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October 18, 2005
Funkified Podcast #2
A dodgy one, but I daresay entertaining nonetheless. Promised not to rhyme, but you know I got the fever. Unfortunately as it was Monday night, I forgot to make the announcements and shout-outs on the agenda, so that'll be for next time. Listen to the podcast here, or make me ecstatic by subscribing to it (see podcast guide in right-hand colum). I know I have packed some long-ass pieces into single podcasts but I am reforming. I promise the next few will be way shorter and way sweeter.
Posted by exaltron at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2005
Legalize It (the home AIDS test)
Here's one to add to the myriad ways the FDA makes your life better: somehow they, along with AIDS activists have managed to hold back an accurate home AIDS test for 18 years. What could be their rationale for wanting to protect the vulnerable American public from such a scourge? Questionable efficacy? Nefarious side effects? The American public is not ready for this product (despite the fact that well over a quarter of the nearly million people who have AIDS do not know they have it) because the FDA believes that people who test positive without proper counseling might attempt suicide upon discovering their status. Nevermind that the evidence they used to support this cockamamie theory consisted of one newspaper article describing an AIDS victim in the 80s who had jumped off the Golden Gate bridge soon after learning he was positive. The real issue here is how these meddling technocrats have managed to arrogate so much power that they can not only dictate to us what we can and cannot put in our bodies, but whether we simply have the right to find out if we are sick, without following their prescribed "safe" method for going about it.
And so these activists along with their allies in the FDA join their paternalistic conservative counterparts in supporting the hypocritical position that while you may have a limited right to your own life, you don't necessarily have the right to end your life, at least not before receiving a sufficient level of counseling. We wouldn't want Mommy and Daddy to feel like they didn't do enough protect their children from the freedom to live and die as they choose.
I add this argument to another excellent one in support of dismantling the FDA that my friend Stella Daly posted on her cleverly named blog Stellavision. She questions the FDA's right to protect women from the miracle of a birth-control pill that would do away with the monthly period. Imagine the hubris she has to suggest that she alone should have the right to weigh the risks of such a treatment and to suffer the consequences of her decision should it not pan out. "But who", ask supporters of the FDA, "Who will put a gun to the collective head of the food and drug industries, and force them to tell us everything we need to know about their products?". Let's look at the fictions that are "everything we need to know" and the so-called "right to information". The idea that some piece of legislation could magically compel manufacturers to tell every individual every piece of information they might need to properly weigh the risks and benefits of a given product. It is ultimately the individual's responsibility to seek out information about a product in order to determine whether they should partake, all crowing about the "rights" of consumers to "safe" and "risk-free" products notwithstanding. Manufacturers lie about their products, to be sure, and the government should certainly pursue such fraudulent activity, but as my friend Lou Esposito points out over at the Stellavision debate, forcing all manufacturers to comply with politicians' and regulators' arbitrary idea of what information should be provided ultimately implies that they are guilty until proven innocent.
Furthermore, as Alan Greenspan points out in "Common Fallacies regarding Capitalism" in Ayn Rand's collection of essays "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", the artificial standards created by government regulators distracts and drains resources that manufacturers could otherwise put towards responding directly to consumers' needs and desires. It gives the false sense that if manufacturers comply with the regulations set up by the FDA and the like, that their products are "safe", when in fact safety is contextual: a product that is perfectly safe for you may threaten my life.
The best provider of information is the private sector, which has long been providing the relevant information that consumers ask for, if not directly from the manufacturer, then from the media. Journalists make their careers on exposing cover-ups and lies and are much less likely to be corrupted by money than politicians are to be corrupted by special interests. And under Laissez-faire Capitalism the private sector does not have the legal use of force at its disposal to cover-up its lies and silence its detractors. They may be able buy off a few unscrupulous types, but in the long run, the truth is always more profitable than shysterism.
