Oikeutta Qaddafille

Kymmeniätuhansia ihmisä tappanut Muammar Qaddafi sai muutaman minuutin ajan kokea saman, mitä hän pakotti monet libyalaiset (ja ulkomaalaiset) kokemaan 42 vuoden ajan. Tähän oikeudenmukaisuuden pilkkeeseen suomalaiset reagoivat odotetusti:

Yhdysvallat on ryhtynyt liittolaisineen tappamaan itselleen epämieluisia henkisiä johtajia lennokeilla ja nyt valtionpäämiehiä taistelukoneilla. Kansainvälisen yhteisön tulisi tuomita tämä kovin ottein. -millä oikeudella

Liittouma sai YK:lta oikeudet ilmatilan suojeluun, mutta tosiasiallisesti vastoin YK:n lupaa pommitti siviilejä ja perääntyviä maajoukkoja. Raukkamaista ja rikollista. Sarkozy ja Obama tulisi viedä Haagin sotarikostuomioistuimeen tuomittaviksi. -HINNATALAS

Antaa tietysti tyylikkään kuvan uusista vallanpitäjistä: vanha mies pyytää armoa pakomatkalla ja hänet murhataan...
Eipä ihme että Amerikassa ja Ranskassa ja Italiassa ollaan ylpeitä, tämähän on juuri sitä toimintaa mihin heitä koulutetaan. -Juho-Kusti

Laittomasta väkivallasta puheenollen, olikohan tämä Naton toimi lentokiellon ylläpitämistä vai siviilien suojelemista vai YK:n mandaatin vastainen? -Johan On

Taas on länsiliittouman siunauksella oksennettu eurooppalaisen oikeuskäsityksen ja ihmisarvojen kasvoille. Ja tälle irvokkaalle lopputulokselle kansa sekä johtajat hurraavat, niin barbaarisessa Afrikassa kuin "sivistyneessä" lännessä. -roomalainen

Tämä tapahtumasarja on aivan järkyttävää valtion sisäisiin asiohin puuttumista ja sen luonnonvarojen ryöstöä. Mitä tutkimista siinä on, että Gaddafi nyt tapettiin, kun sitä eilen oikein peräänkuulutettiin?
Eikö Naton pitänyt olla vain suojaamistehtävissä, eikä sodassa?
Vanha sana, mutta sitä tämä on: imperialismia. -Erkki

Suurin piirtein yhtä innostuneesti täällä suhtauduttiin Osaman kuolemaan.

Strip clubs, pornography and feminists

The United States is an easy target when it comes to narrow-minded attitudes toward sexuality. Here's Texas, the heart of the Bible Belt:

In 2007, state legislators passed the Sexually Oriented Business Fee Act, which imposed the fee ["pole tax"] on nearly 200 establishments that feature live nude performances and allow the consumption of alcohol. The $5-per-customer entrance fee, which is imposed on the business and not the patron, is intended to raise money for sexual assault prevention programs and health insurance coverage for low-income people. (NYTimes)

This a form of collective punishment, which is kinda perverse in a country that values individual responsibility. The tax assumes that everyone attending strip clubs is responsible for the actions of a few rapists. 

Moreover, open attitudes toward adult entertainment have actually been found to reduce violence against women. So, if the aim is to reduce the incidence of rape, Texan lawmakers should consider subsidizing strip clubs rather than taxing them.

But at least it's still legal in Texas to take your clothes off for money. In the so-called progressive Nordic countries women's rights and liberties are being curbed by feminists (a female supremacist movement that opposes individual liberties and equal rights) to a much, much greater degree than some conservatives in the United States ever could. Here's Julie Bindel, a feminist author, writing about banning strip clubs and pornography in Iceland:

Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the country being shut down.

Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons.

So, feminists are united with religious extremists in their contempt of women's right to make decisions about their own lives. Only their reasons differ.

Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold."

This is just idiotic. How is selling "yourself" at a strip club any different from selling "yourself" at an office? Nearly every profession is a mixture of inherent talent and obtained skill and those are the things you're selling. The labor market consists of people selling themselves. So, the problem is not that these people are selling themselves as "products"; the problem is that feminists don't happen to like this particular product even though it's none of their business. Feminists, like religious extremists, have a vision of what a proper woman is like (even their rhetoric is similar: "It is not acceptable that women..."). Any deviations from this standard are to be looked down upon. Feminists perceive women not as adult individuals capable of using their own discretion but as child-like members of a collective who are to do what the collective tells them to do.

Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution – and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy in their work.

