avelloso.com

Sábado, Dezembro 29, 2001

Addicted to the Drug War
Em artigo magistral sobre a guerra às drogas, Ilana Mercer lembra que essa guerra é um fracasso até mesmo em seus sucessos:
"The irony becomes even greater when law enforcement turns its attentions to the supply side of the problem. In British Columbia, the media commend the Vancouver police force whenever it performs one of its sting operations. But what happens when supply is reduced? Why, prices shoot up. And what happens when prices go up? The potential profit causes a renewed influx of dealers into the trade, resulting in more crime. In the war on drugs, success is failure. A free market in drugs, however, will bring prices down drastically, inclining fewer pushers to enter the trade.
"Prohibition--not drug use--is responsible for the current crime and chaos. Prohibition makes the price of drugs far in excess of their cost of production. The production costs of common drugs are low. These chemicals are derived from hardy plants. A poppy is not an orchid. Neither is cannabis a particularly fragile plant. As with other illegal commodities, the price is pushed up by the high costs of circumventing the law as well as by the reduced supply brought on by prohibition. The price of pure heroin for medicinal purposes is a fraction of its street price. The difference amounts to a state subsidy for organized crime."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:06 PM

Hail, Switzerland!
Uma coisa que não consigo compreender é por que um país com um welfare state gigantesco, os maiores gastos militares do mundo, uma estranha concepção de "defesa" que involve delírios imperialistas de governar o mundo inteiro continua a ser tratado como o modelo máximo de capitalismo e respeito à liberdade individual. Chega dessa idiotice. Duzentos anos atrás, talvez os EUA fossem mesmo um modelo no qual o mundo deveria mirar-se para garantir a liberdade e a prosperidade; hoje em dia, é preciso reconhecer que o modelo político mais bem-sucedido do mundo é o da Suíça.
Os motivos são simples, e lembrados em excelente artigo de Joseph Sobran:
"Switzerland sat out two world wars, for which it is resented by the sort of people who think war is a duty. The Swiss seem to feel that the rest of the world can enjoy mutual slaughter perfectly well without them. They have never joined the United Nations, NATO, or the European Union. They are content to hunker down within their sheltering Alps, while Americans will cross two oceans, simultaneously if necessary, to get into a good war. Nor do they have troops, battleships, submarines, and military bases around the world. And no nukes.
"In short, the Swiss are what all right-thinking people have learned to call 'isolationists.' They have stubbornly maintained their independence. As a result, an awful lot of Swiss didn’t die violent deaths in the twentieth century.
"Oh, by the way, the Swiss aren’t afflicted by terrorism. Osama bin Laden has probably never heard of Switzerland, unless he stashes his money there. It may not be the Greatest Country on Earth, but nobody calls it the Great Satan, either.
"Not that the Swiss aren’t ready to defend themselves. The men are required by law to serve in the militia and to keep firearms in their homes. But when they say 'defense', they mean defense – not empire, not New World Order, not 'global leadership'.
"They have a federal system of government, and in Switzerland 'federal' still, oddly enough, means 'decentralized.' Each canton treasures its independence. The national president has little power, little opportunity to achieve 'greatness.' The Swiss franc is one of the world’s most stable currencies. Swiss banks are the world’s most secure vaults."
Em suma: com sua mistura de isolacionismo, federalismo verdadeiro e descentralização, a Suíça realizou aquilo que os fundadores dos EUA imaginavam que seu país:
"Switzerland has enjoyed the kind of history Americans once hoped for. But while America has been drawn back into the quarrels of the Old World its people had hoped to escape, Switzerland has in effect managed to secede from that world’s strife without leaving the continent. If you want excitement in Switzerland, you just have to roll your own; the state won’t provide it for you. You can sum it up by saying Switzerland is a country that has lost more lives in skiing accidents than in war.
"The story of Switzerland is the greatest political success story of the modern world, yet we never hear about it. Why not? Because it puts all other states to shame. Most rulers want to Americanize their countries; but if they really cared about their people’s welfare – lives, liberty, property, and all that – they would try to Swissify. It’s a sign of the times that I am forced to coin this indispensable verb."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:03 PM

