:: walterindenver ::

:: Thursday, January 30, 2003 ::

Art as Propaganda

Peking Duck has some very interesting, very disturbing examples of posters from North Korea.

:: Walter 7:58 PM [+] ::
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Clever

I just found his blog this morning, and already Glen has one of my favorite posts.

:: Walter 9:26 PM [+] ::
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Speaking of Blogs

Why doesn't David Boaz have one? He does have an article published yesterday on FOXNews.com concerning the logical disconnect in the pro-choice side of the abortion debate. An excerpt:

Too many people these days think "choice" only refers to abortion. I'd like to hear a presidential candidate say, "I believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe in a woman's right to choose whether to have a child. I believe in a woman's right to choose any job someone will hire her for. I believe in a woman's right to choose to own a gun. I believe in a woman's right to choose the school she thinks is best for her child, public or private. I believe in a woman's right to choose what kinds of art she will spend her money on, even if she prefers Madonna or Randy Travis and Congress wants to give her money to Robert Mapplethorpe or Luciano Pavarotti. I believe in a woman's right to choose to drive a cab, even if she doesn't have a license. I believe in a woman's right to choose the employees she wants for her business, even if they don't fit some government quota. I believe in a woman's right to choose the drugs she prefers for recreation, whether she chooses Coors or cocaine. I believe in a woman's right to choose how to spend all of her hard-earned money, without giving half of it to the government."

Yes, that would be logically consistent.

:: Walter 9:13 AM [+] ::
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Keeping up with the Blogworld

New to me: a blog by libertarian (why aren't they all?) economist Glen Whitman called Agoraphilia, which means a fondness for markets or open society. You were thinking it meant something else weren't you? Perv.

Also, Wilde, which had disappeared, has been replaced by the precociously named American Empire.com. Welcome back, Dustin.

:: Walter 9:02 AM [+] ::
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tbotcotw

The Blog of the Century of the Week is back. Let's hope it's permanent.

:: Walter 5:19 PM [+] ::
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Timely

With just an hour to go, I've found some vital information that will greatly enhance your appreciation of the State of the Union Address. (via Hit and Run)

:: Walter 4:58 PM [+] ::
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Common Sense

Talkleft reports a study showing that gun 'fingerprinting' in California would be impractical. The unstated side benefit is that's one less argument for gun registration.

:: Walter 8:25 PM [+] ::
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Service to the Community

I found this lovely passage at the Libertarian Rant:

Then there are the words of Rudolph Hess, who in a speech on 13 June 1936 at the launching of a training ship implored his fellow National Socialists (a.k.a. Nazis) to remember that "the greatest nationalism and the truest socialism are the same: the spirit of simple service to the community."

(From a discussion on the push to reinstate the draft in the name of 'fairness'.)

:: Walter 1:04 PM [+] ::
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Are Markets Inherently Moral?

That's the question Matt Miller asks on Tom Paine.com. Well, that's the headline to his article, and a silly question. A market is amoral, it's just an inanimate thing, a framework for action. Actions, of course, may be questioned on the basis of morality. Markets may then be used for moral or immoral actions. But Miller gets to the real question in the article:

Is the distribution of income produced by the free market presumptively moral?
People who say "yes" tend to believe there's a necessary connection between accepting markets as the best means of organizing economic life, and accepting the results that markets produce as making moral sense....
On this view, market outcomes reward virtues and qualities that it is right to reward -- things like work, responsibility, thrift, innovation and risk-taking. You can reject markets, they say, but you can't accept them (as most Americans do) and then deny that their distributional results have some claim to being considered presumptively fair.

Ah, yes I can. I will emphatically state that life, and markets, are unfair. Some people become wealthy without merit, some are poor without blame. But no one has come up with any economic system that guarantees completely merit based outcomes. Miller continues:

We also note the obvious: The distribution of income in free markets is affected dramatically by factors beyond the virtues cited above -- such as a person's inherited brains, health, talents, wealth and looks, as well as the family into which one is born and the early schooling one is given.
These are things for which people can't take credit or be blamed. Given how heavily these morally arbitrary factors influence the distribution if income, it's silly, we argue, to think that market outcomes could be presumptively moral.

Let me repeat, actions are subject to moral judgement. Outcomes are amoral, although outcomes may be greatly affected by the morality of the actions from whence they are produced. Let's examine, briefly, the actions necessary to circumvent free markets, namely, someone must forcibly curtail the free interaction of people. That is immoral in itself. The moral superiority of free markets is based on the morality of actions, not results. That means if the actors in a market are acting honestly, morally, interference in that market is immoral, as that interference constitutes a violation of the personal rights of the actors.

:: Walter 7:02 PM [+] ::
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Women V.S. Men on the PGA Tour

Last year Connecticut club pro Suzy Whaley won the local PGA section championship, which earned her a spot in this year's Hartford Open, a PGA tour event. She is the first female to qualify for a PGA event in many years. The odds of her being successful there are monumentally long, as women play from shorter tees at section events, but she will have to play from the back tees with the men at the Hartford Open. I wish her the best of luck, it took a lot of guts to agree to compete in Hartford.

