White-lined Sphinx Moth

Often called a Hummingbird Moth, because it's about the size of a ruby-throated hummingbird, and because it hovers with buzzing wings as it drinks nectar, we see them around our bright red and purple flowers quite a little.

On self-defense...

From the Libertarian Party's platform:
 
[Plank] 1.6 Self-Defense
The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.

Take the quiz

Here's the world's smallest political quiz.

And here's where I fit in the spectrum based on my answers. Big surprise.

 

I am for liberty. I am for justice. I am for what works. Liberty, justice, and what works are not criteria by which governments generally choose public policies.

Government, in the sense we usually refer to it (buncha people making laws and hiring folks to enforce them), is not necessary. So I'm an anarchist. I recognize, though, that it is inevitable. Therefore, as a practical matter, I advocate the least possible government, administered as locally as possible. That makes me a minarchist--I believe in the least possible coercion by the State.

Mike Bloomberg wants to make it illegal to serve pop in containers holding more than 16 ounces in New York City. Dick Nixon made it illegal to raise wages or product prices for a few months in the 1970s. Both of these people are (were) fascist morons, and their policies are fascist moronic policies.

They make libertarians necessary.

UPDATE 6/2/12: Below is the result when Larry Kurtz took the quiz. Big surprise. LK thinks that the same people who put people in jail for weed and impose military occupation on half the world and deny gay people civil rights have the sense to manage everyone's money.

An open letter to the council

Dear Mayor and Alderpersons:

Soon, you will have before you an opportunity to distinguish yourselves as either politicians or statesmen. There comes such a time in every politician's career to make such a decision – to do the right thing or to do the politically popular thing.

I've been watching city politics for many years now, and the 37-page Rapid City sign ordinance is perhaps the greatest example of an abomination born of political cowardice I have ever seen.

So now comes before you Scenic Rapid City and their latest bag of restrictions on private business, by restricting the number of messages on electronic billboards in Rapid City. Debra Jensen, the group's vice president declares that restricting "dwell time" to once every 24 hours is best for the community and advertisers while being revenue neutral. Who made her an expert on the billboard business? The change she suggests will remove 14,399 units per day from the sign company's inventory, or 5,255,635 advertising units per year. Jensen's remarks are among the most outrageous lies I've ever seen presented to a public body. They are born either of malice or ignorance.

I buy radio, television, newspaper and outdoor advertising and have for many, many years.

Have any of you on the council considered that this group, as recently as the last election, initiated measures which changed the existing Rapid City sign ordinance? The voters overwhelmingly approved their changes. Why, if dwell time restrictions were so important, were they not included in the initial initiated measures?

It is time for you, the council, to recognize what is at play here. This group, for whatever reason, does not wish to regulate the billboards in Rapid City. They want to eliminate them and put the billboard companies out of business.  What is worse is that the council has been obtuse to the fact that the group is fraught with conflicts of interest, which you as a body, have chosen to ignore.

Debra Jensen worked for many years in broadcasting in Rapid City, and still has close ties to media outlets that compete with outdoor advertising companies. Lisa Modrick's (president of Scenic Rapid City) husband, makes his living in broadcasting. One of broadcasting's greatest competitors for advertising dollars is outdoor advertising. You might consider why the Rapid City Journal continues to support more and more restrictions on their major competitors. You're smart people. Why would they do that?

Worst of all is Jim Petersen, Chairman of Scenic Rapid City. Each night he lays his head down on the pillow next to the vice president of the council. And yet she does not recuse herself from debate nor does she decline from voting on these matters. And none of you question this outrageous and blatant conflict.

So now that the public has spoken in support of Scenic Rapid City's initiated measures, the taste of blood is fresh and they are now going for the jugular.  They had their opportunity to make these changes in their earlier initiated measures. They did not.  And you, as alderpersons have a responsibility to do the right thing.

Imagine how preposterous it would be if someone came to the council and declared in a four-page preamble that the Journal should only be allowed one advertisement per day or that KOTA television and radio stations should be limited to one advertisement per day.

Legal and finance should have killed this. They didn't. You have the opportunity to stop this nonsense. A statesman would. A politician would bow to pressure and give them what they want, now matter how many jobs it costs and no matter whose business they put in jeopardy. It is your choice. Take the high road and sleep comfortably knowing you did the right thing. Bow to the pressure and die a cynic with a big funeral.

The oldest profession; selling oneself for what one can get.

Tomorrow, May 30 2012, I will drive about 617 miles and eat parts of six uglyburgers at four stops and sample the fuel at one stop. I will gross about $450 for doing so. Sound like a job you'd enjoy? Hope my car holds up. Remember when I was considering jobs that paid $10? That was before I found out how crazy the corporations are. I am a whore. And not even really that high-priced. Son of a bitch! I could get more, I think.

Taliban checks out Battle Creek country

I noticed Jason Glans, PuPu the Blogger and Gordon Howie sitting on a snag on the rimrock about 70 yards from my house yesterday, looking to see if any Hermosa-area women were out in the rain without burqas.

No! Wait! Why you lookin' at me, Gordo?

Okay. At least one of you asked for this...

DE Bishop, our Foruminant of the Week, asked a question, and I have taken a little time in the past few hours to see whether the political philosophy I claim to espouse actually is still in agreement with the philosophy I married a third of a lifetime ago.

