Blogs

I’m not surprised.

It isn’t controversial to point out that we face serious public health problems: while modern medicine is helping us live longer, more years of our longer lives are spent fatter and sicker. Some of the biggest problems, obviously, are the related illnesses of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

A couple of weeks ago, a report¹ was released predicting that austerity measures being sought by Republicans in the House would “derail the recovery.” This report was created by the venerable investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. This alone should suffice for the legitimacy of the argument.

Except it doesn’t.

First of all, in this time of crisis, our thoughts and prayers should go out to the victims of the earthquake in Japan and their families.  I can only imagine the pain, confusion, and grief they must be suffering at this time of unfolding devastation.

In this article, I desire to lay out two essential claims: First, that the widespread oppression of women throughout history, as well as the division of labor between the sexes, arose for biological and survival reasons; and second, that it was morally repugnant and is no longer necessary due to the agricultural and industrial revolutions, modern medicine, and increasing respect for private property rights.

    Welcome to Olbion County, Tennessee. If you want the government provided fire fighting service, you ought to pay the fee, up front.

Let us start with the beginning:

    Obion County has no county government fire fighting service. The city of South Fulton in Obion County does. Residents of the city are provided with fire protection by the city's fire department. Residents of the county, outside the city, may purchase the protection of South Fulton's fire department, for $75 each year. Before a couple years ago, the city did not offer its service to residents of the unincorporated area of the county, and the residents went without. If a property owner does not pay, he or she will not receive the department's service. And now everyone in the nation knows that no payment really means no service.

       It's common knowledge that you'll scarcely find a talking head in the media that can state unbiased facts or include perspectives unlike their own.  There are a few specific topics that your average talking head doesn't much try to examine, particularly from an economic point of view. These topics include exchange rates, immigration, and the loanable funds market.

     First, fixed exchange rates are the ideal for a currency system.  Keep your pants up, this comes with a disclaimer.  Fixed exchange rates only meet a long-term ideal when the respective currency has a fixed supply like gold, silver, etc.  This is because a if we all share the same fixed commodity as an intermediary it is both more stable and much less subject to political manipulation than the currencies we use today.  This makes planning for the future much easier as well as that luxury of not having to worry about your savings being wiped out even without a withdrawal.

      If you ever get the chance to browse through some of my other musings that are hosted on this website, you may find yourself detecting the slightest tinge of anti-corporatist zest peppered amongst my various appeals to free market consistency. This particular quirk of mine is no happy coincidence; I humbly align myself with the elusive but growing left libertarian movement. As such, I find that my views are as often the target of mainstream political belittlement as they are the cheap accessory of whichever political party happens to be in the minority for this election cycle. The public discourse concerning no other political issue has been so bastardized by the shameless opportunists who routinely brandish and parry the so-called “libertarian stance” than that of the corporate form and its relation to free markets.

     As some of my readers may know, I consider participating in online forum discussions to be a bit of a hobby of mine. When I first started to indulge this guilty pleasure, I decided to seek out message boards where I knew that my opinion would be in the minority instead of frequenting message boards where I was sure to fit in and receive a hearty amount of pats on the back. I relish the sometimes hilarious attention that my “black sheep” comments routinely generate and the renegade reputation that I have earned during my stay on "left"-leaning websites, but the biggest reason that I purposefully position myself to be the lone voice of dissent is because it presents me with an opportunity to strengthen my debating capabilities while becoming more familiar with different perspectives at the same time.

   One of the oft used phrases to justify government, is “consent of the governed.” In possibly the most influential political treatise of all time, John Locke justified the existence of government that rested on the “consent of the governed.” The Declaration of Independence then echoed this idea stating that the government “deriv[ed] their just powers from the consent of the governed.” John Rawls further ensconced this idea in modern political theory, arguing that consent must be given prior to the establishment of preferences. Though it is used to justify governments throughout the world, I believe the statement itself is meaningless. In this essay, I will first analyze the collective implications of the statement. Then I will prove that an inherent contradiction is contained in the idea itself.