Annika Sorenstam, however, is by far the best woman golfer out there. If any stand a chance competing against the men, it would be her. And now, she's expressing an interest doing so. As a professional golfer, I welcome the competition between the sexes, as I feel it can only strengthen the public interest in the game.

To add to the intrigue, a Hawaiian thirteen year old girl named Michelle Wie is doing things perhaps never before seen from a girl that age, including a credible attempt to qualify for the Sony Open. She fired a 73, not good enough to make it, but outrageously good for a female playing from the men's championship tees. Did I mention she's only thirteen years old? Sheesh.

:: Walter 9:58 AM [+] ::
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Retaliation

Libertarian candidates fared pretty well in Colorado in last November's elections. Not surprisingly, the result is a bill in the State House designed to make minor party ballot access much more difficult. The bill is designated HB03-1142 (PDF file)

A Green Party activist e-mails:

This change will supersede our bylaws and require us to implement many layers of organization, including having a county central committee for each county, a state central committee, a congressional central committee, a state senatorial central committee, a state representative district central committee, and a judicial district central committee, each of which has a prescribed membership and officers, to make a lot of organizational decisions. There are filing requirements for each and most of these committees have their own bylaws, as well. We won't be able to keep up with this,...

Libertarians will have similar difficulties. Only a party with thousands of involved activists can keep up with those sorts of requirements. Even the largest upstart political party will have trouble creating such a large organization. We'll fight it, of course. Letters to the editor, a campaign to write and call the legislators, whatever we can think of. But when we started to put together a strong Libertarian party we knew there would be consequences. Dems and Repubs don't like the competition.

:: Walter 10:09 PM [+] ::
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Justice Inches Forward

One Mr. Amini has been granted a new trial, according to The Rocky Mountain News:

A lawyer asked the interpreter if he remembered when the judge was questioning the defendant.
The answer: "I suppose if he asked him, yes the answer, but if he asked him a question the answer is yes, but if I remember vividly because basically Mr. Amini was not on the stand during the trial, that's because of that I say I don't remember that because he was not on the stand if I do remember."
Translation of that quality is why Mohammad Naim Amini, a native of Afghanistan who speaks Dali, won a new trial Thursday.

According to a December Westword article, the evidence against Amini wasn't very convincing and he didn't realize the charges were being taken seriously until perhaps it was too late. That can happen when you don't speak English and your translator is incompetent.

It's worth noting that Amini's appeal lawyer is Paul Grant, former chair of the Colorado Libertarian Party and a strong civil rights defender. Congratulations to Paul on a job well done.

:: Walter 4:02 PM [+] ::
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Socialism in Action

“It's one of the worst, if not the worst situation — human rights abuse situation — in the world today,” - Sen. Sam Brownback.

“They trained me not to treat the prisoners as human beings. If someone is against socialism, if someone tries to escape from prison, then kill him.” - Gulag guard Ahn.

Via Jim Henley.

:: Walter 10:04 AM [+] ::
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Mad About MADD

Them Durn Lib'ruls lists some of the sins of MADD. There's probably a lot of well intentioned folk who support MADD without realizing what they're up to these days. MADD is part of the problem, not the solution.

:: Walter 10:20 PM [+] ::
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David Bryant

The longtime Colorado Libertarian activist has a web page. I just became aware of it over the weekend. He's writing a synopsis of Ludwig von Mises' Human Action, just as a hobby. I wish I had so much energy, not to mention his expertise on economics.
He should have a blog.

:: Walter 9:57 AM [+] ::
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I'll Referee

As an anti-left, anti-right Libertarian, (and anti-Dems and Repubs as well) I'm a natural arbitrator to judge left vs right arguments. I can hear howls of protest from both groups now... but any way I'll do my best.

TalkLeft and others have noted that the Bush administration is packing the Justice Department with ideology based picks. This is probably not a good thing.
The left's protestations seem a bit much. The Washington Post reports:

The administrative changes have alarmed some current and former Justice employees, especially those who identify themselves as Democrats, who said the previous version of the program was highly regarded and had the crucial benefit of being separated from any hint of politics.

This just doesn't pass the smell test. I suspect Democrats were happy with prior administrations' hiring methods because it produced their desired ideological results. The Bush administration is unhappy with those hires for the same reasons.

Either way I'm not happy with the Justice Department.

:: Walter 9:26 AM [+] ::
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Two in Three Years

I'm sure a thousand blogs will link to this, but it warms my heart to report:

In a virtual repeat of a scenario played out less than three years ago, Adams shot and killed an armed man Thursday night who allegedly tried to hold up the store Adams has owned for a quarter century...
The Korean War veteran grabbed his 12-gauge shotgun with one hand. Using his other to guide his walker, he walked to the front of the store and fired a single shot.

