Government and Parenting?
I read an article earlier today while browsing through Google News. I found it interesting because it was about a 13 year old girl from the Netherlands wanting to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo. I am conflicted about this.
I think that it is irresponsible of the parents to allow a person that young especially a girl, and I point out the “girl” aspect because it is exceptionally more dangerous for a girl that age to walk down the street in most cities across the globe than it is a boy, let alone pull into the port of some border line 3rd world country, to undertake such a task.
My other thought comes from my belief in individualism. Whereas, I think it is beyond dangerous to consider letting this happen, I also realize point blankly she isn’t my kid. Given the situation where she is an experienced sailor, and her parents are there to help her make this decision and they obviously support her, who am I or anyone else to prohibit this behavior?
Apparently that task goes to the Netherlands Court System. They think it is their duty to preform a psychological evaluation of the girl and deem whether or she is fit. That, to me at least, falls in the hands of the parents. Even if you disagree with the parents and believe that the government has the right to take away parental rights in this case, let me ask you this there are 192 countries in the U.N, what is stopping her family from going to one of those countries? I would compare it to Columbus being rejected by his home country of Italy and sponsored by Spain.
Give me your thoughts.
here is a debate I had via my Facebook wall:
James:
Because that kinda stuff is very dangerous and actually I’ve heard most people go crazy during those because there is no human contact!Me:
I understand that but why the hell does the government have to be involved. this is simply the matter of the parents and child being retarded. and the SELF IMPOSED ex-communication is only physical because of the internet as well as satellite phones. I think it is stupid and I would never allow my 13 year old daughter to do that but I would be exceptionally pissed if big brother came in and told me “No” that might actually make me willing to work around the system to make it happen.James:
Dude, it’s the parents job to get the kid from 0-18 healthy and intact… after that you can do stupid shit and kill yourself all you want. If the parents give up their responsibility, it’s the communities responsibility to care for the child. It’s like children who refuse treatment, it’s not their call because we as a society have decided that … Read Moreparents (and when the abdicate their responsibility, the state) have a responsibility to raise healthy kids… after they turn 18 they can refuse all the treatment they want.Adam Bitely:
The simple fact that the court is involved is stupid. One, the kid made it safely around the world. Two, i’m certain that the parents were involved the entire time. Even though they may not have been present on the boat, they were most likely involved from far off. A kid is not with their parents most hours of the day due to school and other factors. For the courts to come in and do something, would be backwards and wrong.Me:
So James your only argument is that LEGALLY she is not an adult, lets face it there is nothing mentally different between 17 and 18 so all 18 is, is a legal figure.The girl is not considered LEGALLY responsible for her own actions and in the case of her death her parents would be to blame. I’m not sure of the laws in The Netherlands but lets assume… Read More there is a process of emancipation if the PARENTS and the Child agree to emancipation she now is a LEGAL adult and therefore can make her own decisions, so now as you put it “after that you can do stupid shit and kill yourself all you want.” What is the difference between an emancipated teen sailing around the world and one who has has done it under parental consent?James:
Because a 13 year old isn’t mature enough to make that call and thats why there isn’t a judge in the world who would emancipate a 13 year old.Me:
I’ll agree your AVERAGE 13 year old may not be. However there are preteens that have doctorates, child prodigies that have maturities well beyond some adults I know, so why not allow this 13 year old who is a proficient sailor to thrive for the highest feat of her field
War Is Organized Crime
From William Buppert:
War is the health of the state. Randolph Bourne arrived at this conclusion near the beginning of the 20th century. Smedley Butler later wrote in War is a Racket about the baleful special interest vectors that drive us to war. We hear again and again that we owe our freedoms to the conduct of overseas adventures in other countries whether the wresting of Spanish colonies into our possession or the invasion of Europe during the War to Save Joseph Stalin (1939–45) to the modern era of American armed dominion over the planet. I would suggest these are poor assumptions. The next time someone makes one of these specious claims, simply ask them how the defeat of one totalitarian regime while aiding and abetting another noxious regime made America free? Is the Cold War representative of the halcyon days of American individualism?
Most libertarians agree that the American government is colossal, oppressive and a slayer of freedom and liberty. There are certainly domestic influences and causes for the enormous growth in the statist tilt of American governance and concentration of power. The metamorphosis of an agrarian republic birthed in the violent dismissal of British rule to the Sovietized monstrosity we labor under today is the result of both domestic dynamics and the creation of the national security/garrison state to project power and influence overseas. I would submit that war is the unacknowledged silent partner of the leviathan state.
How does a militarized foreign policy create a less free nation at home? Let’s begin with a conflict most Americans can name but few can even place a date to: World War One. I would recommend Niall Ferguson’s book Pity of War as a signal starting point to rip asunder the veil of historical illiteracy and propaganda that has surrounded that sordid conflict. Woodrow Wilson, one of the worst and most evil Presidents to grace that august den of thieves in the White House, promised in 1916 to never enter the European conflict and promptly started the machinations to steer us into the conflagration and militarize American society. The more you learn about Wilson, the more you see he is the point of origin for so much of our national grief. I have previously mentioned the American Protective League and its un-American activities in stifling, fining and jailing dissidents against Wilson’s war. Wilson also inaugurated the Committee on Public Information which even gave instructions for cartoonists and signed into law the Espionage and Sedition Acts.
