Dog Gone at Penigma
Dog Gone at Penigma's JournalHappy 12 days of cliff-mas on 12 12 '12
Happy 12 - 12 - '12 - the twelve days of cliff-mas
Oh LOOK! Continuing the discussion of WalMart and their gun incidents.
It appears we have two more to add to those I've referenced here.
I still have not been able to find anything similar in the frequency of other major retailers.
http://myfox8.com/2012/12/07/attempted-armed-robbery-reported-in-walmart-parking-lot-in-burlington/
BURLINGTON, N.C. — Police say they’re investigating an attempted armed robbery that occurred in the parking lot of a Walmart shopping center in Burlington.
According to police, officers responded shortly after 9:15 p.m. to the parking lot of the Walmart on Garden Road.
Police say the victim told them he was changing a flat tire on his car when the suspect attempted to rob him with a handgun. The victim said he was able to run away from the suspect by taking cover behind another vehicle.
and this one:
http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/story.aspx?id=833555#.UMI2Adf_18M
UPDATE: The vehicle is a white 2002 Ford Taurus with Missouri registration. The family notified the officer with the correction.
Columbia police are searching for a suspect in an armed robbery that began in the West Broadway Wal-Mart parking lot at about 10:24 p.m. Tuesday.
The victim gave the suspect a ride from the Wal-Mart Super Center. Once the victim started to drive, the suspect pulled out a handgun and demanded the victim drive to the victim’s bank to withdraw money.
Sometime during the ride to the bank, the suspect struck the victim on the head and facial area with the handgun, causing minor injuries.
The victim drove to his bank on Broadway and withdrew money. The suspect took the victim's vehicles, keys, wallet and electronics. The victim then exited the vehicle and ran to the police department for assistance.
The broader implications of Pearl Harbor Day
Pearl Harbor changed a lot of things.
Some of them changed instantly.
Some of them changed very slowly.
Some of them are still changing, and some of those changes we are still fighting to keep in place, like our attitudes about contraception.
cross posted from penigma.blogspot.com:
World War II is now sufficiently removed that those are mostly numbers, dry statistics which don't reflect a time when not just a few people on our behalf, but the entire nation committed to the war, to sacrifice, to a significant change in lifestyle with rationing, with women joining the workforce to take the place of men at rates previously unknown because that many men had left to go to war. The changes in our society and culture from this need to adapt for the war effort led to subsequent changes in a wide variety of areas, from attitudes about contraception, women in the work force and changes in the direction of feminism, to ending segregation, to language. A lot of things changed because of that attack on Pearl Harbor.
Some years ago I came across an old stack of records from that era belonging to my family, the kind that played at speeds of 78, 33, or 45 revolutions per minute, so that you had to look at the label, and then adjust the turntable speed, and in the case of the 45, the central spindle around which it rotated.
The entertainment of the era, everything from movies to music, was part of the war experience, with movie directors like Alfred Hitchcock, and Frank Capra working on propaganda projects - yes, of course our side did propaganda too. Hitchcock for example made two French language short films for the British ministry of information, with English subtitles, to encourage the french resistance: Bon Voyage, about an heroic RAF officer who escapes from a Nazi POW camp, and is aided by brilliant resistance organization. L'Aventure Magache (Madagascar) was the second, about (obviously) the activities of fictional resistance operations in Madagascar against Nazis and collaborators.
One of the records I found from World War II had caught my attention because of the funny title, "Flat Foot Floogie with the Floy Floy". I found a youtube video of it being performed by Fred Astaire; apparently this was very popular as dance music during WW II, including in canteens for soldiers.
Read the rest here:
http://penigma.blogspot.com/2012/12/ww-ii.html
Ted Nugent whines on about tools.......
and yet, without access to lethal tools it would be so much less likely that so many people would be killed in murder suicides.
Stand your ground / shoot first
cross posted from penigma
Earlier this year I wrote about this incident in Utah, in the broader context of the Trayvon Martin shooting, which seems applicable after the recent controversial shooting in Florida.
