- Here’s the latest from Jake MacGregor. Just one chapter again this week (the cold weather is rough on Jake’s health). But it’s one that ties some loose threads.
- Silver on “The Free Rider Fallacy.” (For the next time one of your dubious friends brings up one of those endless why-liberty-can’t-work hypotheticals.)
- Sweden. Hey, maybe you could send us some of your government. Well, on second thought …
- Of course you haven’t been following the long, drawn-out wedding and Insta-Divorce (TM) of whichever Kardashian that is … starts with a K, something like that. Me neither. Ahem. And I don’t read Sports Illustrated or watch basketball. Still. This is funny.
- Okay, I volunteer to be the first non-mouse to try this.
- Harold Camping apologizes. Well, sort of. He may be slightly more sincere than your average
used-car salesman televangelist reality-TV star psychopathic serial killer politician. But still no mention of giving back the money to those poor suckers who sold all their worldly goods and handed it all to him.
- C^2 thought blog readers might like 1791 Apparel (NFI). Yes, it’s about the Constitution and yes, we know the Constitution was the original big-gov coup. Still … ya gotta enjoy some of this stuff. To wit:
I think Silver should write a book — or at least edit and collate his essays, articles and comments into a book.
~~~
Re: Purging Cells in Mice Is Found to Combat Aging Ills, the article states, “Senescent cells accumulate in aging tissues, like arthritic knees, cataracts and the plaque that may line elderly arteries.”… AND… “The answer turns out to be that the cells hasten aging in the tissues in which they accumulate.”
I may be dense this am, but which came first: the aging tissue in an area of the body, or the senescent cells that cause aging in that tissue?
I don’t really buy into free riders being a problem. We will all be free riders at times. I suggest we stop keeping score and just get on with life.
I am interested in the research but I still wouldn’t volunteer to be in the first trial, maybe the second. With my luck I’d win the side effects lottery and end up a 200 pound mouse.
I have read about Sweden for a long time. There’s a lot of nominal socialism but they don’t apply it that heavily in the business side so the country isn’t a basket case. They save it for the social which explains the batty ladies. That is a genuinely oppressive idea. Toss the guy in jail while they think about whether or not it happened. Sheesh! I think the Scandinavian countries have always had more of a sense of community and less of a sense of the individual than we take for granted in the US.
The Free Rider is just an extreme analogy used to justify coercive takings. The ability to tax is central to government power and they will never give it up.
As long as analogies are being tortured, why not do one from the opposite side? This is from PJ O’Rourke but I’m paraphrasing. Taxes are not optional. You can go to jail for not paying. Suppose your mother refused to pay and got put in jail. Suppose she tried to escape and got shot. Are you willing to shoot your mother to make sure your high school gets a nicer gym?
Steve
I’m going to guess that if you can hang on another 20 years, you may be able to hang around a lot longer. As far as free riders go,I agree with Kent-we all benefit from others actions at times,by design or accident,and at some point, they will benefit from what I do.
I’m having trouble finding the connection between the free rider story and justifying taxation. The 5th person did not hold a gun to the heads of his 4 neighbors (literally or figuratively) and force them to pay for the defenses. The 4 neighbors came to the agreement of their own free will, and could have dissolved the agreement whenever they chose to. It wasn’t the 5th person’s choice what the other 4 would do. The analogy seems to have more in common with a church potluck than with any tax system I’ve seen. The idea of that story being used to justify taxation is a great big “Huh???”
Could someone explain the supposed connection for the uber-logical/borderline autistic?
Ellendra, Silver’s article was definitely the farthest thing from any justification for taxation, but rather the opposite. The 5th person was truly a “free rider” in this instance, but the other 4 went ahead because the benefit to them was more than the cost. You might have been confused by what was said next about the four who did pay being less willing in the future to deal with this free rider, but that still has nothing to do with forcing him to pay anything or a tax.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Harold’s own bible states clear as day that no man can know the day or the hour.
I have to wonder if the guy really had spent decades trying to read his way into a loophole somewhere around that simple statement – in the meanwhile, has he ever thought about asking his wife?
MamaLiberty: I know Silver’s article wasn’t trying to justify taxation, but it said in the article “This scenario and its variants is offered as justification for coercive taxation, the theft of money from the unwilling citizen.”
I’m trying to figure out how?
I didn’t get that connection either, Ellendra, but you know, reason goes out the window when they try to justify coercion.