Sexta-feira, Dezembro 28, 2001

The United Front Against Liberty
Lew Rockwell, explicando por que não devemos nos deixar abater pelo desânimo diante da constatação de que a estatolatria é uma espécie de "pensamento único" - e não há nenhum sinal de que isso esteja para mudar:
"Just as the prevalence of murder and theft is not a reason to abandon the fifth and seventh commandments, so the constant tendency of the State to grow provides no reason to jettison the libertarian ideal. After a murder, we don’t say: that’s it, making the case against murder is hopeless! No, we see the violation of the moral rule as evidence for the need to constantly reassert the right to life. So it is with liberty: without the State, there would be no need to constantly push for the right to freedom.
(...)
"To sign up with the party of liberty is to take a principled step. It means rejecting the dominant strain of politics of our time. What is that strain? That the State ought to be used to promote the agenda of some special interest, whether it be those who benefit from welfare, regulation, inflation, war, or the consolidation of the police State generally.
"The party of liberty rejects all of this, not because we have a special interest but because we stick by the most unpopular claim of all: that society ought to be organized so that it benefits everyone in the long run. There is only one system that does so, and that is the natural order of liberty. That’s why we believe in it, and why we will neither give up the ideal, nor yield the slightest in the face of attacks."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:30 PM

Absolut Puritanism
Artigo imperdível do dr. Theodore Dalrymple (pseudônimo do dr. Anthony Daniels) sobre o puritanismo e a mania de controle da classe médica. Comentando o protesto da associação dos médicos americanos contra os comerciais de bebida alcoólica na TV (ainda assim depois das 21h!), ele diz:
"What is interesting in the AMA's protest, however, is its assumption that considerations of health automatically trump all others. This assumption is not argued but taken as self-evident, like the truths of the Declaration of Independence. Health and safety are the measure of all things: What conduces to health should be promoted, and what conduces to illness or accident should be banned.
(...)
"But health is not the only good, much less the supreme good, of human existence. Indeed, excellent health is neither sufficient nor necessary for the good life, and he is not always happiest who lives longest. It follows that, in deciding whether something is legally or ethically permissible, it is not enough to consider the health implications alone. Mountaineering should not be forbidden because the only possible health outcomes are broken legs, frostbite or fatal falls, without any countervailing health benefits that could not be obtained in another, safer fashion.
"Naturally, the AMA, being an association of doctors, is more interested in health than in any other aspect of human life. It is therefore perfectly right and proper for it to advert to certain dangers to our health. But it is wrong to seek to dictate social policy, as if it had been vouchsafed the key to existence. If it continues to do so, I would suggest it changed its name to the American Malvolio Society, as being more apposite to its goals.
"And in the meantime, I suggest also that the following warning be placed on the bottles of all alcoholic drinks: Drinking alcohol can make you drunk."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:26 PM

Moore's Law, Pareto's Law, and Greenspan's Dilemma
Excelente artigo de Gary North sobre as indústrias de alta tecnologia, a recessão e suas origens na manipulação do dinheiro pelo Banco Central. Destaco alguns trechos.
Sobre o amor à inflação:
"Here is the problem with falling prices due to increased output and a stable money supply: there is larceny in the hearts of millions of people – the desire to steal from creditors by using newly created counterfeit money. They want the central bank to increase its output of fiat money, so that they can pay off their debts with money of reduced value.
"This is why the hue and cry to inflate, inflate, inflate occurs every time the FED's prior policy of rapid monetary inflation to stimulate the economy is changed, and the growth of the money supply slows down. This slowdown of the digital printing presses creates an economic bust: recession. Millions of debtors – from the average Joe to the largest corporation – who counted on the counterfeiting skills of Alan Greenspan to bail them out when it comes time to pay off their debts start screaming bloody murder when the money machine slows.
"The Federal Reserve System controls the money machine. When it buys government debt, it creates new money to make the purchase. The government depends this newly counterfeited money into circulation. This is what millions of larcenous debtors want.
"You may think the money isn't counterfeited. Well, if you or I did this, we would be arrested. Why? All we're trying to do is give the local economy a shot in the arm! I mean, that's how we can fight the recession!
"When you and I counterfeit money, all we are doing is violating copyright law. Our unbacked fiat money is as much tied to something of historic value as the FED's. In fact, our money is more closely tied to something of historic value than the FED's is: paper and ink. Alan Greenspan counterfeits the FED's money with nothing more than entries in a computer – the cheapskate!"
Sobre o neomercantilismo e o clamor dos produtores para que os governos os sustentem e subsidiem:
"I will say it again: capitalism is based on consumer sovereignty, not producer sovereignty. When you hear cries of pain and calls for government aid from businessmen who thought the system favored them rather than consumers, you are hearing the call for mercantilism once again. The call for the FED to inflate is one more call for the government to bail out inefficient entrepreneurs who lost their competitive edge. It is mercantilism revisited.
"A collapse of high tech firms' markets and also their stock prices portends a return to sanity. Every recession is a re-pricing period in which widespread bad economic decisions are eliminated by free market forces. If depression arrives, it is because of fractional reserve commercial banking and a government-created central bank caused widespread distortions with fiat money. The toppling houses of high tech cards were built by the FED's prior policies of monetary inflation. Yes, high tech investments were a house of cards in early 2000. So is the S&P 500 today, with its price/earnings ratio of 39. Industry needs to get its earnings up. If it can't, then the market will at some point get stock prices down.
"The inflationists-mercantilists want the FED to create a new round of expanded debt and misallocated resources, which the FED has been doing for over a year. They are like a tavern full of alcoholics who want another round of government-subsidized drinks. What they need is not another round of drinks. What they need is some quality time spent in a de-tox center. That's called a recession."
Sobre a origem do horror ao padrão-ouro (naturalmente, ligada aos dois pontos citados acima, por sua vez ligados ao fato de que todos desejam lucrar com o intervencionismo estatal):
"Americans are trapped in a world of debt that they voluntarily entered into, one by one, contract by contract, on the assumption that the FED will forever crank out unbacked counterfeit money. The thought that the government might return to a full gold coin standard with 100% reserve banking – stable, non-fraudulent money – terrifies them, for they would then face a horrifying prospect: no more counterfeit money to stiff their creditors, no more FED-managed economic shots in the arm, no more fiat-money safety nets for overextended debtors, no more government-insured bank accounts (or anything else) – insurance guarantees that can be redeemed only through additional fiat money.
"Once the addiction to counterfeit money becomes widespread in a free market economy, the only permanent escape from the boom-bust cycle is going cold turkey: a recession that is overcome, not by another round of monetary debasement, but by a permanent readjustment of prices downward and new era of entrepreneurship based on a stable-money environment. This solution is unacceptable to everyone except Austrian School economists and their disciples. The universal worship of the State today is manifested by the universal acceptance of the fraud of government-authorized counterfeit money: fractional reserve commercial banking and its guarantor, the central bank."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:22 PM

