Clayton,
Rothbard: “Thus, if gold, after being established as money, were suddenly to lose its value in ornaments or industrial uses, it would not necessarily lose its character as a money.”
The fact of presenting the problem of the value of money as a ‘regression’ problem to me already shows just how different he is looking at it. If money is speculation, there is no circularity problem.
No wonder so many people like it! Coke and Pepsi contain ALCOHOL, reveals French research
From the article:
But my favorite part is this:
I know this is a British newspaper, but there are still over 1 million Muslims in Britain, and there are over 1 billion worldwide. Just thought it was amusing.
“In five or ten years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace,” he tells Fox News. “Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.”
My latest article:
How to not come off as a cultist
http://nielsio.tumblr.com/post/26119199766/how-to-not-come-off-as-a-cultist
Well, since Obamacare stuff was happening figured I’d pop back in the forum and see what’s happening, but I already know what’s happening - so it’s nothing new I suppose.
Anyway, here’s a piece of what someone said in a FB “discussion” of Obamacare. I was trying to make a valid point the whole time, and then it comes down to this statement here. Ironically, immediately after she posted a video of a lady crying in joy over government healthcare and asks for the facts or corrections, of which myself and another started posting snipets of Mises Daily articles and explaining why it will only have costs go up, and quality go down. She did not respond after a couple posts of corrections. Too much fact for her I guess.
I assume this is your general public view:
I still can’t get over the highlighted statement.
I think she NEEDS to take her own advice.
“Eleven Nations With Large Fossil-Fuel Subsidies”
Read that as “Elven nations” 
To me this just speaks to how easy it can actually be to change things around. These people literally just believe what they’re told. Granted, it’s easier to believe when you’re told what you want to hear, but it’s blind acceptence nonetheless.
It won’t take much (or long) to change so-called “public opinion” if what people simply hear is changed. Again, easier said than done, but simple nonetheless.
This is why I think a worthwhile focus for much of the energy is on the local schools. Gary North offers a strategy for public school reform here, which, granted is pretty idealized, but it offers a good exposition of the goal. I think North is right to focus on education as a crucial leg of the way to improving things.
If I showed you the full conversation your brain would stop. She was pulling a “holier than thou” tone on things she’s not backing with evidence or a well formed argument. She believed if it wasn’t for the government or unions we’d be making next to nothing in unsafe working environments.
Okay, don’t drive on my roads, don’t send your kids to public schools, don’t need the police or EMTs or emergency care, go work somewhere where you have to work 12-14 hour shifts in unsafe places and above all, don’t pay your taxes for these things.
…and…
Actually NOT because THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REGULATED BUSINESSES so your children won’t have to work 12-14 hour shifts, risking life and limb just to feed their families-- which is too heavy a burden for a 6 year old to face. The federal government placed restrictions on businesses to protect children, the environment, hell, even you. Go move to Iran if you don’t want the government meddling in your affairs. Too much federal government is a bad thing, but too little is just as bad.
Let’s here your solution, then. Give me a solution that will work for 310 million people that won’t piss someone off. Give me a perfect solution that will right the economy, give everyone inexpensive healthcare and make it so that I won’t lose my house if one of my kids needs life-saving surgery.
It has to work for EVERYONE. Not just you. It has to work for me, you, my kids, your kids, Billy-Joe Bob and his kids in Po-duck, Lew-weee-ziana and Sir Robert Finkleton the 8th in upstate New York with his 8 houses and three helicopters and Maria Gonzalez and her 10 kids living on welfare in CA.
Find me a solution that keeps everyone happy, not just you.
…and…
I’m telling you that exactly, Bert. If it weren’t for the US finally cracking down, we’d still have children losing their fingers threading spools, women jumping out of third floor windows to escape a fire because the boss chain locked the doors to prevent workers from leaving, even for lunch and we’d still have people making 50 cents an hour while the cost of living skyrockets (here in VA, you have to work about 100 hours every 2 weeks on 7.25 JUST to afford a 2 bedroom apartment in a crappy side of town). Logic still takes a back seat to capitalism; if businesses could pay the least amount of money and still make a profit, they would (Economics 201; business major).
I’m saying if you don’t like the business regulations the federal government has put in place that you should find Iran or any other 3rd world country nice. I hear Somalia is pretty dry this time of year; you know their government just flat out doesn’t exist; ergo, no regulations on anything! Watch out for pirates, sharks and the civil war, though.
I don’t have to tell anyone here what my responses were, we can safely assume they were logical and showed her the contradictions and fallacies she made. As for her solution I gave a very basic and simple straight forward answer: leave me out of it, and for the people that want to pay and be involved they can pay and be involved. Apparently that was selfish, and for some reason the “we” of the equation should carry the burden of everyone else. Simply put, I just can’t not be involved (even though on multiple occasions she told me if I don’t like it to go to Iran - a liberal using a “love it or leave it” statement.)
John I brought up schools and there seems to be a confliction with those with this mentality, they shot down private and home schooling and apparently private schools are to breed children to go to Ivy league schools, of which no one I know from a private school is like that. When someone else started posting statistics to show students perform higher in home and private over public they had no response.