I found this definition on Wikipedia. It outlines a wide range of thought, often contradictory, about what, exactly a libertarian is, so it's not really a definition--more a discussion. To distinguish "libertarian" from "Libertarian," a Libertarian is anyone who has registered Libertarian with the State, or who has contributed to the Libertarian Party. People who hold at least one belief fundamentally at odds with one or more of the really defining beliefs of a libertarian have run for office as Libertarians. Every political group is forced by state laws to accept lunatics as their nominees for just about any political office.

The base-line defining characteristic of a libertarian is that (s)he believes that it is immoral to initiate force to achieve personal or political goals. A "pure" follower of the philosophy of the Democratic Party thinks it's okay to hire folks to shoot you if you don't give over a bunch of your paycheck to support their charities. A similarly-minded Republican will gladly shoot you and your doctor for "killing babies" or "doing dope."

I found it odd, for example that this appears below:  "Libertarian historian George Woodcock defines libertarianism as the philosophy that fundamentally doubts authority and advocates transforming society by reform or revolution." About half of everyone falls through that gravel screen. If he's a "Libertarian historian," he's gotta know there's more to it than that.

This statement probably is the truest of all below: "Libertarian schools of thought differ over the degree to which the state should be reduced." I'll venture that libertarians agree that the pursuit of happiness is more often successful under the least coercive of societies.

In the passage from Wikipedia (there are many hyperlinks below; most words that might need further definition are links, and all the footnote numbers are links):

Libertarianism is generally considered to be the group of political philosophies which emphasize freedom, liberty, and voluntary association. There is no general consensus among scholars on the precise definition. Libertarians generally advocate a society with a government of small scope relative to most present day societies or no government whatsoever.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines libertarianism as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.^[1] Libertarian historian George Woodcock defines libertarianism as the philosophy that fundamentally doubts authority and advocates transforming society by reform or revolution.^[2] Libertarian philosopher Roderick Long defines libertarianism as "any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power from the coercive state to voluntary associations of free individuals", whether "voluntary association" takes the form of the free market or of communal co-operatives.^[3] According to the U.S. Libertarian Party, libertarianism is the advocacy of a government that is funded voluntarily and limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.^[4]

Libertarian schools of thought differ over the degree to which the state should be reduced. Anarchistic schools advocate complete elimination of the state. Minarchist schools advocate a state which is limited to protecting its citizens from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Some schools accept public assistance for the poor.^[5] Additionally, some schools are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of unappropriated land and natural resources while others reject such private ownership and often support common ownership instead.^[6][7][8] Another distinction can be made among libertarians who support private ownership and those that support common ownership of the means of production; the former generally supporting a capitalist economy, the latter a socialist economic system. Contractarian libertarianism holds that any legitimate authority of government derives not from the consent of the governed, but from contract or mutual agreement, though this can be seen as reducible to consequentialism or deontologism depending on what grounds contracts are justified.^[9][10][11] Some Libertarian socialists reject deontological and consequential approaches and use historical materialism to justify their political beliefs.^[12]

Political scholars such as Noam Chomsky assert that in most countries the terms "libertarian" and "libertarianism" are synonymous with left anarchism.^[13] It is only in the United States that the term libertarian is commonly associated with those who have conservative positions on economic issues and liberal positions on social issues, going by the common meanings of "conservative" and "liberal" in the United States.^[14]

Libertarians want to improve education

DE Bishop asked for some pontification on some planks of the Libertarian platform. Here's Plank 2.8; Education...

Education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Recognizing that the education of children is a parental responsibility, we would restore authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. Parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children's education.

 Bishop asks, "What do you think would happen if the education plank were enacted?"

The short answer is that literacy rates would rise dramatically and professional football and basketball teams might have to pay for their own training camps rather than have the taxpayer do it.

A longer answer entails the reality that a plank as sweeping as this one is would not be "enacted." We could move in a direction that has the fruition of the plank as a goal. Vouchers that refund tax money to parents who choose alternatives to the public school system is one possibility that allows experimentation with other options. It would not take long to ascertain which alternatives produce better results; in fact, there is lots of evidence that a number of alternatives to public schools produce better results.

Since I am very lazy, I have scanned and posted images below from David Bergland's Libertarianism in One Lesson (sixth edition, 1993). Very likely, the ninth edition has further information.

Libertarian philosophy

D.E. Bishop suggests that I expound on Libertarian philosophy in her comment a few posts back. I think others are better equipped to do so than I am. I queried google for "libertarian books," and came up with a list.

1.    Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
2.    For a New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard.
3.    The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman (Milton's son).
4.    Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
5.    The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism:  The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand.

6.    Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose by Milton Friedman.
7.    The Law by Frederick Bastiat.
8.    In Pursuit:  of Happiness and Good Government by Charles Murray.
9.    Libertarianism in One Lesson by David Bergland.
10.    The Libertarian Alternative, collection of essays edited by Tibor Machan.

11.    The Free Market Reader edited by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
12.    Libertarianism by John Hospers
13.    The Freedom Philosophy, collection of essays published by the Foundation for Economic Education.

Of these, I recommend starting with Bergland's Libertarianism in One Lesson, first published in 1984, now in its 9th edition (updated to address issues that have risen since 1984).

Any of these is probably available on eBay for $5 including shipping.

Obama needs "treatment"

Five minutes by Penn Gillette on Obama's incomprehensible cannabis policy...