Category: General

Sign Pollution

This is what happens when you accept government funds to build a park: this intersection of two trails in a Ft Worth park has no less than seven caution signs. That peaceful-looking path must be some death trap. Some good samaritan has torn down two of the signs, but it’s still an eyesore. The whole park is like that. I’ve seen sign pollution all over Dallas and read about this happening elsewhere.

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LTE: Illegal Immigration and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Politicians and ideologues insist that illegal immigrants should be deported because they broke the law. But some laws ought to be broken.

In 1850, the United States Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act as part of a compromise between Southern slave-owners and Northern abolitionists. The law made it a duty for every law enforcement official to arrest runaway slaves. A suspected slave had no right to a jury trial or any kind of legal defense. In addition, the act of aiding a runaway slave became a criminal offense subject to six months imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.

I bring up this historical episode because of a similar injustice is occurring today. Escaped slaves who risk life and limb to come to the free states of America are captured and returned to face severe punishment (and sometimes immediate execution) from their masters.

I am referring primarily to the Cuban, but also the Chinese, Haitian, and many other immigrants who are denied entry or forced to return to dictatorships. Some are political activists seeking freedom of expression, but most simply do not wish to live as property of the state, and will do anything to live as free men and women.

These would-be immigrants have shown by their actions than they are far better Americans than most people born in the U.S. While most Americans don’t even bother to vote, they abandon their entire life and culture and often risk everything to embrace the American dream. Upon coming to America, they are usually far more successful than their native born-counterparts. By any rational standard of justice, these immigrants deserve to be here far more than the millions of welfare slobs, America-hating hippies and intellectuals, and all the union workers and assorted privileged moochers who believe that their livelihood comes from a divine birthright rather than the unbridled genius and hard work of self-made men.

And yet, I see news stories in the “qurkies” section of the paper about Cubans trying to float to America in a car, or squeeze in the seat cushions of a car, as if there is something humorous about people so desperate to live in freedom that they float in open ocean in a car–twice. Or people who cross a desert with barely enough food and water to escape the crushing poverty of Mexico or Guatemala. Or people who sell their life savings and suffocate in a shipping crate for months for a chance to wash dishes in California and send a few dollars back home. I would like to ask all the native-born American citizens whether they would be courageous enough to take those kinds of risks to provide for their family.

Whether they come here to escape political oppression or simply the pervasive poverty and idleness of welfare socialist states, the immigrants who come here seeking a free, productive life are Americans-in-spirit, regardless of what some bureaucrat or politician says. Any law that claims otherwise is an abomination, a gross injustice, and should be treated in the same way that moral men regarded the Fugitive Slave Act or the Nazi Nuremberg Laws.

I do not believe the facts I mention – the plight of oppressed peoples, the risks they take, and the productive lives they lead here are in dispute. I cannot understand what sort of irrationality, what bigotry, what idiocy would make Americans deny the very legacy their nation is founded on. As an immigrant, I sympathize with Frederick Douglass, who, like me, was a persecuted minority who escaped a slave state to embrace American values and pursue the American Dream. Unlike him, I came here legally – but I’ll be damned if any “law” was going to keep my out. I conclude with his words:

O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

Traffic Jams and Bread Lines

On my daily drive to work, I am greeted by a crawling, sprawling traffic jam on the other side of the freeway. I can’t imagine what it must be like to spend an hour or more of one’s life every day in the ridiculous drudgery of a traffic jam – I would go insane if I had to get up at 5 am for the commute, like some of my coworkers. (Luckily, I was able to find an apartment that allows me to be at work in six minutes.)

The sight of thousands of victims inching forward in mind-numbing drudgery reminded me of a similar scene from my childhood in Soviet Ukraine. A few times a month, I would go visit my grandmother in the city, and we would spend a day buying groceries.

A day was necessary, because much of it was spent in line for bread, fish, or the rare “exotic” foods like plums or oranges. Once, we waited four hours for some dried figs, only to find that they had all been sold to the revered yet much-reviled war veterans. I remember someone yelling at the store vendors and accusing them of keeping some figs for themselves and of their apathy towards our fig-less plight. The vendors shouted curses back with the same enthusiasm. Their apathy was indeed obvious, though I would not realize why until many years later.

Why should have Soviet bureaucrats care about how long we had to wait for non-existent figs? Why should the bureaucrats in charge of the Dallas roads care about the lives squandered away in the daily commute?

I know who did care about our plight: the bazaar merchants who sold us chickens and potatoes. They were tough bargainers, but they were very interested in meeting the wants of their customers. The American supermarket is a bazaar on a grand scale, where I can not only find dried figs 24/7, but a dozen other fruits I have never heard of.

We trust entrepreneurs with our bread, so why don’t we trust them with our roads? To a politician, each traffic-plagued driver is a liability, to be appeased by a some highly visible but most likely useless project. How might an entrepreneur look at a traffic jam, if the State did not monopolize transportation?

To an entrepreneur, each tired and miserable driver is a goldmine, an income opportunity waiting to be exploited. The misery of the driver is an unmet need, a value waiting for the right mind to come along and provide it. The idea of a traffic jam would be obscene in a free market: millions of unsatisfied consumers are an irresistible magnet for the right investor.

Are our roads really as bad as Soviet bread lines? They certainly get far more funding (from money taken from more productive enterprises), but the incompetence can be staggering.

