Property rights get trampled on by socialist governments

Over at Mangled thoughts comes several disturbing accounts of how branches of government are over-regulating what people can do with their land and property. When you regulate what a person can do with their property, you dilute their property rights completely.

This morning there was a dawn raid on a property in N.S.W. Officers of a deprartment had called in the police and jointly raided the property.

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In a field of a farm in Victoria, a farmer discovered it has a surface layer of granite salts. It has value as material for road making mix. Naturally, he decided he would mine it, sell it and then return the field to regular production uses. To do so, however, though it is his property, under the Junta’s own stalinist `environmental laws’ and those of the local council, he had to inform the goon squad of what he would do. The goon squad with ACF Pol Potians intow, tresspassed onto his property, and it is tresspass, and, lo, there, in the field were tufts of `native grass’. Well, that was it, he was issued, you can not mine the field notice or, we will throw you into prison.
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The Prime Minister’s brother is, of course, defending a crimninal action against him, for the matter, of the removal of a stand of ugly `native’ trees on his property in N.S.W. Which were a fire hazard and was a snake attractant, and which stood near his care-taker’s house and neither the care-taker nor the Prime Minister’s brother wished to see the children of the care-taker bitten by bloody snakes nor the house burned to the ground by fire.
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It is unbeleivable that a party with the name Liberal party should be as avidly addicted to National Socialism as their opponents in the ALP are. It is outrageous.

Gotta agree wholeheartedly. Despite the media's best efforts to portray the Liberal party as the party of laissez-fair capitalism, they are nothing but socialist democrats.

The wierd and the wonderful

Some amusing links here:

1/ One Red Paper Clip - This is what happens when a guy sets himself the goal of trading a red paper clip for a house within a 12 month period. And after 9 months, he is doing quite well.

2/ Help Win This Bet - A guy made a bet with his girlfriend, that he could setup any website and have 2 million visitors. And today he crossed that line, hes up to 2,400,000 hits. What do you think the bet is gonna cost his girlfriend ?

If I could not make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, I would agree that I was an idiot; however, if I could make a website to get 2,000,000 hits, she would have a menage a trois (that's a threesome to you non french-speakers) with me and another girl. I thought she was kidding at the time, but then she said she was so sure of herself, that she would even put it in writing.

And then today's photo on Engrish is a classic :

Surging oil prices reveal a wave of stupidity

That would be my headline for the week. As oil prices have hit record highs over the last week, the airwaves have been buzzing with idiotic discussions. Angry consumers have bashed oil firms over the outcomes, and demanded more regulation in the oil market. Some have demanded investigations into pricing. Very few have discussed the level of tax and regulation that is already placed on the shoulders of the oil industry.

The Mises institute has a great summary of the state of the oil industry in the US, which is being crippled by regulation:

Oil refiners have complied with congressional directives using either Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) or ethanol. (Furthermore, MTBE has been found to leach into water tables, creating taste and odor problems, making it less desirable as an additive because of the liability involved. Congress has refused to grant oil refiners immunity from MTBE lawsuits, thus throwing a sop to the trial lawyers' lobby. Ethanol, on the other hand, cannot be moved via pipeline and, thus cannot be mixed into gasoline at the refinery, unlike MTBE.) Both additives supposedly help fuels burn more cleanly (that is, burn more completely, leaving less waste), but their effectiveness is questionable:

Oxygen helps gasoline burn more completely, reducing harmful tailpipe emissions from pre-1984 motor vehicles. In more modern vehicles, the emissions reduction is negligible.

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So, let us trace this sorry story to its most recent beginnings. (1) Congress requires new fuel mixtures during the warm weather months which are costly and disrupt available supplies, but those mixtures do not make the air any cleaner; (2) The President and Congress decide to invade Iraq and now are making threats toward Iran, thus guaranteeing political instability and violence in the largest oil-producing region of the world; (3) Congress requires even more ethanol mixtures, despite the fact that it disrupts supplies and ethanol manufacturers cannot meet the goals; (4) gasoline prices spike, and members of Congress call for arrest and imprisonment of oil executives.

Not surprisingly, almost all of the anger from consumers — if editorial cartoons are an indication of the direction of the rage — is pointed toward oil companies and their executives. On the other hand, members of Congress, which created this current crisis, are calling for the near-destruction of oil companies, imprisonment of executives, as well as a whole new set of taxes that would further reduce available fuel supplies — all in the name, of course, of lowering gasoline prices.

Everyone loves a good murderer

What else can I conclude from the never-ending popularity of Che Guevera amongst many youths and celebrities ?

There are so many T-shirts and posters out there with the famous image of Che as if it were a bold fashion statement. Carlos Santana wore a Che T-shirt as he played at last years Oscars. Robert Redford paid homage to Che in last year's film, The Motorcycle Diaries, which focussed only on the earlier years of Che's life as a travelling youth in South America, with no hint or mention of the murderous fanatic that he went on to become.

Finally, someone in Hollywood who actually knows a thing or two about the despicable Cuban leadership has the courage to make a film telling the truth about Che:

Movie star Andy Garcia's controversial new movie The Lost City has been banned in parts of South America because it depicts romantic revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in a terrible light. The Ocean's Twelve star spent years trying to get the project made, only for film festival bosses and cinema chains to shun the movie because it tells the truth about the Marxist guerilla leader and the Cubans slayed as he fought to revolutionize the country and hand Fidel Castro leadership.

Garcia, who wrote, directed and stars in the film, says, "There have been festivals that wouldn't show it. That will continue to happen from people who don't want to see the image of Che be tarnished and from people who support the Castro regime. He still has a lot of supporters out there. Some people think Castro is a savior, that he looks out for the kids and the poor. It's a bunch of hogwash. In the 45 years since Castro came to power, Cuba has been in the top three countries for human rights abuses for 43 of those years. People turn a blind eye to his atrocities."