Gun rights aren’t absolute, but property rights are
By Trevor Bothwell the Libertarian Examiner
Throughout college and up till about five years ago, I was known to engage in heated political debates with friends, usually at parties around the keg — you know, where most of the world’s problems are never solved. Since then, however, I’ve realized you’re not usually going to change people’s minds, especially when they’re drunk.
On top of that, my New Year’s resolution for the past few years has been to refrain from trying to reason with unreasonable people. I’m sorry if that comes across as an implication that my opinions are usually right, but hey, I’m a libertarian — and an anarcho-capitalist at that — so they usually are. Therefore, I not only no longer seek out debates with political foes, but I can barely tolerate engaging in them in person anymore either.
So that means that if you really care what I think, you’re pretty much stuck reading my blog. It also means that if you decide to solicit my political opinions, there’s a good chance you’ll end up as the subject of a blog post too.
Take, for instance, a colleague of mine, who yesterday asked what I thought about a provocative Calvin Klein billboard ad depicting a threesome. I told him I didn’t think anything about it because I hadn’t seen it, so he described it to me and asked if I thought the government should have a right to prevent companies from using “inappropriate” advertising. I told him of course not, given that I believe the state is completely illegitimate and shouldn’t exist in the first place.
I still love the looks I get when those words spill past my steamy, voluptuous lips. (Ew, that even grossed me out; I should totally be banned from writing that.)
Anyway, once I elicit the deer in the headlights look by telling people the state should be abolished, I have to explain why no act is immoral unless it constitutes an initiation of violence against someone else. Thus, the state is immoral and therefore illegitimate because its very existence is predicated upon violence toward the innocent. My colleague’s response was that this billboard was immoral because his daughters could’ve seen it and been offended. So I asked if his daughters had actually seen it. He said no. In other words, my colleague wasn’t even offended by personally witnessing the billboard ad, much less witnessing it in the presence of his kids; he was just taking offense on behalf of other people who may or may not have been offended by it.
Does anyone really wonder why the state meddles in virtually every aspect of our lives when we buy into tyrannical governance allowing majorities to control the behavior of minorities? After all, when power changes hands so frequently, everyone’s going to be offended by something someone else does, and in fairly short order. Whee, land of the free!
From what I gathered, the Calvin Klein billboard was posted on private property. So against my better judgment, I attempted to explain that property owners have the right to do whatever they like with their property as long as it does no tangible harm to someone else. (In other words, hanging an “offensive” porny picture for everyone to see: OK; hanging a porny picture in such a manner that it falls on someone and causes him physical harm: not necessarily OK.) I attempted to explain this by sharing the example of the Oklahoma state legislature, which a few years ago usurped the property rights of private employers by passing a law forcing them to allow employees to keep firearms in their cars on company property. My colleague believes gun rights are absolute, that one should be allowed to carry them on private property because “your car is your property.”
Sorry, wrong answer. Your property rights end where someone else’s begin. The reason guns are so controversial in the first place is because we have public property, which shouldn’t even exist. The state obviously wants to own as much property as possible because this allows it to justify controlling our behavior more and more and more.
However, arguing that a company doesn’t have the right to set its own gun policies on its own property is akin to arguing that a homeowner doesn’t have the right to prevent others from walking onto his property with a sidearm. My colleague acknowledged that he would indeed have the right to remove me from his property if I decided to, say, set up camp on his front lawn one night with a six pack and an arsenal of automatic rifles, but he just couldn’t grasp the idea that a private company enjoyed that same right. In fact, his response to me was that for me to hold the opinions I do, I’d “have to place property rights above everything else.”
I didn’t record yesterday’s conversation, but I think my response to this comment was, “Well, duh!”
In very simple terms — and yes, this is a very simple concept for people who actually like freedom — there is no such thing as private property if property owners don’t retain full control over its use. Anyone who claims that gun rights somehow supercede property rights in general is full of it (and in all honesty rather confused) — without the right to control the use of your own property, you wouldn’t have the right to carry a gun in the first place.
So, yes, this means that no matter how pro-gun you happen to be – I’m as pro-gun as anyone, inasmuch as this means one has the right to arm himself in public as well as in private – you have no right whatsoever to carry a gun on private property without the permission of the property owner. If you believe otherwise, you by definition must admit that you believe that the initiation of violence is legitimate — and this doesn’t do you much good when private or public criminals decide to come for you.
Fascism IS an Ideology of the Left
The idol of the extreme left-wing, Paul Krugman, wrote yesterday that Fascism is a right-wing ideology. How wrong he is! While the below article argues, correctly, that Fascism is an ideology of the left, the author fails in his analysis of what ideology is the true opponent to statism. Conservatism is not the ideology that truly allows people to be free and enjoy the benefits of a voluntary society.