War veteran, walker in one hand, shotgun in the other. A single shot that hits two bad guys. Truth stranger than fiction, yada, yada, yada. God is good.

:: Walter 9:40 PM [+] ::
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Peking Duck

Apparently, this site may no longer be viewed in China. There goes my readership.

Can anyone take the Chinese government seriously when they're afraid of any open discourse whatsoever?

:: Walter 9:22 PM [+] ::
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Matthew Edgar

...has one of the best blogs you've never read. He says he's going to post more often in the new year. Go offer him some encouragement.

:: Walter 8:02 PM [+] ::
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Charity Begins at Home

Diane Carman's Sunday column explains how Denver area voters are better than others in Colorado because we steal more from our neighbors.

Sunday, January 05, 2003 - This past week, Colorado achieved yet another dubious distinction as the worst state in America for public support of the arts. We spend 26 cents a year per capita on the arts. And that's before the legislature meets to hack another $80 million from the overall budget.
We also rank near the bottom in support for higher education, elementary and secondary education, libraries, indigent health care, mental health programs and a whole range of public institutions.
As a state, we aim low. Then we start cutting.
But not all of Colorado has been so miserly. For 15 years, voters in the Denver area have consistently supported public investment to enhance our quality of life, improve the state's economy and attract private investment.
Without us, Colorado would be a much different place. Picture Alabama with snow.

Heh, nice dig at Alabama.

Of course, Colorado residents support the arts financially at a rate much higher than 26 cents a head. Either that or I paid for 120 years worth last time I went to the symphony. In Carman's world, private money doesn't count. Denver's public arts funding supports a very expensive Center for Performing Arts that serves as a playground for the well heeled in the metro area. A subsidy for the entertainment of the wealthy, if you please. Colorado state government is in a budget crunch, and cuts have to be made somewhere. This seems a good place to start.

:: Walter 8:41 AM [+] ::
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Durn Lib'ruls

On said blog:

Well I finally went and done it. I added a link to Instapundit. Even though the Professor of Knox Vegas is an unrepentant right-winger,...

That's not all. There's also a new link to this blog. These two, mine and Instapundit, make up a catagory by themselves according to Durn Lib'ruls. I hope that doesn't mean they think I'm a right winger. Egads.

UPDATE: Lib'ruls has a created a new link category for libertarians titled 'Paul Revere.' Walter in Denver makes the cut. Cool.

:: Walter 11:28 AM [+] ::
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Guns and Golf

Occasionally I write about a subject I actually know something about. Readers may speculate how this would set me apart from the rest of the blogosphere, but I won't join them in that speculation. So, when David Kopel mentions golf in his bi-weekly Rocky Mountain News column that would be my cue.

A short item on the front page of the Dec. 24 News sports section announced that handgun manufacturer Smith & Wesson is introducing logo-branded golf clubs. The News claimed that "Marketing analysts said the move may carry risks," and supported this claim with a quote from a single marketing consultant who compared the program to "Philip Morris putting its brand on cheese."

That was indeed a silly piece of commentary on the part of the News writer. Golfers tend to be a rather conservative lot. (No kidding?) I doubt many of them will be put off by seeing a gun maker's logo on golf clubs. What the writer probably wouldn't know is that Browning was in the clubmaking business in the 1980's. They produced an innovative and popular line of clubs which sold well, but they got out of the business after a few years.(Golf club manufacturers have notoriously small profit margins.) It seems natural that a gun manufacturer could make golf clubs. They would have the necessary metallurgical knowledge in-house and access to the foundries needed for actual production.
My first set of new clubs were Browning 500's, bought in 1985. Good luck to Smith & Wesson.

:: Walter 9:57 AM [+] ::
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I Have Won A Major Award

OK, not exactly. Beanless Chili (chile!) wins the award. Still, I can hope for one of these.

:: Walter 7:45 PM [+] ::
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About Time

South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow has pardoned libertarian and AIM activist Russell Means. From the Sioux Falls Argus Leader:

The Means pardon deals with a felony conviction for riot to obstruct justice. The law was repealed by the Legislature in the late '70s, but with no retroactive provision for those convicted, Means said.
He recalls the incident in the Sioux Falls courtroom.
"I refused to stand up for Judge Joe Bottum. There is no crime for not standing up for a judge, but it is a polite show of respect. So he sent in the riot police to deal with us, and we (Means' supporters - W.) beat up the riot police," Means said. "I did my time, one year, three days, 22 hours in the Sioux Falls penitentiary."

Means probably committed other felonies in his younger days - his autobiography is full of sordid tales. The charge for which he was actually imprisoned is bogus. Federal and local authorities pulled out all the stops to try to convict Means of something, anything, but that was the only charge that stuck.

:: Walter 9:41 PM [+] ::
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