DISQUS

I wonder if Ross feels any complicity in homicide when he sees an entertaining movie where someone is murdered? Even if it's just make believe, there's still that moral continuum and all. What about softcore porn? Porn literature?

Joey, it seemss to me there really is no way to prove that unicorns do or don't exist. But would you think me unreasonable if I took the position that they simply don't exist?

The benefits of illegal immigration are being increasingly documented, and the dangers have turned out to be overstated, often very much so. For a while now I've been an advocate of pretty much what we've been doing until very recently. Which would be mostly ignoring the "problem" of illegal immigration. Incarcerate and/or deport the troublemakers. Leave the rest alone. The reason I've advocated this idea is because it would be much preferred to any solution that has been proposed by actual politicians. It's realistic. And it is least invasive, and least costly. I realize the notion that the law be ignored for practical reasons seems to rub many folks the wrong way, but it's not without precedent. It seems a good solution until the issue can be dealt with in a rational manner.

The xenophobia in Japanese society is so pervasive that they'd rather subsidize the robot industry than allow immigrant labor. Borjas is whacked enough to think this is a desirable thing.

If they want to pick up the tab for such development, it's fine by me. The rest of the world will reap the benefits of the trickle down technology. But this is only a cost effective move when collectivist and protectionist impulses know no bounds.

It's interesting that the ban on prostitution has made the practice extinct where I live. My future, and ours, is thus protected!

And certainly, if the ban were lifted, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from buying sexual services from these women. It's important that our society protects me from myself in this way.

I heard that story too.

Made me laugh. It reminds me of a story a few months ago about an uproar in Switzerland. Apparently the bid for next generation of Swiss Army knives was possibly going to a company outside Switzerland. Maybe even gasp CHINA! Folks were having conniptions. Rending of clothes. The whole bit. How could the Swiss Army forsake Swiss jobs and place the fate of Swiss defenses on a foreign vendor?!?

Saying that LA is doing well because its murder rate has declined since the brutal nadir of the American cultural revolution is like saying that Brezhnev was a great leader, because he didn’t kill as many people as Stalin.

Indeed. But it's a metric you chose to highlight, not me. Your dismissal of the argument when it can no longer be effectively used to bludgeon the state is just as curious as the original alarmist link you posted.

Regarding outmigration, it's not clear that such a thing is necessarily a sign of impending doom. Claims of the slide of California into a third world hellhole are a bit difficult to take seriously, as
1. they're not new.
2. they're not reflected in reality. By any measure, it's still a very prosperous state and highly desirable place to live. Unless, of course, one has an aversion to folks who speak foreign tongues and/or have darker complexions.

It's clear that California has some serious problems. Claiming they have much to do with the breakdown of Anglo-European cultural hegemony is weak, bordering on pathology.

Mencius:

That LA Weekly article is curiously gloomy, as the CA violent crime rate has generally been trending lower for quite a while.. Murder rate in L.A. is lower now than it was when I was a kid in the 70s.

Paul ratcheted up his "not-to-be-taken-seriously" factor all himself, by his association with cranks. By doing this, he's jeopardized expanding his base to reasonable folk. His loss.

The first step to being good for "the blacks" is to actually pique their interest. In a positive way.

AMEN, Wilkinson. Mostly indifferent to Paul's campaign from the start, I hoped he would at least be able to start some needed conversations in the country over the role of government and individual rights. It looks like he may in fact have started some needed conversations, but at the expense of classical liberalism. This whole episode has left me bitter over the damage he's done. I look forward to your follow up posts.