The Empire Ruminates
O detalhe mais impressionante a respeito das pressões para que os EUA bombardeiem o Iraque é que ninguém alega que Saddam tenha tido qualquer coisa a ver com os atentados terroristas contra os EUA ou que ele tenha laços com bin Laden e a al-Qaida (até onde se sabe, a relação entre eles é de mútua hostilidade); os argumentos são outros dois: garantir a segurança de Israel (o que bem indica o fato, lembrado por Sobran, de que normalmente os falcões mais entusiasmados têm os interesses de outros países em mente - como os comunistas americanos na Segunda Guerra e os neoconservadores sionistas hoje) e acabar com uma tirania.
Alan Bock nota que esse segundo argumento não é característico de um país comum, integrante da comunidade internacional e que se comporta segundo as regras do direito internacional, mas de um império que se julga no direito de interferir nos negócios internos de qualquer país. Exatamente por isso a campanha a favor do bombardeio do Iraque é tão característica do imperialismo:
"As recently as 1991 it took the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (ignoring for the moment whether American diplomats winked and nodded and gave him 'permission') to mobilize an American army and an international coalition against him. The old 'rules' of the supposedly enlightened internationalists some of us learned in college still had some sway. Our leaders thought they had to phony up a Gulf of Tonkin incident to justify escalation in Vietnam. The idea that recognized regimes were sovereign in their own territory but forfeited the right to be left alone when they invaded other sovereign countries still had some psychological heft.
"Today, however, that regnant mythology is gone, gone, gone. The United States doesn't have to be defending against aggressors or protecting the integrity of the international system to justify an invasion. It simply has to dislike a ruler or a regime and what that ruler does within his country to feel perfectly righteous in beginning a war and in attacking first.
"That to me is the attitude of a world emperor more than a first-among-equals in a system of sovereign nations. This is not to say that some of our foreign policy gurus are not thoughtful and even (in their view) apparently benevolent over the long haul, or that some of the regimes they target don't richly deserve at least the opprobrium of all decent people. But there's no longer even the pretense of recognition of sovereignty or the need to have an attack or incident of aggression to justify war by the United States. It's enough to dislike the leader in another country or to consider him a potential threat. (...)
"I'm trying not to be shocked here. Such maneuverings have been the way of the world and the way of great powers for eons. But it seems important to me to make it clear that these attitudes are not those of a country that seeks (as John Quincy Adams had it) to be the friend of freedom everywhere but the guarantor only of its own. They are not even the attitudes of a conscientious and responsible member of the 'international community' willing to use its own power to protect the innocent and defenseless against the rapacious aggressors who abound in the nasty world at large.
"No, these attitudes are those of an imperial power that believes it not only has the ability but the right to decide how any country in the world shall be run and to use force if need be to see to it that the proper outcome occurs. The fact that so many of our policymakers see this role as benevolent and constructive and don't see themselves as hypocrites is, if anything, more chilling than the notion that our leaders are conscious imperialists. They are imperialists without even knowing they are, making assumptions that could only be justified by an empire's stance in the world while believing they are simply out to do good in an unruly world.
"But the rest of us should be clear. Discussing an attack on Saddam Hussein in the absence of an overt provocation is the act of an imperial power that believes it has a custodial duty to make things right in the rest of the world."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:15 PM

