosa por isto. Aprendeu a lição. Deixar os indivíduos produzir para depois os roubar dá mais resultado que roubar os meios de produção directamente.
Família, para mim, é um núcleo fundado a partir da ideia do afecto e da comunhão de vida – e não creio que a história, ou mesmo essa coisa chamada “tradição”, digam outra coisa. Mas, mesmo que desse de barato que existe uma “família tradicional” que corresponde à imagem de um casal de sexo diferente que se une com a ideia de ter um rancho de filhos, não se entende em que é que ela é afectada pela existência de outro tipo de uniões. Em que é que o casamento de pessoas do mesmo sexo diminui ou prejudica o casamento de pessoas de sexo diferente? Será que há quem pense que, mal seja possível “oficializar” uma relação entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, não haverá quem queira outra coisa? Ou é mesmo aquilo que parece, a determinação em perseguir e invisibilizar aquilo que se considera “uma aberração”, a determinação de destruir, de fazer sofrer, as pessoas que vivem de uma forma que se não aprova?
Nunca percebi de que falam as pessoas que defendem ser a aceitação social e cultural plena dos casais do mesmo sexo -- que simbolicamente tem um passo essencial na alteração dos artigos do Código Civil que só permitem o casamento de pessoas de sexo diferente -- um “ataque à família”.
