There’s a story about Roky Erickson, former memberof the 13th Floor Elevators. In the 1980s, he had a band called the Aliens.One night, the other members were hanging out in the green room when Roky walked in and said, “Guys, tonight we’re going to do heroin.” Of course, all of them started freaking out–”Oh man, I don’t want to get hooked!” “My best friend in high school nearly died from that stuff.” As Roky left the room, he said, over his shoulder, “I think it’s in D.”

Whatever gets your rocks off, but that strategy is futile and dangerous.l Not a good combination.

http://www.publicopiniononline.com/localnews/ci_14185308

When a Chambersburg man left the grocery store Sunday afternoon, he thought it was nervy that someone parked a pickup truck in the fire lane beside the entrance, so he asked the driver what gave him the privilege. The driver was an off-duty state police trooper, and by the end of the night the man with the question was in jail with facial injuries and charges pending against him.
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When Doyle saw three state police cars pull in behind his duplex, he gathered up his dogs and got them upstairs so he could confine them to a front bedroom. When the troopers began knocking on the window of his newly installed back door, the female dog gave Doyle a bit of a hard time about moving away from the knocking instead of toward it, but when he commanded her and the male to go up to the bedroom, they went.

As Doyle came down the stairs, he called 911 and asked for borough police assistance.

“I told them I needed borough cops at my place, that state police were yelling I was under arrest and I didn’t even do anything,” Doyle told Public Opinion.

By the time Doyle got back to his kitchen door, he said the officers were pounding on the door and yelling at him that he was under arrest for disorderly conduct.

Gets worse from there.

It’s an awful joke, but I’ve heard it said that the difference between the First World and the Third World when a natural disaster occurs is that in the first world there’s 100 deaths and 100 million dollars in damage; in the Third World, there’s a 100 million deaths, and about 100 bucks in damage.

A new breakthrough in obtaining an impartial jury:

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO133130/

With jobs now being permanently lost, unemployment in the US nearing 20% (U-6), we will find out just how essential any of us is.

I totally agree with you. I think we’re arguing the same thing, just a bit different.

I was trying to make it a short post and not ramble on, so I stuck to the “aid creates more need” argument.

I’m not going to downcheck you, but I think you are grabbing the wrong end of the aid problem here.

Other than immediate disaster relief – ie, the kind of help you’d give your neighbor if their house burnt down – aid creates dependency. I have always felt that the aid we donate stifles initiative and enables corrupt government bureaucracies to maintain their rule. Aid thus becomes an instrument of oppression.

Although there have been others that have made this argument, it is far from the consensus view. I know when I have advanced it with my non-libertarian acquaintances, I have been roundly denounced for “not caring about the poor.” When I point to the counterexample of Hong Kong and how the people there lifted themselves from desperate refugees with no resources to one of the world’s wealthiest groups, the response is usually a grudging admission that I could be right followed by an emotional outburst about how “we’ve got to do something for [whomever].”

With those who propose aid programs there seems to be a total disconnect between their immediate ‘feel good’ actions and the long term consequences of those actions.

Personally, it is my conviction that the aid to third world countries has been a crime against humanity. The only “aid” that works is lowering our barriers to their exports (and encouraging them to lower their barriers against imports.)

#23 Mike Leatherwood
#18- For now, they truly do need aid. The infrastructure is gone. They don’t have the ability to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, because there is no boot or strap. When you start with little, and that is taken away, you leave nothing.
Haiti has ’bout 10 million people disproprtionately spread across an island the size of Massachusetts. If the Boston metro area was levelled, you can be pretty sure that Massachusetts would need help, and a lot of it, regardless of the state of economy beforehand.

Ok, I’m going to sound like an asshole and get voted down like crazy, but I agree with #18.

I feel bad for the people in Haiti and wish that I never had to experience something like that. However, the Haitian people have been receiving aid for over a decade now, and all it has done is create a bigger need for aid (before the quake).

All population growth (in any species) is a function of food availability. So, providing food to those who cannot provide it for themselves (be it because they are too poor or because they live in non-arable land) only encourages the population growth, therefore increasing the amound of aid needed. If we nip the problem in the bud, and do not aid these people to begin with, then population will actually shrink and adjust to what nature can provide, bringing the area more into balance.

It sounds cruel to “let” these people go hungry but, in the end, it’s what is best for them and us.

#24 Ben

Dave: heroine addict

“I’m a heroine addict. I’ll only sleep with women who have saved somebody’s life.” -Mitch Hedberg

Hahaha! And I can’t wait to see Angelina Jolie play the heroin in Atlas Shrugged.

Your construal of that quote is curious.

The general view is that the usage “liberty” in the sentence is singular, not plural. IOW, liberty itself is essential, not that there are essential and inessential liberties. Further, the usage “temporary security” is taken to mean that whatever security gained will be temporary and, by implication, there is no permanent security.

OTOH, with your gift for twisting meanings and since John Yoo is no longer White House counsel, you may be able to apply for the position.

-George Carlin, 1999

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_who_would_give_up_Essential_Liberty

Since we’re nitpicking, the Ben Franklin quote (he probably said it more than once, but his wording is consistent as regards my point) is:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Whether one agrees with him or not, the implications of Franklin’s actual quote are that:

1) Some liberties are non-essential

2) It may be acceptable to give up some liberties to achieve significant safety.

Ben Franklin was generally a friend to liberty, but the accurate quote of his words in this case doesn’t show it well. He probably would agree with both (1) and (2).

Miep Gies and Mother Teresa are both dead now.

;P