From the Washington Times:
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin achieved one of the greatest propaganda victories of the 20th century. He convinced the West’s political and intellectual class that communism and fascism are polar opposites. In fact, the very opposite is true: fascism is a variant of left-wing ideology. Marxism and Nazism are political twins, offshoots of totalitarian socialism.
Admittedly, this insight is not mine. Rather, it is that of National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, whose brilliant book, “Liberal Fascism,” has just been issued in paperback. Mr. Goldberg’s central thesis is that, contrary to leftist myth, there is no such thing as “right-wing fascism.”
During its golden age in the 1930s, fascism was widely viewed as a “progressive” ideology that championed economic modernization, active social welfare policies and the Leviathan state. Italian strongman Benito Mussolini and German dictator Adolf Hitler were self-proclaimed men of the left. Both leaders understood that fascism was a form of revolutionary socialism.
What differentiated Hitlerism from Bolshevism was its blood-and-soil ultra-nationalism and emphasis on the primacy of race.
Moreover, fascists sought to tether the private sector to statist social engineering. Fascism competed with Marxist-Leninism to be the successor to parliamentary democracy and capitalism — widely viewed as moribund.
The only real opponent of fascism has been conservatism, which champions small government, free markets, Judeo-Christian civilization and individual rights. It’s no accident Hitler’s greatest foe was British Tory Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Honduras and Iran: How the Web Can Control Government
From Adam Bitely:
Over the last couple of weeks, an interesting phenomenon has developed across the globe. People have been using social networking on the internet to rise up against oppressive governments and steer the direction of debate. Sites like Twitter and Facebook have become powerful tools in this fight.
In Iran, massive protests have been coordinated to fight back against an unfair election. Iranians used Twitter to send protest locations, maps to hospitals, and to alert people where the government goons were launching there counter attacks. Twitter proved to be the most powerful tool in there uprising. While the final result of all this in Iran is yet to be seen, the level of the uprising was none the less remarkable.
Honduras is a perfect case study of how social networking can lead to a people becoming united and informed of what is happening in their government. When Manuel Zelaya was thrown out of the country after attempting to violate the term limits law in the constitution, Facebook became a top source to stay informed of what happened. As a result of all the news and information that was posted on different social networking sites, the country remained united and informed and maintains its democracy without a dictator.
Saturday Must Read: Minimum-wage Folly
From the Boston Globe:
AS IF the recession hasn’t been rough enough on those near the bottom of the economic food chain, fresh bad news is on the way. Beginning July 24, the federal government will be making it more difficult for employers to hire low-skilled and unskilled American workers. Thanks to an ill-advised law enacted with bipartisan support in 2007, the cost of providing an entry-level job to individuals with few skills or minimal experience will be going up by more than 10 percent. Those who cannot find a job paying at least $7.25 an hour will not be permitted to work.
Welcome to the latest chapter of America’s minimum-wage folly.
This will mark the third time in recent years that Washington has forced up the cost of employing low-skilled workers. Last July the minimum hourly wage was increased from $5.85 to $6.55; the July before that, from $5.15 to $5.85. By the end of this month, in other words, the lowest rung on the employment ladder will be nearly 41 percent higher than it was just two years ago. Needless to say, that will put it beyond the reach of many marginal workers, leaving them without work.
96.9% of VA Voters Don’t Support Deeds
From Adam Bitely:
I read this earlier on the Mises Institute blog. I figured I would share it with all of you. This is a very interesting argument that no one on either side is making. It is also important to point out that Deeds’ GOP opponent in the fall has even less support using this logic. Bob McDonnell, the Republican nominee for Governor, was nominated at a convention where only 6-7,000 people came out and voted. McDonnell was unopposed, therefore he was nominated unanimously.
From Mises Economics Blog:
R. Creigh Deeds, a Virginia state senator, won the Democratic primary election for governor yesterday, defeating his two opponents with relative ease. Deeds received about 160,000 votes out of 320,000 cast, just under 50%. State election officials had projected a 5% turnout, but the final number was a bit higher: about 6.5% of all eligible voters. (In Virginia, Republicans could vote in the Democratic primary, as the Republican nomination was not contested.) So in state with about 7.8 million residents, a group of less than 2% chose one of the two men who will become governor come January 2010. This is what government-paid school teachers refer to as the “consent of the governed.”
It would be an interesting experiment if news outlets reported election results in these terms. The Washington Post and other Virginia-area papers touted Deeds’ “blowout” victory, but if the headline read, “98% of voters declined to support Democratic nominee,”* then few would deem that a blowout or landslide. Then again, mainstream news outlets generally aren’t in the business of making the state — and its electoral ceremonies — look foolish.
*Actually, re-examining the election results, Deeds received votes from 3.1% of the total number of Virginia registered voters. So a more accurate headline would read, “96.9% of Voters Don’t Support Virginia Nominee.”