Posted by exaltron at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2005
That's a Cold Shot (update)
Okay, I'm watching Bill Maher right now and I'm very surprised at the grades I've given the panelists:
1. Andrew Sullivan- D
This guy is way more annoying in person than he is on his blog. He simpered about people of faith and got all self-righteous when Maher had the balls to point out that "people of faith" means they replace rational thought with "non-sensical bullshit that they believe"
2. Salman Rushdie- C-
This guy was pretty funny if a bit of a wet blanket. I think it's awesome that he's become a superstar writer in no small part because of the wacky fatwah that they put on his ass. Plus he was right there with Maher to help him taunt the faith-baiters.
3. Ben Affleck- B+
Now I would have bet the farm that this pretty boy would have been ten times as annoying as Andrew Sullivan, but not the case at all. Granted, he did predictably jump on the whole don't-make-fun-of-religious-people bandwagon. But my jaw dropped when Maher tried to drop a totally sensationalized and hook-line-and-sinker analysis of the "Stand Your Ground" story. Then I swear my lazy ass threatened to move off its glued-in-place position on the couch when Affleck totally bitch slapped Maher: "you said, like, nine wrong things in one sentence". He then proceeded to break down the "Stand your Ground" story with a scary level of accuracy, even adding a few levels of detail that I had missed, eg, the fact that conceal carry laws have been shown to reduce violent crimes and that the "Stand your Ground" law happened as a response to people fleeing confrontation and getting shot in the back, when in some cases they could have defended themselves. Nice assist, Bennifer.
Posted by exaltron at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2005
That's a Cold Shot
Interesting article in the New York Times thother day about a ridiculous bait-and-switch PR stunt that the gun control crusaders are aiming at unsuspecting visitors to Florida. Flyers reading "Do not argue unnecessarily with local people" among other "warnings" without a hint of sarcasm are intended to hip tourists to a new "stand your ground" law that allows Florida residents to shoot an attacker if they feel physically threatened in a public place..
This may sound quite redundant to those familiar with the second amendment to the constitution, but apparently in most states, you are expected to attempt to flee from a perceived threat and only use force if you are cornered, this being the only form of legal self-defense most courts will entertain.
What I found most interesting about the article was not so much the age-old conflict between the gun-rights and gun-control people, but the bizarre add-ons to this piece of legislation that make a mockery of the concept of rights, such as this bill they are trying to import from Michigan:
Introduced last month by State Representative Dennis K. Baxley, a Republican who also sponsored "stand your ground," the new proposal would impose criminal penalties on businesses that try to stop employees from keeping guns in their cars while parked at work
In other words, your right to carry a gun extends beyond your own property and somehow can take legal precedent over the right of a business-owner to guarantee a secure environment for his/her employees on his/her property (not that workers in the US have ever been inclined to shoot up their places of employment..). It's hard to tell who has more contempt for individual rights these days, liberals or conservatives. One assumes Republicans have no issue with companies mandating drug tests for their employees (after all, workers, like myself, are free to seek employment elsewhere if they have a problem with someone asking them to pee in a cup as a condition of employment). Yet somehow, such an employee/employer agreement apparently can be outlawed when it comes to firearms.
This type of selective interpretation of individual rights has become par for the course among the so-called advocates of smaller government. Rights for conservatives seem to be whatever they want them to be, for instance, it's not enough for those who oppose reproductive rights to the so-called "rights" of the fetus. In several states they have enacted ridiculous legislation that bar pharmacies from dismissing pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions. Again, the rights of individuals- in this case the owners, managers and stockholders trying to run their pharmacies- don't count if they don't fit the social design aspiration of those in power. While I would defend the right of an business owner to refuse any service he or she doesn't consider appropriate- however irrational their motivation might be- their is no "right" to a job that a business owner must provide, and to have government protect a pharmacist who refuses to honor the terms of his/her employment is outrageous.
And don't even get me started on the Eminent Domain decision..
Posted by exaltron at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)