One of the aspect that makes this worth reviewing is that this incident removes any element of incipient or overt racial animus. With that removed we can instead revisit the aspect of stand your ground that encourages opponents to call these shootings 'shoot first', leaving the issue of vigilante justice for consideration. Further it underlies the concern that while there is at least a superficial screening in some states regarding gun carry, in states like Florida that has been demonstrably lax.....which becomes an issue when Florida presumes to issue permits for people who reside entirely in other states than the issuing state. Further, there has been a problem with the incidence of criminal gun use in all states at a higher rate than for non-offending gun carriers with those who are criminals who have successfully petitioned to have their gun rights restored.
If we have people who are not solidly law abiding, which is the case, then stand your ground shootings become more problematic and less defensible. There is an assumption that people shooting someone doing something threatening, dangerous or illegal is themselves a law abiding person. I don't think anyone intended the last person standing in a shootout between two drug dealers, both involved in an illegal transaction gone bad, to be protected just because they can claim the other person shot first (which may or may not be true) where only one side of the story is available. However, there is, imho, too many other incidents where both the parties involved, and the action in which they are involved is highly questionable as legal.
A perfect example of two people, both acting in a manner which appears to be vigilante, claimed the defense of stand your ground. As it turned out, neither party was law abiding and the activity in which they were engaged was highly questionable as well, if not outright illegal.
Here is my original post from March 2012, along with the follow up post on the shootings and participants, also from March 2012.
Vigilante Shoots Vigilante: Utah Incident and Stand Your Ground Law
A 2009 shooting in Utah demonstrates the problems with Shoot First laws, as drafted and promoted by ALEC and conservative Republican legislators that expands the ability to shoot upon belief of threat off the premises of one's own property. This was exactly the kind of incident that law enforcement, prosecutors and opponents of the Minnesota Shoot First law described, and which the ALEC legislators and their associates disregarded. It exemplifies why opponents call these Shoot First, because the questions are only asked and answered after someone has either been shot or shot at.
This incident points up a number of the problems with Shoot First laws, including vigilanteism, the lack of authority or official recognition for some of these self-appointed neighborhood watches that operate contrary to the directions of police, and the failure of the shooters to identify themselves, as well as their lack of authority to act to demand others explain themselves and their actions to them.
One of the aspects of the Trayvon Martin shooting that has intrigued me, but has received relatively little attention in the media storm of attention so far, is the claim by Zimmerman and his neighbor and fellow self-appointed co-captain of their neighborhood watch is the claim that previous crime was committed by black teens. So far, there is no evidence that I can find that supports that claim, and the Sanford PD does not support that claim when queried by local media. The mistaken assumptions of self-appointed vigilante civilians on patrol figure significantly in this Utah shooting, and in the Treyvan Martin shooting.
So far as I can tell at this point, in the Trayvon Martin shooting and in this Utah shooting there were in each neighborhood watch ONLY the two self-appointed captains, but not a larger group of people from the neighborhood. On that basis I challenge whether two guys, in either instance, legitimately constitutes all by themselves a valid group that really is representing a neighborhood.
In both cases, the individual doing the shooting does not appear to have identified themselves as acting on behalf of a group. In both cases, the local police do not appear to have given either pair of men official recognition, and in both cases the local police specifically direct such watch members not to engage people, and not to carry guns while patrolling.
In both cases, people who knew the shooters - and the victims - describe them as nice people. In both instances there is a misguided effort to make a location safe where the vigilantes each overreached any right or authority they had, and the vigilantes end up making the areas LESS safe, one putting a kid in the morgue, and one putting a man in the hospital. I would argue further, that both of these situations with a distraught shooter were cases where there was no authority for the vigilantes to challenge anyone, where no person who they followed, criminal or not, had any obligation to answer their interrogations, to stop or to change what they were doing. Vigilantes mistakenly think they can act as if they were police. They have no training, they have no authority, they have no accountability - for example, they are under no obligation to identify themselves (and don't). We do not allow cops to act like this, and we should not allow these deluded if well-meaning citizens to do so. They are clearly dangerous - to innocent people, and to each other.