Balkans Christmas -- All Year 'Round
Assim como em Israel (cortesia do criminoso de guerra Ariel Sharon), o Natal não foi muito feliz nos Bálcãs - graças aos inúmeros "presentes" do império americano e seus serviçais.
Nebojsa Malic faz um levantamento do que ocorreu nos países da região; destaco seus comentários sobre a Macedônia, que, até os atentados terroristas, era o centro das atenções no noticiário internacional e que representa um excelente - e assustador - exemplo do que o imperialismo globalista pode fazer com um país:
"Now Macedonia's gift this year was simply precious. There is no other way of describing the Treaty of Ohrid, if one is to avoid being labeled a 'hard-line militant nationalist warmonger.' For a while it looked as if Macedonia would have to fight a full-scale war against the Albanian 'liberation army' on vacation from pillaging in Kosovo.
"Then, through the merciful intervention of Europe's noted peace activist Javier Solana and America's honest broker James Pardew, Macedonia was prevented from making the dreadful mistake of self-defense, which would have cost its taxpayers millions of dollars for weapons from non-NATO countries. Instead, the Macedonian government happily accepted preferential treatment for the Albanians, establishing ethnic quotas and enforcing bilingualism on the 75% of the population for the sake of the remaining 25%. Ever since then, things in Macedonia have been just wonderful – with the exception of some evil nationalist hard-line warmongers, who simply hate peace."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 3:03 PM

Quinta-feira, Dezembro 27, 2001

Reflections on the Incarnation
Um dos pontos mais importantes a respeito da Encarnação é que ela representa a rejeição definitiva da visão gnóstica e maniqueísta de que o mundo físico é mau e de que a vida humana na Terra não tem substância e significado, lembra o Rev. Jerry Zandstra, em excelente sermão reproduzido pelo Acton Institute (grifo meu):
"I want to look at the Manger with Creation as the backdrop.
"There has been and still are some anti-material strains of thought in some Christians' thought and practice. Some practitioners of the faith claim being a Christian is only a spiritual exercise, unconnected to the material. Actually, their thought goes further. In some of the more radical strains of this thinking, everything to do with the material world is evil.
"Such thought interprets life on this earth something only to be endured. Our lives on earth are drained of meaning, significance, and purpose. Reality is limited to that which is spiritual, something we will only know when we die and are able to leave the confines of the body.
"Those holding to this position deny the Incarnation — they deny that God became flesh. They assert that the Christ child only appears to be in the flesh. He cannot be 'in the flesh' because flesh is inherently evil. It is the source of sin and the cause of our struggles.
"To accept such a viewpoint is to assert that our work and our education have no spiritual meaning. There is no purpose to life or to our families or to our vocations. There is no meaning to our possessions or our recreation or our time on this earth. It is passing and, in the end, unimportant.
"But this perspective is heresy. It is a denial of something of profound importance. To see the Manger correctly, we must look all the way back to Creation.
"We remember that in the beginning, God creates light, it is good. He creates land, and it is good. The sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars all follow and all are proclaimed good. He creates the creatures living in the water and in the sky and declares them good. He creates the land animals and says that they are good. And finally, He creates human beings in His image and declares that they are good.
"At the end of six days, God looked over His project — over all that He had created — and declared it 'very good.' His creation is right. It is beautiful. It is glorious. It is expanding and growing, filled with vitality.
"Yes, there is sin coming through Adam and Eve. Yes, evil and murder and destruction and jealousy are soon to follow. But these things do not completely overpower the goodness of God's creation. They do not cancel out His creative activity.
"Sin distorts. It twists. It pushes things out of shape. But it cannot overcome the creative power of God. Sin exists, says St. Augustine, as a parasite which does not have a life of its own, but instead exists off the life of another.
"To gain a full appreciation for the events in the town of Bethlehem, we must see that the Child born in the Manger is God reaffirming that the world is good. He has become the thing He created to bring restoration-to put things back in their proper order. It is God coming into the world to declare that it is being made good again.
(...)
"We do not have a faith that hides from the world. We do not have a faith that does not touch what we do tomorrow and next week and next year. We do not have a faith that views our lives on this planet as a time to wait and persevere until death. Our faith in the Child in the manger is alive and vibrant in this world.
"We know that what begins in the manger will only be made complete when Christ returns, but still our lives in the 'here and now' have substance. God is here. He is here in the flesh and He has not abandoned His creation. That which He once declared to be good is being made good again. It is being restored. 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom His favor rests'."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 12:56 PM

