Category: Uncategorized

Patti LaBelle hosts an all-star lineup of Motown, rhythm and blues, soul and disco artists including the Commodores, Sister Sledge and Heatwave.

The TV special “My Music: Superstars of Seventies Soul Live” first aired on March 6, 2004 in the United States.

According to Copilot: Transference is a psychological phenomenon where individuals project feelings, based on past experiences, onto someone else in the present.

Laptop Deniers in Delaware: The Media Shrugs as the Biden Laptop is Authenticated in Federal Court

After Hillary Clinton’s campaign invented “evidence” on Russian collusion in the 2016 election, her supporters then rallied to claim in the lead up to the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden Laptop evidence was Russian disinformation.

Rather than argue that Hunter Biden did not knowing lie on a gun registration document, his supporters should argue that ATF rules on gun ownership violate the 2nd Amendment.

As reported in FFF Daily, May 31, 2024.

Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be “our interests,” we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – “When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”

– Herbert Spencer, Facts and Comments [1902]

Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. He is referring to the Second Anglo-Afghan War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War

From a Perry Willis email – 4/16/2024

Someone posted this meme on Facebook…

Socialism is the fire department saving your house. Capitalism is the insurance company denying your claim.

I make the needed corrections here…

Socialism

Socialism is when the workers own the means of production (businesses, factories). 

This can be done through a co-op, stock purchases, or state nationalization. 

Only the last version requires force. The coercive version of socialism has led to poverty (and often mass death) everywhere it’s been tried.

A welfare state is not socialism, though socialist governments will also be welfare states. Many people are confused about this. For instance…

The United States is a welfare state, but not a socialist one. 

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s many European states had strong elements of socialism in the form of large nationalized companies and industries. Most of these nationalized firms were sold off in the 80s because of poor performance. 

People like Bernie Sanders didn’t get the message. They still think the Scandinavian countries are socialist. They’re not. They’re capitalist free markets with robust social safety nets. You might call this a mixed economy if you want, but it’s definitely not socialism. Venezuela and North Korea are socialism. 

Fire fighting

A fire company can be volunteer, tax-funded, or commercial. All three work. None of these means of providing firefighting services have anything to do with traditional socialism.

Capitalism

Capitalism is about delaying gratification (saving money) so as to accumulate capital. This capital is then used to buy tools that expand production. Expanded production permits increased consumption later. This is why capitalist societies have better standards of living than socialist nations. 

The production tools capitalism funds can either be purchased directly (as with a journeyman carpenter buying a saw) or indirectly by investing in a stock company that assembles tools in a factory. 

Anyone who has savings or investments is a capitalist.

Insurance claims

Some capital is invested in insurance companies. Most insurance companies pay legitimate claims most of the time. If they did not do so no one would buy the product, and if no one bought the product no one would invest capital in it.

Conclusion

A  lot of people talk a lot of rot about socialism and capitalism. They should stop. 

January 30, 2024

https://perrywillis.substack.com/p/palestinian-public-opinion-is-horrifying

excerpt:

Which side would provide better laws? 

There is no contest. The Arab citizens of Israel have more freedom and justice than the Arab citizens of a Palestinian state would have. That means Israel should rule. Please understand…

The “free Palestine” slogan is an oxymoron. A Palestinian state would be an authoritarian hellhole. 

The Palestinians have an honor culture with heaping helpings of Islamic fundamentalism and jihad enthusiasm. 

We are constantly told that peace will come if Israel tears down its settlements in the West Bank and agrees to create a Palestinian state there, and in Gaza. But Israel did exactly that in Gaza and Northern Samaria (on the West Bank) in 2005. This action created a de facto Palestinian state in Gaza. But no peace resulted. 

January 15, 2024

https://perrywillis.substack.com/p/can-i-reduce-the-israel-palestine

excerpt

Hamas defeated its Palestinian rival Fatah in 2007 and took complete control of Gaza. Hamas then attacked Israel the following year. Israel defeated Hamas and signed a peace agreement with them. But the peace agreement didn’t bring peace. 

Hamas attacked Israel again in 2012, 2014 and 2021. Israel retaliated and destroyed a large part of Gaza. Hamas then signed another peace treaty with Israel, but then Hamas massacred and raped Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/tgif-the-right-to-move/

If people individually own themselves and have a right to be free of aggressive force, then they have a right to change their location in ways consistent with other people’s rights. Whether you call this moving around relocating, emigrating, or immigrating, doesn’t much matter. The default position is that each individual may rightfully move to somewhere else permanently or temporarily.

Inside the United States, nobody questions this. People freely move from state to state, etc., sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. They need no one’s permission.

Why should things be different when we talk about countries rather than smaller jurisdictions and when the individuals who do the moving are not recognized as citizens of the destination country? An opponent of the freedom to move might begin by rejecting self-ownership and nonaggression, so the argument with him would take place at that basic level. But what if the opponent of the freedom to move espouses support for self-ownership and nonaggression? That’s a different kettle of fish.

Remarkably, both kinds of opponents make a similar case for why government control of the borders is necessary. Starting from a different basis, they agree on the alleged need for coercive social engineering by politicians and bureaucrats, who might be pursuing agendas that most people would want no part of.

We often hear it said that just as no one has a right to enter your home without your permission, so no one has a right to enter the country without the permission of the purported equivalent of the owner. That owner is said to be “the people,” in whose name the government claims to act. The truth of the matter is different.

I can see a collectivist taking this shaky position, but an individualist advocate of self-ownership? A country isn’t a home. It’s not a country club either. Homes and country clubs are rooted in private property and voluntary contract. But a country is not. The view that a country is owned at all has been the basis of collectivism and tyranny.

A property owner may decide he doesn’t want someone or some group to enter his property. Fine. But by what right does he impose his rule on other property owners? It does not matter if a majority of property owners and others likes his rules. The dissenting minority — individuals with rights — might welcome newcomers as potential employees, employers, tenants, landlords, customers, sellers, friends, romantic partners, or what have you. Majorities shouldn’t be able to nullify the rights of dissenters or those of aspiring migrants.

Relocation in itself violates no rights. If a rights violation occurs, that should be dealt with, not the relocation. We can always imagine dire emergencies  — “Let justice be done though the heavens fall” is a dubious principle — but this does not justify routine militarized border control, walls and fences, internal checkpoints, employment databases, etc. By definition, dire emergencies are the exception. The words “Show me your papers” should make Americans (and everyone else) cringe.

People today, like in the past, imagine that they see signs of cultural decline and threats to democracy from foreign-born newcomers. When I hear the latter fear expressed, I want to reply sardonically, “We’re capable of growing our own anti-freedom voters, thank you. We need no help from foreigners.” Seriously, though, who can be sure how immigrants will vote in the future, especially if their alternatives include a strong freedom party that welcomes newcomers? Meanwhile, let’s work on shifting the public’s business from the flawed democratic arena to the realm of private property, contract, and social cooperation in the free market.

As for the wish to protect the culture from change, nothing so surely spells tyranny. Imagine what would have to be done to carry out such a plan. Who would you want to run the cultural ministry? It wouldn’t work, of course, but trying would be a road to hell. Besides, do you want to live in a place without a constant flow of new restaurants? And why stop at the change that originates outside the country? What about the sometimes radical change that occurs from domestic sources?

The logic of immigration control ought to worry every freedom advocate — for we can ask, as noted, why stop at national borders? Why not control movement between states, counties, cities, towns, and neighborhoods? (Maybe I shouldn’t given anyone ideas.) If you can’t accomplish a goal through voluntary exchange, then leave it alone.

That control mentality blinds people. As Bryan Caplan points out, when poor people move to rich places, their productivity skyrockets, so they make not only themselves better off, but also the people around them. Yes, some unskilled high-school dropouts would see some decline in income because of competition from new workers who speak little English. Change —  progress — always has a relatively small short-term downside for a few people. But even they, and most certainly their children and grandchildren, will be better off: more goods, lower prices, more employees, more employers, and a larger variety of offerings, not to mention fresh energy and cultural stimulation.

Remember the ever-present potential for gains from trade! Despite the impression given by demagogues, we have nothing resembling open borders, and the problems at the U.S.-Mexican line are the homemade product of U.S. anti-immigration policy.

As Oscar W. Cooley and Paul L. Poirot wrote in a 1951 Foundation for Economic Education pamphlet, “The Freedom to Move”:

Can we hope to explain the blessings of freedom to foreign people while we deny them the freedom to cross our boundaries? To advertise America as the “land of the free,” and to pose as the world champion of freedom in the contest with communism, is hypocritical, if at the same time we deny the freedom of immigration as well as the freedom of trade. And we may be sure that our neighbors overseas are not blind to this hypocrisy.

A community operating on the competitive basis of the free market will welcome any willing newcomer for his potential productivity, whether he brings capital goods or merely a willingness to work. Capital and labor then attract each other, in a kind of growth that spells healthy progress and prosperity in that community. That principle seems to be well recognized and accepted by those who support the activities of a local chamber of commerce. Why do we not dare risk the same attitude as applied to national immigration policy?