Both sides in the incident were involved in protection shootings involving what they believed was an incident of self-defence. In Utah, this resulted in one man arrested, and another in the hospital. Had the same event occurred under the authority of the Shoot First law as it exists in Florida and a number of other 'red'/ conservative lax gun regulation states, no arrest or prosecution would have occurred. The shooting of a man who was not a criminal and who was not committing a crime would have been completely legal under the expanded territory provision. This is what is wrong with extending the Castle doctrine to public places, to any place outside one's own actual home or 'Castle'. The second amendment under the Heller decision ONLY recognizes a right to a firearm in one's home; to go beyond that as the Shoot First / Stand Your Ground laws do clearly is not a second amendment right, and just as clearly these laws resulted in a pattern of abuses, the same abuses that law enforcement and prosecutors predicted.
Here is a local news account of the incident from KSL TV and Radio in Utah (the original story has video and a link to the audio of the 911 call after the shooting):
Bluffdale man shot while on neighborhood watchBLUFFDALE -- A late night altercation left one man fighting to survive. The shooting happened Tuesday night in a Bluffdale neighborhood. The victim, authorities say, is a member of the local neighborhood watch; the shooter is a resident of the neighborhood.
Over the past few weeks there have been a number of vehicle burglaries and vandalism to vacant properties in the Bluffdale neighborhood. Tuesday night, 36-year-old David Serbeck and the homeowner's association president decided to patrol the neighborhood to see if they could find anyone involved.
Sometime before 11 p.m., the HOA president and Serbeck, who was driving the vehicle at the time, came across four teenage girls walking down the street near 1570 West and 15500 South (Iron Horse Boulevard).
The two men drove next to the girls, trying to question them about the crimes, thinking they might be involved. Their vehicle matched the description of a car used in the earlier burglaries.
Reginald Campos was arrested for attempted murder by the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.
The girls got into the car and drove away, but SerbeckHOA president followed. Police say they never identified themselves as members of neighborhood watch.
"The SUV does some funny maneuvers with the car, gets behind them, starts following them. This freaks them out because they think the older men are stalking them," said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Don Hutson.
The girls became upset and of them called her father, 43-year-old Reginald Campos, and said the men were stalking them.
When the girls arrived home, Campos sent three of the girls inside and he and his daughter went looking for the two men and found them in an SUV a few blocks away.
Lt. Don Hutson said, "They both got out of the vehicle. They were both armed with handguns ... words were exchanged, there was a verbal altercation, and unfortunately Mr. Campos, who is the father of the young lady, fired two rounds, possibly three rounds, at Mr. Serbek."
Authorities say Serbeck was hit with one of the bullets in the left shoulder and it traveled near his spine.
"We received the initial call, and essentially it was a 911 call from a gentleman who said, ‘I've shot somebody, I need the police,'" Hutson said.
"I just had someone chasing my daughter. And when I confronted them, they pulled out a gun and I shot him," Campos tells the 911 dispatcher. "He's down on the ground. He needs an ambulance. He's hurt. He's down."
Serbeck was flown by a helicopter to Intermountain Medical Center in very critical condition.
Neighbors say Campos was just protecting his daughter.
"Reggie is a decent, loving husband; loving neighbor, a good guy, always looking out for, in particular, our little street," said KanaMarie Poulson.
Neighbors close to Campos say they knew nothing about a local neighborhood watch.
Serbek's friends say he'd been patrolling the last few months because of recent burglaries. He has a military background, but mostly a calm demeanor.
"It's going to be very debilitating for the neighborhood to have such an all-star person like that be hurt this way, and his family," said Sheryl Babcock.
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office arrested Campos for attempted murder. The Sheriff's office says Campos did not have a concealed weapons permit, but Serbeck did.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney will screen the case.
Also from the same news media in Salt Lake Utah, in a related story, another parallel to the Sanford Florida police department's position:
SLCO Sheriff's Office: When on neighborhood watch, leave guns at home
SALT LAKE CITY -- Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies say they have no record the man shot Tuesday night while paroling a Bluffdale neighborhood was part of a neighborhood watch group in the area.
Though neighborhood groups can organize on their own, law enforcement agencies say they don't sponsor the kind of program it appears this neighborhood had.