What an idiot. If "not looking happy" or "working just to make ends meet" is a qualification for banning an occupation, I guess all of us are to be unemployed in the not-so-distant future. Simple-minded authoritarians like Bindel are not really helping the situation by not showing much of any respect for these women. If feminists and cultural conservatives actually respected women working in the adult industry (and taught their children to respect them as well), these women might have a better time at work and life in general. I'd guess that a big reason why some women in the adult industry don't feel appreciated is precisely because narrow-minded people like Bindel don't appreciate them as adults capable of making their own decisions. Instead, they're trying to force-feed the "you're a victim" mantra. This could also explain why drug abusers and poor people are overrepresented in the adult industry; only they've really got nothing to lose. Mainstreamization of pornography would attract more "mainstream" people. In fact, it's not surprising anymore to find that an adult entertainer holds an academic degree. Of course, feminists probably consider well-educated women who choose to work in the adult industry as traitors.

Let's end this post on a positive note:

Let’s look at attitudes towards women – studies of men who had seen X-rated movies found that they were significantly more tolerant and accepting of women than those men that didn’t see those movies, and studies by other investigators, female as well as male, essentially found similarly that there was no detectable relationship of the amount of exposure to pornography and any measure of misogynist attitudes. No researcher or critic has found the opposite, that exposure to pornography – by any definition – has had a cause and effect relationship towards ill feelings or actions against women. No correlation has even been found between exposure to porn and calloused attitudes toward women.

Lisää kieltoja ratkaisuiksi ongelmiin

Pettämätöntä logiikkaa:

Sisäministeri Päivi Räsäsen (kd.) mielestä ravintoloissa tapahtuvaan seksikauppaan puututtaisiin parhaiten kieltämällä seksin osto Ruotsin malliin.

Räsäsen mukaan ostokielto selkeyttäisi pelisääntöjä.

- Toimintaan pystyttäisiin aina puuttumaan, tapahtuipa se sitten yleisellä paikalla tai ei, hän sanoo lehdelle. (Iltalehti)

Pari päivää sitten uutisoitiin, että tullin haaviin jäi kevään ja kesän aikana lasti laittomia potenssilääkkeitä. Kerta oli tuskin ensimmäinen, eli voimme olettaa mustan pörssin lääkekaupan olevan jonkin sortin ongelma. Räsäsen logiikan mukaisesti ehdotan lääkkeiden oston kieltoa. Samaan hengenvetoon ehdotan pelien ja elokuvien ostokieltoa, jotta piratismiin "pystyttäisiin aina puuttumaan".

Kristillisdemokraattien Räsänen nähtävästi käyttää asemaansa sisäministerinä hyväkseen ajaakseen kristittyjen sairaita seksuaalinormeja Suomen lakiin.

Veronkiertäjät samalle tasolle raiskaajien kanssa?

Ministereillä taas prioriteetit kunnossa:

Talousrikollisten vankilatuomioita halutaan pidentää. Asiantuntijan mukaan nykyistä kovemmat rangaistukset vähentäisivät talousrikollisuutta. Uusi oikeusministeri Anna-Maja Henriksson (r.) käynnistää selvityksen rangaistusten koventamisesta. (YLE)

Samaan aikaan ihmisarvottomat raiskaajat ja henkirikosten tekijät selviävät parin vuoden linnareissulla johtuen oikeuslaitoksen virkamiesten kollektiivisesta mielenhäiriöstä.

Tyypillinen talousrikos on rakennusalalla tehty verorikos

Toisin sanoen, tyypillisessä talousrikoksessa rikos koostuu siitä, että "rikoksentekijä" ei suostu luopumaan omista rahoistaan.

Monet asiantuntijat ovat sitä mieltä, että ehdottomat vankilatuomiot ja pidemmät rangaistukset vähentäisivät talousrikollisuutta.
- Kyse on paljolti tuomioistuinten käytännöstä. Suomeenkin olisi kuitenkin lakiin hyvä saada kuuden vuoden maksimirangaistus. Tämä varmasti vähentäisi intoa tehdä talousrikoksia.

Jostain ihmeen syystä henkirikosten kohdalla kuitenkin kuvitellaan, että ankarammat rangaistukset eivät ehkäisisi henkirikoksia, vaikka niitäkin tehdään "harkitusti".

Banning landmines - naive and dangerous idealism

Now that a bunch of naive idealists in the government have agreed to get rid of landmines, it's fitting to quote Charles Krauthammer (2004):

Realists do not live just in America. I found one in Finland. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty, one of the rare holdouts, interestingly enough, was Finland. The Finnish prime minister stoutly opposed the land mine ban. And for that he was scolded by his Scandinavian neighbors. To which he responded tartly that this was a “very convenient” pose for the “other Nordic countries”--after all, Finland is their land mine.

