So, Ron Paul basically won the Iowa Straw Poll (virtually tying with Michele Bachmann), and most of the media ignored him completely. Kudos to Jon Stewart for calling them out with this great bit.

Ironically, now Ron Paul is getting press about how he wasn’t getting any press. I guess that’s better than nothing.

Nick Gillespie at Reason.com wrote a nice summary post that included a good video segment with Mike Riggs discussing the issue.

I don’t think there’s a huge conspiracy. I just think that the Republican party leadership definitely doesn’t want him to get the nomination, and they’re the ones that the media are listening to when deciding how to cover the candidates and who to expect to have a real chance. Most of the media don’t really understand a candidate who challenges the big government status quo and proposes eliminating programs they’re used to, rather than adding new ones.

But, Ron Paul has been a strong advocate of individual liberty and limited government for his entire career. He’s been a voice in the wilderness, consistently taking principled stands. I don’t agree with all of his positions (like immigration restrictions, and opposition to trade agreements because they’re imperfect) but his ideas have been gaining in popularity and command the attention (and lip-service, at least) of many of the other candidates.

Whether or not he ends up being the candidate, he’s helped to bring important ideas to the center of public debate, and he deserves our respect.

Enjoy his campaign video:

So, I’ve been checking out Google Plus for the past couple of weeks and so far I think it’s very promising. It’s still in beta, but I think they’re going to make it a compelling platform for sharing and socializing that will prove challenging to both Facebook and Twitter. The +1 buttons I’ve added beneath each post is the Google Plus version of the Facebook “Like” button.

If you’re on it, and you want to see some things I might decide to share and not bother posting here, feel free to circle me.

The latest Reason Magazine has another article by Shikha Dalmia (no link available yet) repeating the arguments she has made here,
and in this video, that Bollywood movies have a better chance of influencing the Muslim world away from radical Islam and toward modernity and tolerance than either the hard power of military interventions, or the softer power of american cultural exports.

Her arguments (that people are more readily adopting norms presented by products that bridge the cultural divide rather than the vastly different western products or the invasive imperialism-tainted pressure of militaries) seem plausible to me.

I welcome progress; whatever the source.

Now that Anthony Weiner has announced his resignation, I figure I should at least record some of my thoughts on the matter.

Basically, I agree with Gene Healy of Cato both here, and here.
Some choice quotations:

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a good old-fashioned political sex scandal. They’re entertaining, and they may even be edifying — reminding us that self-styled “public servants” are often less responsible, more venal, and just plain dumber than those they seek to rule.”

…

“But one of the few perks of being a libertarian is that you get to enjoy twice as many scandals. Politics is one big smorgasbord of schadenfreude.”

…

“So have a guilt-free laugh about Weinergate. Not only are political sex scandals great fun, they serve an important social purpose. They remind us that we should think twice before we cede more power to these clowns.”

…

“By reminding us of how untrustworthy and reckless these people can be–how little control they often exhibit in their own lives–political sex scandals may even serve an important social purpose: they remind us that we should think twice before granting them more control over ours.”

I don’t have much interest in Anthony Weiner’s penis, but I care a great deal about what the big prick it is attached to was doing in office.

So, I was a little conflicted about whether I wanted him to resign. I don’t think his online activities (as far as I know) should disqualify him for office, but what’s logical doesn’t have much to do with politics. So, I thought about the practical consequences.

On one hand, he’s a consistent vote for the wrong side of the big issues, so his leaving would probably improve the distribution in the House and would remove a vocal advocate of dangerously wrongheaded policies.

But, on the other hand, his remaining in office would serve as an even greater reminder that many politicians cannot be trusted; they lie enthusiastically whenever they think it might further their careers, and they behave with idiotic recklessness whenever they think they can get away with it.

Many people thought it was important to remove him from office because his scandal impeded his ability to perform his duties as a legislator, and it tarnished the entire institution.

To me, that’s a good thing. What he and his allies were doing in office was damage. And, the romantic image of politicians as brilliant, honorable, agents of good is dangerously wrong. Their competence is at winning elections; not deciding how to solve all of our problems with giant programs and totalitarian restrictions of liberty.

I’d prefer that they all wear clown suits.