Related:
Bluffdale man shot while on neighborhood watch
A Bluffdale man is in critical condition after being shot while out on neighborhood patrol. The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office says it was because of a big misunderstanding.
Neighborhood watch is a valuable program, but deputies say weapons have no place in it.
Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office Crime Prevention Deputy Levi Hughes said, "We recommend you do not. As a matter of fact, we tell you, you should not carry firearms." He continued, "If you have a gun, sometimes people will feel more empowered. Problem is they don't have the training, knowledge or experience to handle a confrontation that would require a gun."
The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office sponsors neighborhood watch groups and offers training for members.
"We come to their homes. We meet with them. We talk to them about the things they need to watch out for, things they need to do to protect themselves," Hughes said.
He says the man who was shot, 36-year-old David Serbek, was not part of a sponsored program. The sheriff's office stopped sponsoring mobile patrol about 10 years ago after a shooting and chase involving mobile patrol members.
The sheriff's office says the situation Tuesday night could have been handled differently by Serbeck and the shooter, 43-year-old Reggie Campos. They say a cell phone, not a gun, is the best weapon.
"This is an example of what's happened before and could happen to you if you take the law into your own hands," Hughes said.
Investigators say Serbeck had a concealed carry permit; Campos did not but legally owned his gun.
Gun lobbyist Clark Aposhian says gun training emphasizes disengagement techniques. He says that's always the first step.
"Your first thought should always be, when faced in an encounter like this, is to disengage. Try to step back try to move away. Even if you have a firearm, you don't always win," Aposhian said. Other law enforcement agencies do sponsor mobile patrol programs. Salt Lake City Police started theirs in 1993 and say it's been very successful. Their policy prohibits any weapons.
If you are interested in learning more about neighborhood watch programs in your area, click on the links below. If your area is not listed, contact your local law enforcement agency for more information:
The outcome of the Utah shooting was not decided until the summer of 2010; had this case gone to court in Florida, under their more expansive Castle Doctrine law, the outcome would have been different, based on similar case decisions in Florida courts, both before and since 2010.
From the same KSL station in Utah, in an op ed piece at the conclusion:
Campos and Serbeck
August 16th, 2010 @ 5:21am
A recent highly-publicized trial offers a sobering reminder to those who choose to carry guns of the responsibility they have to keep their emotions in check when a weapon is at hand.
There they were, two armed men facing each other on a Bluffdale street in July 2009. Only they know exactly what happened that night. In the end, a jury convicted Reginald Campos who was portrayed as a respected family man of attempted murder. He fired a bullet that severed the spine of David Serbeck who was on a neighborhood watch patrol. Campos claimed he did it in self-defense. Serbeck said he didn't provoke what he got.
Our intent is not to rehash details of the trial. Again, only those involved know who said what and how events unfolded. Sadly, one man is headed for prison, while the other will spend his life confined to a wheelchair.
These men were not criminals, but generally respected citizens not unlike thousands of other Utahns who legally own and carry guns.
The story of Campos and Serbeck is cause for contemplation by those who choose to arm themselves. Indeed, each has a responsibility to become properly trained along with having an understanding of the potential consequences of carrying a gun.
******
States like Florida, and any other states that either have laws like Florida or are considering adding them should learn the lessons of these incidents, in order to stop repeating them. Apparently we do not as yet have a high enough body count from gun toting shooting-eager vigilantes yet to get rid of these shoot first laws. It begs the question, when is it enough, when will the NRA and ALEC instigated legislators decide to stop taking blood money for this kind of legislation and admit it is a failure.
Update on the Vigilante on Vigilante shooting in Utah
It's funny what you find when you do an update check on a previous story, as I sometimes do. I found this little news story by accident, but it is worth sharing here.
For those of you who are curious, here is the original vigilante on vigilante shooting post I wrote, from earlier this month. It is worth noting that unlike Florida, Utah while too pro-gun in many respects, was sane enough as a state to limit castle doctrine and shoot first laws to a person's home. They still give more permission to shoot people to less regulated, less accountable, less trained civilians than they do to police but at least they restrict it to a person's own property. But this is after all still Utah, which has an interesting history when it comes to gun loving conservative older men and much younger or underage women, not unlike the conservative culture of perversion I wrote about here in Grand Marais, Minnesota. It appears Utah is not so different from rural Minnesota.