The leftist media
Lá como cá, a mídia é dominada por esquerdistas. Infelizmente, aqui ninguém nunca se deu ao trabalho de compilar estatísticas com as opiniões políticas da maioria dos jornalistas; creio que o "índice de esquerdismo" seria ainda maior que o americano.
Eis os números citados por Walter Williams, a partir do recente livro do ex-repórter da CBS, Bernard Goldberg:
'"Major media people have values unlike most other Americans. Former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg documents that in his best-seller, "Bias."
'Eighty-nine percent of Washington journalists voted for Clinton in 1992, compared to just 43 percent of non-journalists; 23 percent of the public describe themselves as liberal, compared to 55 percent of journalists; 49 percent of the public is pro-choice, whereas 82 percent of journalists are; 75 percent of the public favors the death penalty, compared to 47 percent of journalists. The differences go on and on.
'While the media elite differ significantly from the average American, their level of dishonesty and leftist bias is appalling. Goldberg addressed this concern in a meeting with Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News. Since CBS does so many investigative reports, Goldberg wanted to do one on media bias. "Look, Bernie," Heyward said, "of course there's a liberal bias in the news. All the networks tilt left." When the meeting ended, Heyward warned, "If you repeat any of this, I'll deny it."'
postado por Alvaro Velloso 12:48 PM

The Things That Are Caesar's
O mundo contemporâneo dá mais importância à desobediência a César do que à recusa a Deus, nota Joseph Sobran, comentando o caso de John Walker, o talibã americano:
"Of course, he has also said outrageous things, defending, for example, the 9/11 attacks and general terrorism against the United States. But to me the most interesting fact is the dog that hasn't barked. Nobody seems to mind that Lindh renounced Jesus Christ.
"You can repudiate your Savior, but not your nation-state. Your religion is a private affair, which nobody else can judge, not even your family; but political loyalties are indissoluble.
"If Lindh had stayed here, become an abortion provider, and attached a little American flag to his Mercedes, he would still qualify as a good American.
"Even his parents don't mind his change of religion. Why should they? They abandoned the faith themselves. It evidently wasn't a serious commitment for them; neither was their marriage. They were typical modern Americans – indeed, Californians – and they believed in doing your own thing.
"John's thing just happened to be Islam. He is reported to have complained that Americans were so busy pursuing their personal goals that they had no time for their families or communities. He seems to have been generalizing from his own parents. And he had a point.
"It looks as if what he was really trying to escape was the soulless relativism that was his real religious heritage. Did he ever receive a true Catholic education, or did he, as we say, just 'happen to be' a Catholic? Did he encounter the faith in its fullness, or did it appear to him just one more feel-good, nonjudgmental denomination in the great American smorgasbord?
"Maybe he felt closer to God in Islam than in liberal Catholicism. And maybe he was right. The Taliban is pretty far from God, but perhaps not as far as lukewarm Christianity."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 12:43 PM

Minor mysteries of Universe explained
O Discovery Channel fez uma pesquisa na Inglaterra para saber quais as questões que mais instigavam a curiosidade do público, e vai apresentar um documentário com as dez principais dúvidas e suas respostas científicas. A maioria é besteira, mas eis as mais interessantes:
"[1]Why do you never see baby pigeons? Squabs are looked after by their parents until they are fully feathered. By the time they leave the nest, their plumage and size is the same as an adult bird. Also, pigeon nests are well hidden.
"[3]Why do we clink glasses when we say cheers? This dates from the Ancient Greek habit of poisoning one’s enemies. To prove wine was safe, a host would pour some of his guest’s wine into his own cup and drink it first. However, if the guest trusted his host, he would merely touch his cup against the other.
"[6]Where does the X in Xmas come from? X is the Greek letter “chi”, the first letter of the Greek word Christos, or 'anointed one'. Transcribers copying the Scriptures by hand in the 4th century used 'chi' or X as a helpful abbreviation for Christ. The cross shape added an extra level of symbolism and meaning.
"[10]Why are things always in the last place we look? Because once we have found them, we stop looking."
postado por Alvaro Velloso 12:39 PM