A lot of the sentiment seems to be “your taxes are already paying for something, why not keep doing it?” Again, the simple answer of “no, I do not want to” just doesn’t work.
It’s because they think they NEED your money - more than you do, apparently.
Not my problem she’s still working a min wage job with kids. This person wants to be supervised by Big Bro from the cradle to the grave. I learned to walk, why the hell can’t I leave the damn cradle? WHAT GIVES?
Like I was saying here and here…
It’s exactly the way Joseph Sobran puts it in the Liberty and Economics bio documentary of Mises:
“There’s a three word lexicon that explains the tax economy: ‘need, greed, and compassion.’ ‘Need’ now means wanting someone else’s money, ‘greed’ means wanting to keep your own, and ‘compassion’ is the sentiment of the politician who wants to arrange the transfer.”
Oh no, I didn’t mean it was a solution you’d bring up to her…I mean it’s a solution to making people who are this confused become a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.
As I was saying here, this mode of thinking is so ingrained, you can’t really expect the people who already think this way to to come around very far. In that thread I recounted a conversation with a grown man, who served in the Navy and has children of his own, about how people would be educated without government-run schools. He literally could not get it. He’s not retarded (or at least, I don’t think he is). But his question kept going back to “how the fuck do you expect private schools to provide education to every single child? There aren’t near enough private schools! How do you expect America to compete in an international marketplace without educating our children?”
No I don’t expect people like this Laura Gutleben to get reality. I’m just saying the way to prevent future Laura Gutlebens from being created is quite simple.
On that note, I honestly wonder if this is the same woman Tom Woods had his own online debate with. She sounds exactly the same:
(this is a really great lecture. Perfect for this type of person. He also references the best lecture I think he’s ever done, which is here.)
Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2012
What Are the Rothschilds and Rockefellers Up To?
System D: The Shadow Superpower (love this one)
On Southern Hubris and the Yankee Lust for Imperialism
Prepare for Global Money Printing
HOT: UK Money Printing is Going to be Massive
HOT Woods Pulls Video; Zero Chance Ron Paul Will Endorse Romney
A white man wanders the south side of Chicago, after sun down…
Followup: More on the Charles Ogletree Speech
MUST VIEW: Lew Rockwell Putting the World in Perspective
-Reason TV did a nice short documentary piece that talks about this, and offers a free market reason as to why.
Growing Trend: Jewish Guys are Marrying Asian Girls
Thomas DiLorenzo on Robert Wenzel Show: How Totalitarian is the United States?
Nigel Farage tries to figure out who is The Most Incompetent Leader in Europe
Who Knew? June 14 Was Economic Hit Man Day
Murray Rothbard Understanding Libertarianism
As usual it’s industry insiders themselves, who are behind the regulations
The Mad Adventures of a lying gasbag
A Letter from the Distilled Spirits Council on Beer Wholesalers as a Special Interest Meddlers
I think a lot of it has to do with the illusion of certainty that the government provides.
He’s useful for some things.
Sen. Rand Paul Speaks Out Against Senators Voting without Reading the Bills - 6/29/12
Pedestrian thrown in jail for 12 hours for holding up sign warning drivers about police speed trap
Though this is a UK paper, this happened in Houston, Tx. Anyway, highlight from the article:
I thought cults often try to dig up some old history…
So, if the purpose of the police is to get people to slow down, shouldn’t they be holding up the sign warning that there’s a speed trap ahead? I went with a friend to traffic court a few weeks ago, she got snapped going around a right-hand turn on a red by one of those red-light cameras. The whole thing is such a charade. There’s the “police officer” (who never leaves her air-conditioned office to “patrol”) who testifies that she “reviewed the video footage” and “witnessed a violation of the traffic laws”, and then they present the high-definition video footage. The judge asks “do you have anything to say for yourself”? If you respond no, he says he’ll help you out by knocking 10% off the fine. If you try to offer an explanation, he either agrees that it’s a close call but you still technically violated the law (so he has no choice but to fine you) or he gives you a stern lecture about taking responsibility for your driving habits, etc. In 100% of cases I saw ahead of my friend’s, 100% “conviction” rate.
What’s most hilarious to me is that everyone misses the obvious fact that the whole thing is a scam just because there’s a judge and a “police officer” there. Don’t they ever stop to think that the judge and the police officer both work for the same municipality?? Isn’t that an obvious conflict-of-interest?
Argh!
Clayton -
ObamaCare and the Power to Tax
Cato Scholars React to ObamaCare Ruling
Education Silver Lining in ObamaCare Decision?
ObamaCare Lost on the Medicaid Mandate & Commerce Power. It May Yet Lose on the Tax Power.
A lot of the stories that I post I get from the Drudge Report. So if it makes you feel any better, it’s very likely that a lot of these are getting national attention, as Drudge is very on top of what’s news for most people. So it may be very likely that people are waking up to this nonsense, however slowly it may seem.