If I can’t have that, then constant reminders of how wrong the government-as-trustworthy-problem-solver model is are better than nothing.

So, thanks for the reminder Mr. Weiner, and thanks for getting out of our lives.

I wish your colleagues would do the same.

The other day I saw this Ted Talk from 2005 with Terry Moore demonstrating how he’d recently learned that he’d been tying his shoes wrong all his life, and that if he looped it the other way it would go from the weak to the strong form of the knot.

I’d actually been having a problem keeping my round nylon laces tied during my fairly long daily walks, and so I tried reversing the direction of the last step of tying the knot…and it worked!!!

Try it yourself. Maybe it’ll help you too.

Here’s a message I sent to my congressman and senators:

Dear xxx,

I’m writing you this Memorial Day because of a disturbing video I watched yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PDhjNF9eUQ) of park police aggressively stopping non-disruptive expression at the Jefferson Memorial.

I believe that they were there to peacefully protest the recent D.C. Circuit Court ruling in Oberwetter v. Hilliard (http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/748BE2DE8AF2A2A485257893004E07FC/$file/10-5078-1308285.pdf). In that case, a young woman was arrested for silently (with ear buds) dancing, with friends who were doing the same, at the Jefferson Memorial to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Jefferson around midnight in 2008.

I believe that the original arrest was the result of poor judgment of over-zealous police, and the court decision was an, unfortunately all too common, example of the state protecting its own misdeeds rather than correcting them. I think this will lead to an escalation of harms. It’s possible that the police actions and the court’s decision fall within the current letter of the law, but they fall outside of the spirit of individual liberty that makes this country uniquely great.

It’s my understanding that Congress has authority over the policies governing D.C. memorials, and so I urge you to take quick and decisive action to correct the policy and prevent future abuses of people at our memorials.

I agree that it’s reasonable to prevent large protests within the memorials and other activities that would interfere with the ability of visitors to enjoy them. But, I think it’s clear that such considerations do not apply to these cases and perhaps the policies need clarification to establish that.

We honor the memory of Thomas Jefferson for his commitment to individual liberty. In this country, we not only tolerate but we celebrate individual preferences in how happiness is pursued. We do not insist on uniformity. We do not believe that there is only one way to worship, or one way to honor our founders.

Many people are disturbed that our government has over-reacted to calls for security after the horrible attacks on 9-11, and are threatening the very values that make our country worth securing (excesses including TSA security theater, Patriot Act abuses, etc.). Please end this abuse of innocent citizens and visitors and avoid displaying the opposite of toleration at our shrines to liberty.

Please let me know what you are doing to solve this problem as soon as possible.

The Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas closed today, and it’s a little sad for me.

I have a lot of fond memories of that place, and I’ll miss it.

When I was a teenager, my father used to take me along with him on many trips to Vegas, and we would often eat a great dinner at the Sahara’s upscale House of Lords restaurant, where I’d usually have a shrimp cocktail and a filet mignon with béarnaise sauce. I’ve yet to find a substitute that lives up to my memory (which probably exaggerates the truth somewhat) of those meals. I never saw the Rat Pack perform there, but I saw other shows including a great performance by Don Rickles.

Over the years, I’ve frequently gone back to the Sahara to gamble, both for the personal nostalgia and for the low minimum bets for blackjack and craps.

I’m going back to Vegas next month, and it will be strange to not be able to go back to the Sahara.

Today, I was listening to this EconTalk podcast.

It made me feel like I have a better understanding of the world than I did yesterday.

I have been a supporter of Kiva, because it seemed clear to me that an important way to help people lift themselves out of poverty is to make credit available to budding entrepreneurs in places where a financial infrastructure isn’t available. But, in this podcast Mike Munger was explaining that aid based on this type of microfinance has not had the great effects that had been hoped for. He explained that rather than creating many productive businesses, the primary benefit of this credit help was to enable a very inefficient form of saving. In many cultures, saving up for purchases and investments is almost impossible. People who begin to accumulate savings are expected to give it away (to spouses, friends, community members who plead that they need it, etc.). The credit that must be paid back is a way for people to make the purchase before the “savings,” and have an excuse for why the accumulation cannot be given away.

Saving is so difficult in these places that those who want to do it must accept a negative interest rate!