This conviction does not justify the man who went to jail for taking his gun and leaving his home to go looking for this self-appointed neighborhood watch captain and then shooting him. It does argue for his belief that this gun violence victim and his buddy weren't following the car full of girls because they were behaving illegally, as they claimed, but rather that he had a fetish for young teenage girls.
That the gun shot victim tried to blame HIS victim for his conduct is characteristic of a certain mentality that blames the victim instead of the legally and morally responsible adult bad guy taking the responsibility for his actions. What the following AP story fails to mention is the gun violence victim now in a wheelchair had LEFT his neighborhood where he claimed he was fulfilling his neighborhood watch duties, to follow aggressively the car full of young teenage girls.
You can read the story here, from the AP:
Utah man paralyzed in neighborhood watch shooting convicted of sex with neighbor girl, 17
SALT LAKE CITY — A 39-year-old man paralyzed in a Bluffdale neighborhood watch shooting faces up to 15 years in prison after he was convicted of having sex with a 17-year-old neighbor girl.
A jury found David Serbeck guilty on Thursday of three felony counts of unlawful sex with a minor. Sentencing is May 25.
Serbeck denied the accusations, saying the teen, who is now 22, had a crush on him and wanted to impress her friends.
The alleged victim testified she was 17 when she and Serbeck had sex three times in his Magna home in 2007.
Serbeck denied the accusations, saying the teen, who is now 22, had a crush on him and wanted to impress her friends.
Serbeck was shot and paralyzed in July 2009 by Reginald Campos, who suspected Serbeck of aggressively following his teen daughter in an SUV while patrolling the neighborhood. Campos was sentenced to up to life in prison. ****************** I wonder if Campos and Serbeck will be serving their time in the same prison. That could be awkward.
About Social Security being 'on the table
I wrote this originally back in 2011, but in view of the negotiating over the 'grand bargain', it is worth cross posting here from penigma.blogspot.com,
because the GOP and the Tea Party are still trying to do the same thing at the end of 2012 that they were doing after the 2010 election cycle. That we note their failure to come up with anything new, different, or better is important after the latest election cycle, if we don't want a repeat of the last 2 years from them. It's time to tell them to move on, or move on without them or in spite of them. Some things become old and quaint and charming with age, some things become better with age, and some things simply become tedious, like the GOP thinking.
Who Spent the Social Security Trust Fund Money?
Social Security should have a surplus. Republicans and Tea Partiers, like Rand Paul, tell us the money was spent, and they want to change benefits and the retirement age. They hate what they like to call 'entitlements'; they never liked them. Like unions, they have been looking for pretexts to get rid of it.
So..........where is the money, and who spent it? Having spent it, why the hell do they think it is acceptable to simply say, so sad, too bad, and for the government not to pay it back?
Lets take a look at when the money started being spent. That would take us back to George H.W. Bush. It continued under the next president, Bill Clinton; but to his credit, Clinton presided over a booming economy, and handed over a surplus to the Shrub, George 'Dubya' Bush. And that appears to be where the spending went nuts, blowing the balance of the Social Security money with his wars and most of all, with his ill-conceived tax cuts ---- the ones that benefit the wealthy very few, so very, very much more than anyone else.
Let me remind you how much the Democrats had a different taxation program than do the Republicans - and Tea Partiers:
So lets take a look at the money, the missing money, and who paid in that money. Because the people who paid in that money to Social Security have every right to be angry, and to demand that the money be repaid rather than be told they are out of luck.
That would be........the baby boomers. There are quite a lot of baby boomers, they are no small demographic. They are aging, and as they do, they are a force to be reckoned with at the ballot box.
To reprise the history:
Social Security is Short of Funds Because Politicians Spent It
Fund should have $3.7 surplus in 2018 from what baby boomers have paid
"The baby boomers have contributed more to Social Security than any other generation," says economist Allen W. Smith. "They have prepaid the cost of their own retirement, in addition to paying the cost of the generation that preceded them."