I tried to go the bike shop across town today, and ended up stuck in traffic. The lane on the right of me was a HOV lane. It was created by city politicians with good intentions, I’m sure, but since the vast majority of drivers ride alone, it only ends up constricting the lanes available for traffic. Once the volume of cars per lane reaches a critical mass, the traffic slows to a crawl. Do you think political pressure or a calculation by a traffic expert made that decision? Federal funding regulations require new city highways to dedicate an HOV lane, despite studies (from the very highway I was driving) that indicate “a 41-56 percent increase in injury accidents.” Does anyone care?

On the right side of the highway, several lanes on the left were closed for an accident earlier in the day. It had taken most of the day to clean up, and the roads were still closed several hours after the accident. A hundred thousand drivers were stuck in traffic, but who cares? Certainly the police in the cars blocking the road didn’t, and neither did the road workers. Why should they – they are stuck at work, so why should commuters get home any sooner? Maybe they were waiting for someone in dispatch to wake up, or perhaps they preferred to wait till traffic died down to drive home themselves.

By the time I made it to the bike shop, it had closed, so I stopped by to meet some friends at a sandwich place. It was getting late, and the waitress looked busy and tired from long day, but when I walked in, she walked over, smiled, and asked, “How can I help you?” Sure beats waiting in line for figs.

(Read more on how private roads could work.)

Should drunk driving be legal?

The issue of drunk driving is one of those highly politicized topics that appeals to a cross-section of conservatives and leftists because it promises both a revival of the temperance movement and an avenue for the growth of state controls. Aside from these political implications, the issue of drunk driving provides insight into a more general question of political philosophy. The essential question is: under what conditions, if any, can the state legitimately outlaw certain forms of behavior that pose a risk to others?

Before addressing this issue, it is necessary to establish certain prerequisites. I will distinguish “drunk driving” from “drinking and driving” or “driving while drinking.” While drunk driving is the act of driving while intoxicated, drinking and driving is act of consuming some quantity of alcohol, but not necessarily being intoxicated. Likewise, driving while consuming alcohol does not necessarily imply intoxication. I will define “intoxicated” to mean “an alcohol level sufficiently high to pose a significantly increased risk to others while driving.”

Furthermore, I will presume that the only legitimate function of the state is to prevent and punish the initiation of force. Since neither drinking and driving nor driving while drinking as such pose a significant risk to others, I will consider it as self-evident that they should be legal. On the other hand, I will presume that drunk driving creates a significantly risk that the majority of drivers would strongly want to avoid.

Since the provision of roads is not a legitimate function of the state, this issue is complicated…

SPCA guilty of cruelty to humans

There are SPCA’s, or Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in many cities in America. They are charged by city governments to “stop animal abuse” and have the right to confiscate and sell all the animals of any owner with a judge’s warrant. In states like Texas, the SPCA can seize the property of owners without the right of appeal. Even in states where the owner can appeal, judges usually rely on the expertise of the SPCA and dismiss the owner’s appeals.

Often, the seized animals are sold within days of seizure, and the unsold animals put to death. (The SPCA charges $50-150 for all “adoptions,” and more for show animals.) When the SPCA seizes animals, it will typically seize the entire inventory of a breeder, including both “sick” as well as healthy animals, often putting the breeder out of business. Sometimes, there really are sick animals – but because of diseases, not abuse. Other times, photos of dirty but empty cages are enough to put a breeder out of business.

The SPCA is run by volunteers and employees, and rarely involves veterinarians in requesting a warrant from the judge or evaluating the condition of seized animals. The Dallas SPCA is one of the biggest SPCA’s in the nation, but (according to 20/20) its highly paid manager has no professional education treating animals, and does not involve veterinarians anywhere in the process.

Does that sound like a recipe for abuse? Continue reading SPCA guilty of cruelty to humans

Private Roads

I often hear arguments from skeptics of capitalism about roads being a “natural” monopoly, so I decided to write up a fictional account of how a private road system might function. Needless to say, this is just one potential scenario that markets might create. It is impossible to say what arrangement entrepreneurs would actually organize.
Continue reading Private Roads

While you wouldn’t guess it on campus, Texas A&M really does have an active fundamentalist population. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either scary, silly, or plain stupid how seriously these guys take their fantasies. Some of them are quite intelligent, but debating Objectivism with them, I’ve realized that they’re quite hopeless.

In other news, portable tele-presence for doctors, another great Cox and Forkum, and Hong Kong Nazi Chic?

Damn Fundamentalists

The first horse has been cloned. One would think that most people would be impressed by this amazing scientific achievement that will allow us to clone winning geldings like Funny Cide, but check out the results of this MSNBC survey:
What do you think of the prospects of cloning horses?
It should be forbidden. : 38%
It's OK, but there should be restrictions on cloned racehorses. : 27%
There should be no restrictions. : 22%
Don't care or don't know.: 13%

Someone please tell me, what the hell is wrong with cloning horses?? In the immortal words of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the public be damned!
Anyway, I thought this part of the article was interesting for more than one reason:

THE SMALL, sturdy work horse is now 2 months old, weighs about 220 pounds and is in excellent health, said its creators. Their announcement beats a Texas A&M team awaiting the birth of its own horse clone.
The cloned Haflinger horse is named Prometea after Prometheus, the character in Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans.