If you’re a virtue ethicist, you’re supposed to do what the virtuous do. If you’re an Objectivist, that means doing what John Galt would do. John Galt is the character in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged who quits working and persuades all the other smart people (the “men of the mind”) to quit with him and [...]
Monthly Archives: January 2011
We bought a beautiful vase!
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 29, 2011 7 comments
Take a look at this beautiful object: It has something to do with Canada so, naturally, our fiscally conservative government snatched it up for the low-low price of $650. Wait. We didn’t pay $650 for this majestic and important — nay vital — piece of Canadiana. We paid the very reasonable price of $650,000 during [...]
CRTC shuts down Marxist radio station
Posted by Mike Brock on January 28, 2011 12 comments
Whenever the government does something like this, my libertarian instinct is to recoil in disgust. Because I generally dislike the state. And my position against censorship is uncompromising. However, this decision is a little more complex for someone with Georgist tendencies like myself. The truth is, there’s only so much usable radio spectrum out there. Which [...]
Rand Paul: stop aid to Israel
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on January 28, 2011 1 comment
Senator Rand Paul has come out solidly against foreign aid, all foreign aid. Does all foreign aid include aid to Israel? For once we have a politician who is intellectually consistent, so yes ending all foreign aid includes ending aid to Israel. The prospect of not handing money over to Israel for no good purpose [...]
Tory attack ads are stupid, dishonest (yes, yes, yes!) – updated
Posted by Terrence Watson on January 28, 2011 6 comments
UPDATE: The Conservatives have removed the ads. Probably a good idea. For those just tuning in, the ads used a clip of Michael Ignatieff shrieking, “Yes, yes, yes!” taken from a recent Liberal rally. The clip was used, out of context, to try to show that Ignatieff supported higher business taxes and holding a spring [...]
Corporate taxes versus new spending: the wrong debate
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on January 27, 2011 2 comments
As the Conservatives launch a new advert attacking the Liberal Party for their position on corporate taxes, it seems clear that this is the IT issue of this political season. I have to wonder though, is this really the debate that we should be in right now? Cutting taxes versus new spending is the kind [...]
Filibuster: How to be Prime Minister
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 26, 2011 1 comment
J.J. McCullough writes: ShareFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditEmail
Note to Dr. Ignatieff: education does not create jobs
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on January 26, 2011 25 comments
Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff has come up with an interesting (if bizarre) little theory. If more people have higher education then jobs will magically appear. Here is what he said: “If we’re going to have a big argument here about how to create jobs, how to create a future for the Canadian economy, this [...]
Now is the time when we juxtapose
Posted by Mike Brock on January 26, 2011 1 comment
Stephen Harper and his government are one of the few Western countries that have not formally commented on or condemned the violent suppression of pro-democracy protesters in Egypt. After seeing disturbing scenes like this, one wonders when Canada will formally show some concern: Oh, that’s right. I forgot. We condone this sort of thing in [...]
Canadians are pissed about UBB
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 26, 2011 6 comments
Today, on reddit, all that matters on the r/Canada sub-reddit is the CRTC decision to permit usage-based billing (UBB). It’s making waves all over the place. And Canadians are right pissed about UBB, and what it would mean for things like radio streaming, Netflix, YouTube watching, and downloading movies and music from the ‘tubes. Here’s [...]
Public school district persecutes loving mother (and a shout-out to DonorsChoose)
Posted by Terrence Watson on January 26, 2011 1 comment
This one was too horrible not to share here. Courtesy of ABC News, an Ohio mother is in jail for daring to send her children to a better school district. Williams-Bolar decided four years ago to send her daughters to a highly ranked school in neighboring Copley-Fairlawn School District. But it wasn’t her Akron district [...]
Cato Institute response to State of the Union
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 26, 2011 1 comment
We posted the Libertarian Party response to yesterday’s State of the Union speech here. Now, you can hear what the Cato Institute has to say about the speech: Nice. The government needs to get out of more stuff, stop spending so much, and generally leave us alone a lot more. Yes, yes, and yes. ShareFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditEmail
The poor are getting richer
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on January 26, 2011 Comments Off
Steven Horwitz wrote an opinion piece that declares that the poor are not in fact getting poorer. He points out that direct comparisons between 1979 and today are meaningless because the households that were poor in 1979 aren’t the same as the ones that are poor today. Most of the people, according to Mr. Horwitz, [...]
The Liberals aren’t wrong on corporate tax cuts, they’re just wrong
Posted by Mike Brock on January 26, 2011 Comments Off
Is it possible for both the Conservative and Liberal position on the scheduled corporate tax cuts — a scheme that will reduce the the Federal rate from 16.5 to 15 percent — to both be wrong? The answer is yes. The point is, we can’t afford the tax cuts right now. But we also can’t [...]
The Paul Plan
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on January 26, 2011 5 comments
Cutting federal spending in the USA has bipartisan support and yet the debate on what to cut is still extremely vague. Politicians are afraid to anger special interest groups and so they declare that they are for cuts but cower when asked for specifics. Understandable given the way that politics works in the States, but [...]
Libertarian Party response to State of the Union Speech
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 26, 2011 2 comments
This evening, Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict spoke in response to the addresses from President Barack Obama and Congressman Paul Ryan: Transcript of Benedict’s response: ShareFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditEmail
It clearly makes a difference between the Conservatives and the “coalition”
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on January 25, 2011 5 comments
The federal government has “found” $1 billion in the 2008 budget that has not been spent. The money was designated for a crown corporation that conducts P3 (Public-Private Partnership) projects. This has launched a political debate on what should be done with this “extra” money. In opposition the Conservative Party was pretty firm on what [...]
Younger Canadians sound like libertarians, make columnist sad (updated)
Posted by Terrence Watson on January 25, 2011 11 comments
Courtesy the Montreal Gazette, which should have published the article with a giant frowny face on the side and an embedded recording of your old auntie clucking her tongue. “Younger Canadians are more concerned about themselves and money,” blares the subheading. The column refers to a Parisian study of 16-29 year-olds in 25 different countries. [...]
Freedom Party advert: “One Race: The Human Race”
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 25, 2011 Comments Off
My friend, Paul McKeever, runs the Freedom Party of Ontario. But don’t make the mistake of calling the Freedom Party “libertarian.” According to the FPO, they are “Objectivist”, following the philosophy of Ayn Rand. In fact, they are allergic to being described as “libertarian.” (Paul and I have had it out on more than a [...]
Drug lord officially thanks drug warriors for making him rich
Posted by Peter Jaworski on January 24, 2011 3 comments
True story: Mexican drug lord officially thanks American presidents past and present for pushing the war on drugs and making him filthy stinking rich. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes’ yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today [...]