Smith points out that the baby boomers have kept their end of the bargain, which was proposed by the Greenspan Commission and enacted into law in 1983. "The higher taxes that were part of the 1983 'solution' to the baby boomer problem have generated the annual Social Security surpluses anticipated so far, and they will continue to do so until 2018," Smith said.
According to Smith, by 2018, the baby boomers will have paid enough extra taxes to have generated a $3.7 trillion reserve in the trust fund, which would be sufficient to pay full benefits until 2042 when the youngest of the boomers would be 78 years old.
"Despite these promises, President Bush has been raiding the trust fund since he took office," Smith said, "and he no longer tries to conceal what he has done. In an effort to muster support for his privatization proposal, he has been openly admitting to the raiding of the fund."
"There may be 'no trust' when it comes to Bush's handling of Social Security money," Smith argued, "but there most certainly is a trust fund. That fund is empty today because President Bush has used the money to pay for tax cuts, the war in Iraq, and many other programs. So, instead of trying to blame the baby boomers for Social Security's current problems, Bush should stop spending Social Security money on other programs and repay the money he has already spent."
As one of those who has been contributing those higher tax contributions into that trust fund, I want that money. I will not accept being told "too bad we spent it, you are S O L" by Republicans and Tea Partiers like Rand Paul. Pay it back, pay it back NOW, and if that means you have to end the damnable Bush Tax Cuts to the wealthy to do that, I don't care. The wealthy may try to keep you on a short leash, Rand Paul, but that is your problem, and your cronies problem.
Don't even think about making it my problem. I vote. I write. I am willing along with the baby boomers to go boom on your behind.
Let that spending of the Social Security Trust Fund become part of the George W. Bush failed presidential legacy. Let the Boomers take the lead in condemning him to history; I'm sure we won't be the last, or the only ones to do so. And Tea Partiers, like Rand Paul? Be on notice, about that missing money? Better start coming up with ways to pay it back, not change the goal posts on us.
Excellent comparison of the Republican versus Democratic administrations and economic outcomes
I found this to be an excellent summation contrasting and comparing how Republican and Democratic governance has operated. There are some consistent trends in areas like deficits, job creation, etc.
I actually found myself at my computer standing up to give this author and site a standing ovation of one. I hope those who read it will join me in making that a broader round of applause for an excellent pulling together of resources and analysis.
This is an excerpt:
You will often hear critics say that Bush left office with a $454 billion deficit. That was the deficit at the end of 2008 (12/31/2008). Then what accounts for the period from the end of December until the President is sworn into office in late January? Any calculation that begins when President Obama took office or at the end of 2009 (because the President had been in office for a year), is just flat-out wrong.
Here’s how it works...the fiscal year is from October 1 through September 30th. So a President governs for his first 9 months under the budget of the preceding administration.
At the end of the Bush fiscal year, September 30, 2009, the deficit was $1,417,121.
Obama’s first fiscal year, September 30, 2010, the deficit was $1,294,090. The deficit went down!
Obama’s second fiscal year September 30, 2011, the deficit was $1,298,614.
Obama’s third fiscal year August 31, 2012 (latest available), the deficit was $1,164,373.
Unemployment Rates
Clearly Democratic Presidents create more jobs per year than Republican presidents. Unemployment rates are higher under Republicans....it’s just a fact.
Johnson 1966-1969 average unemployment rate of 3.7%.
Clinton 1994-2001 average unemployment rate of 4.9%.
Kennedy 1962-1965 average unemployment rate of 5.2%.
Nixon 1970-1977 average unemployment rate of 6.3%.
Bush 1990-1993 average unemployment rate of 6.7%.
Carter 1978-1981 average unemployment rate of 6.7%.
Reagan 1982-1989 average unemployment rate of 7.3%.
Note: In most cases I have not listed numbers and percentages for President Obama because agencies take so long to formulate the numbers, I found I was unable to verify any of the figures.
http://www.thepragmaticpundit.com/2012/05/democrats-v-republicans-debt-and.html
Libertarian Economics, socialism, and Neo-con militarism
cross-posted from penigma.blogspot.com;
I'm in good company being critical of neo-con hawkishness
Ludwig von Mises is a hero for libertarians and Austrian school economists on the extreme right wing. His work is built on the foundational belief of praxeology and the action axiom that relies on people making decisions logically and using reason.