Thus, it seems that cultural norms, rather than lack of capital, pose the greatest impediment to economic progress for much of the world’s population.

While listening to this, I remembered the thesis of Deirdre McCloskey, that it is the change in ideology (respect for bourgeois virtues and liberty), rather than any particular materialistic explanation, that enabled the fantastic progress we’ve seen in the last two hundred years. Things didn’t take off until many people started valuing things like commercial activity, innovation, thrift, and the individual liberty that makes these things possible.

Here’s a Cato article, an initial post to a Cato Unbound discussion, and another EconTalk podcast with McCloskey on her ideas.

At first I thought that this was a significant factor, but that progress has primarily been the result of the compounding effect of the powerful benefits of trade that had been expanding for many centuries and finally hit a tipping point, in combination with scientific and technological developments that enabled the industrial revolution.

But, now, I think there’s more to the McCloskey thesis than I’d thought. Cultural norms and ideology seem central to the difference between the parts of the world that have progressed dramatically, and those that haven’t.

Additionally, it really seems to me that many on the left, including president Obama, are still in the clutches of the bad ideology that is keeping much of the world poor, and threatens to make the rest of us much poorer. I think they share those long-held cultural ideas that it’s just wrong for some to have wealth while others have much less…that it’s proper for the community to claim the earned wealth as its due, and have little respect for private property. They treat wealth as a given and have no idea what makes it possible.

This insight really makes the term “progressive” into a bad joke. “Progressives” embrace the ideology that threatens to destroy the progress that we’ve made.

Let’s not regress. Let’s continue to embrace the bourgeois virtues, and help spread these ideas to the rest of the world, so we can all become better off.

I’m finally trying to read all the way through Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (I had begun reading it years ago, but never completed it).

I know that there’s some controversy about how much of it was written by Hayek himself, and how much was written by W. W. Bartley III, but however the work was divided I’m finding the book rewarding. There are lots of good ideas in it. I was familiar with the major points already, but not with this particular presentation.

I’ve just read the chapter entitled “Our Poisoned Language” in which Hayek complains that many of the words (e.g., Liberal, Society, Social, Capitalism) used to describe aspects of the nature of the extended order have been corrupted to the point where it’s difficult to communicate about the subject because of the ambiguities and erroneous baggage that these words now convey.

One interesting issue is that of “Capitalism” (which, I didn’t know, made its first appearance in 1902). I was under the impression that it was much older and had meant laissez faire economics until recently, but it seems that it’s long been tainted with the notion that it’s just a mechanism for serving the special interests of the few large holders of capital, rather than the mechanism that enables all people to collaborate and prosper. “Market Economy” is somewhat better but, as Hayek notes, being an economy still connotes that it is designed and driven by particular individual plans, rather than the structure of the collaboration of many different economies in which no individuals could possibly know enough to direct it. Hayek has proposed “catallactics” to replace economics and “catallaxy” to be its object of study. But, that hasn’t taken off.

I was thinking about it and it seems to me that maybe something like Market Ecology might work better to describe what we mean (I see from web searches that the term is already in use, and has meanings that are different from what I intend).

The benefit I have in mind is that many on the left already appreciate that natural ecology is not a tool that we should manipulate, but it’s a wonderful system of complex processes and feedback mechanisms, most of which we don’t understand and shouldn’t be so arrogant to think we can easily improve on it by interfering with it. Leave it alone. It works great without a designer or director.

If only they had that much respect for the market system.

I was prepared to be disappointed by Senator Rand Paul after he took office, but it hasn’t happened yet.

From his maiden speech in the Senate, in which he declared his preference for principle over compromise, to his hearing rant at Dept. of Energy busybodies, I’ve liked how he’s conducted himself.

And, now, he’s submitted a serious proposal to balance the budget within five years.

I’m sure that most people will react with horror at this radical proposal, but this is a responsible, moderate, plan. Continuing on the current insane arithmetic-denying course is what’s extreme and irresponsible.

People who reject this proposal out of hand are not serious about addressing the fiscal crisis that we face. This should be the starting point for future discussions. Those who don’t like all of the changes should propose others that accomplish similar results. Otherwise, they should get out of the way of progress.

This will be interesting.