Most young people probably don't know about Che and his legacy. He is widely seen as a freedom fighter, a symbol of revolution and idealism. But he was nothing but a communist thug committed to violence. Here's one telling quote of his:

“I don't know if the Cuban revolution will survive or not. It's difficult to say. But [if it doesn't] . . . don't come looking for me among the refugees in the embassies. I've had that experience, and I'm not ever going to repeat it. I will go out with a machine gun in my hand, to the barricades. . . I'll keep fighting to the end.”

Paul Berman has a superb essay about the man:

He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on.

Cartoon of the day

Via Cox and Forkum:

Crazed fundamentalist watch

An angry mob assembled outside an Israeli embassy and chanted the following slogans:

Israeli Zionists, What do you say?
How many women have you raped today?
Israeli Zionists, What do you say?
How many children have you killed today?

Zionists, Zionists You will pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!

We are not your average Muslims, We are the Muslims of Was al Sunnah
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Israel won’t last long ... Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel

So where did these barbaric promises of nuclear genocide occur ? Pakistan ? France ? Indonesia ? Nope.. New York !

But don't worry, this is all just a natural outcome of the process called multiculturalism.

Johann Hari is making sense for a change

The only areas where libertarians and the left seem to agree on is social policy. Johann Hari has a post supporting the legalisation of drugs, with the following paragraph showing how futile prohibition is:

Don’t take my leftie-legalizer’s word for it. Listen to Michael Levine, who had a thirty year career as one of America’s most distinguished federal narcotics agents. In his time, he led a thousand raids like last Saturday’s, as well as infiltrating some of the biggest drugs cartels in the world – and he now explains, in sad tones, that he wasted his time. In the early 1990s, he was assigned to eradicate drug-dealing from one New York street corner – an easy enough task, surely? But he quickly learned that even this was physically impossible, given the huge demand for drugs in cities like London and New York. He calculated that he would need one thousand officers to be working on that corner for six months to make an impact – and there were only 250 drugs agents in the whole city.
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When Levine rose undercover to the top of la Mafia Cruenza, one of the biggest drug-dealing gangs in the world, he learned, as he puts it, “that not only did they not fear our war on drugs, they actually counted on it… On one undercover tape-recorded conversation, a top cartel chief, Jorge Roman, expressed his gratitude for the drug war, calling it ‘a sham put on the American tax-payer’ that was ‘actually good for business’.” He was right – prohibition is the dealer’s friend. Legalization is his greatest enemy. Shocked, Levine recounted this to his bosses, who explained yeah, we know, but we have to keep pointlessly going through the motions of a drugs war because the alternative is “politically unacceptable.”

Politicians love power

John Howard was on talkback radio this morning, as 3AW host Neil Mitchell interviewed him over fuel prices and the GST excise on petrol. The federal government charges some enormous amount of tax on petrol, something like 39.2 cents per litre. On top of this, they charge 10% GST, and this component gets given to the state governments so they can go blow it on some pet projects.

The cost of petrol has risen 10% in the last month. Neil Mitchell, who is no genius, figured out that the GST revenue collected must have also risen by 10%, therefore the states are getting more money and us poor motorists are doing it tough with these high petrol prices.
So of course Neil suggested that the Federal and State governments agree to either cut or remove the GST excise to give relief to us motorists.

So far so good.

The PM defended the status quo by saying something along the lines of "Well, the states might be making more money from fuel taxes, but that is more than offset by the loss of revenue from decreased spending in other sectors". He elaborated how consumers have to spend more of their income on petrol and therefore spend less on other items which are also taxed with GST - i.e restaurants, clothes, holidays, movies etc. The PM explained that its not like the government is making more money just because fuel prices rise.

And how does Neil Mitchell handle this excuse ? Being a total incompetent, he doesn't think it through and just accepts it. Meanwhile, I'm sitting eating breakfast and after 20 seconds, I think to myself.

Hang on a sec. The PM suggests the whole situation is revenue-neutral. So why not just scrap the fuel tax ? By his reasoning, people will have more money to spend on other goods and the government will get more tax revenue from those items !

The answer is simple. Government loves money and power. Once they have it, they will use any excuse not to give it up. Global warming, terrorism, the environment, education needs, the national interest, public arts and sports, museums, defence, police, droughts, cyclones and ON and ON and ON.

Heres a pop quiz for every taxpayer out there.

• Do you think politicians know how to spend your money better than you do ?
  
• Do you trust politicians to only take enough tax to spend on things that are essential and benefit you, in the most efficient way possible ?
  
• Do you trust politicians to not collect a single dollar in tax than is absolutely necessary so that they can finance the essential public services ?
• Do you think politicians have a basic understanding of economics ?

For me, the 4 questions above give me the same answer 4 times over - No.

Peace in the middle east ?

With Hamas lording over the Palestinian people, the Iranian ayatollahs chasing nukes, and Iraqi sectarian violence continuing, the prospects of peace in the middle east are dwindling. But at least on the Israeli-Palestinian front, there is one reason to be optimistic - from Israeli writer, Etgar Keret, comes this gem:

"The hell it isn't," my father replied. "Listen, we've had so many Rabins and Pereses and Begins, people who tried to galvanize everyone with their charisma and energy. None of them ever really managed to bring us peace. I'm telling you, what this region needs is Olmert, someone who'll bore us and the Palestinians so much that we fall into a kind of stupor. A stupor that's a kind of co-existence. A co-existence that's a kind of peace. Forget all that 'peace of the courageous' stuff Barak and Arafat tried to sell us. Even a child knows that courageous people go into battle, they don't make peace. What this region needs is a peace of the tired, and Olmert's the man to put us all to sleep."