We know this is not the case, we know that many decisions are made illogically, impulsively, emotionally, or simply wrongly based on false assumptions and inaccurate information. In the case of supply side, trickle-down, horse and sparrow economics, no matter how many decades of utter, epic failure are the result, we still have Grover Norquist, and effectively the entire GOP and Tea Party advocating something unreasonable, illogical, and ignoring that it economies that redistribute wealth to a small percentage of rich people, and that create the kind of wealth and income gap that we have in this country - again - inevitably fail to grow their GDP, and are more prone to fraud, corruption, swindling, and catastrophic boom and bust cycles. In short, right wing economics create economies with every possible flaw and blight, and little growth at best, and large contraction at worst.
Mises went running for the U.S. when he became afraid that the Nazis were going to invade Switzerland. They didn't; but that was only because Swiss neutrality was useful for them, and they planned to get around to it further into the war. What I oppose is neo-con militarism, not the usual centrist moderate approach to appropriate military roles - like militarily opposing Nazis.
Mises was of course the mentor of von Hayek, and an extreme right wing nut in his own right, contributing to hate groups like the radical right wing John Birch society. This is ironic, given that the Birchers are anti-Semitic, and Mises was an Austrian Jew, but Mises was anti-socialism (like Hayek, sort of, except when they wanted their own government 'hand outs').
The reality is that there ARE some things where war is requisite to economies and societies. Had this nation not opposed the Nazis, we could not have simply defeated them through economic action. Sadly, Mises, and his legacy, the Mises Institute, which has close ties to political figures like Rand Paul, promote ideology without requiring that it function successfully in the real world.
This is as true of Mises work as it is of the Libertarians who love him, or the idiot Tea Party who tend to be functionally illiterate on the subjects of history and economics.
For example, it is perfectly consistent with the positions of the Mises Institute, which are supposed to be true to the thinking of Ludwig von Mises, to be in many respects antagonistic towards democracy. It is not hard to understand why the extreme right wing would be comfortable with voter suppression or election tampering, or even election rigging, if they distrust and oppose our democratic process.
from Wikipedia:
The Institute is generally critical of statism and democracy, with the latter being described in Institute publications as "coercive",[16] "incompatible with wealth creation"[17] "replete with inner contradictions"[18] and a system "of legalized graft."[16]
If you view the desirable goal to be accumulation or creation of wealth for a few, and any government regulation which resist the redistribution of wealth to only a few people, then everyone else becomes expendable, and it becomes reasonable to try to exclude them from participation.
Of course the reality is that those economies have been most effective that are combination economies - a mix of capitalism and socialism. They have the strongest, most efficient and productive economies with solid growth and productivity; but they also tend to be somewhat socialist in providing good public education, social safety nets, free universal health care, and higher taxation rates than those favored by the extreme right. They tend to fund their infrastructure sufficient to maintain and expand it, and they tend to have strong labor advocacy and participation in their economies. Unions are included in government; government does not try to eradicate it. The result is as much or more freedom, a healthier, more productive and better educated population, and healthier and more functional societies as measured by metrics like ethnic and gender equality.
As I noted in a recent post, I find the laissez-faire capitalism of Libertarians to be a thin disguise for justifying institutionalizing inequality, by trying to decry it as 'socialism' when what it really is amounts to rapacious wealth redistribution to the rich, and creating a lack of freedom, equality, and economic growth. It is antithetical and oppositional to 'we the people'. We is you-and-I, not I, at the expense or inequality of You, (singular OR plural).
The thinking of Rand Paul, and those like him in his supportive base, come as much from the ideology of the Austrian School as a jaundiced view of world history and government.
F-You, Rand Paul, and the Tea Party you rode in on
Either people are equal, or they are not.
Women are people.
Corporations are not people.
Profile Information
Member since: Sun Oct 14, 2012, 08:55 AMNumber of posts: 433