Finland is the land mine between Russia and Scandinavia. America is the land mine between barbarism and civilization. 

Our president (and commander in chief), Tarja Halonen, has been an advocate of the landmine ban. An officer in the Finnish military was recently fined for calling her incompetent.

Tragedy in Norway and the assault on individual liberties

Since Anders Behring Breivik used to play Modern Warfare 2 with the intended purpose of learning military tactics, why don't we ban the game? This is pretty much the line of reasoning dozens of politicians have utilized in the wake of recent school shootings in various countries. This is the line of reasoning Finnish politicians and wannabe politicans are now utilizing to further their political agendas in the wake of the mass murder in Norway. Our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, wants to put restrictions on online "hate speech", specifying hate speech as speech that encourages people to do what Breivik did. (I haven't seen such hate speech myself, kinda like I have never seen child pornography on the internet even though some politicians make it sound as if you can't get far without running into such pornography.) More specifically, he wants to restrict the use of aliases which champions of free speech have historically used in order to avoid persecution. Dissidents in China, the Middle East and so on rely on anonymity. He also wants to restrict gun ownership rights, saying that "no one needs" guns with magazine capacity at or above 30, as if it were up to him to decide what people need.

It's a disgrace that the actions of a single madman are used as a pretext to curb individual liberties, liberties that belong to everyone, liberties that the vast majority of us use in a responsible way. This is why there aren't many lessons to be learned from the massacre. Anti-immigration "racists" are no more responsible for what Breivik did than Modern Warfare 2 is. A quick look at Breivik's political positions reveals that the guy is a mess if anything, combining Christianity, liberalism (he cites classical liberals such as F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and even Ayn Rand who was a staunch atheist), conservatism, anti-Marxism, Islamophobia, nationalism etc. in his writings. None of these in particular makes him mad. Breivik was mad in believing that his actions would spark a European civil war that'd end by the year 2083. If anything, this resembles Charles Manson's reasoning (Manson believed that the murders he orchestrated would ignite a race war that'd inevitably be won by blacks) and Masonic conspiracy theories (Breivik was a Freemason). Moreover, Breivik's writing is incredibly child-like and idiotic, as revealed by the fact that he actually proposes using Modern Warfare 2 as a military simulator and World of Warcraft as a means to hide your real activities.

So, look no further than the fact that Anders Behring Breivik was both a lunatic and an idiot. You're not helping anything by attributing Breivik's behavior to video games and broken marriages like this Swedish terrorism expert does, citing video games and his parents' broken marriage as causes of his "personality disorder". Should we draw the conclusion that you belong to some kind of a risk group if 1) your parents are divorced and 2) you play Modern Warfare 2? How many millions does that make? I'm sure many of you can name a few who meet the requirements. But how many people you know who could actually start shooting kids? Our "anti-immigration" politician Timo Soini said it best: "We're talking about a single fanatic, a psychopath and the murders he committed."

We should not start restricting our liberties simply because some lunatics abuse theirs. For lunatics, any excuse will do. We just have to live with it (and punish these individuals when they do act); that's the price of liberty. Otherwise, if we do start restricting our liberties, there's nothing left to live for. This is why I'm more worried about what our politicians will do now than I'm worried about the next attack. Restricting the use of online aliases would alone be a greater tragedy than the massacre in Norway.

----

There's a very serious lesson to be drawn from all this and that is that the Norwegian state failed in what is the most fundamental responsibility of the state; protecting individuals from criminals. While the massacre was ongoing the local police did nothing but wait for a SWAT unit that then ran into some difficulties before finally making it to the island. It's also telling that Breivik didn't shoot himself once he was done. When news of the incident started to emerge I immediately assumed the killer had committed suicide. Then I remembered that Norway is like Finland: murderers can expect lenient sentences and prison conditions are actually quite comfortable.

China is not a model

The Economist has another typical article that degenerates into treating China with words like "ooh" and "aah". First the article lists economic and political similarities between the US and the EU and then starts drawing comparisons to China, implying that the Chinese government (or any authoritarian regime) could cope with financial crises more effectively than "dysfunctional" democracies. Maybe, but let's not start treating China as some kind of a model until comparisons between the West and China become valid. Despite the fact that the Chinese GDP soon catches up with that of the US, their current GDP per capita is less than one tenth of that of the US. The time to start drawing comparisons is when the Communist party has made it possible for the Chinese to enjoy Western levels of prosperity. With their current political and economic system there's no chance of that happening.

There's one good point there though: "Every year China continues to grow, the case that countries need to be democracies in order to become wealthy and developed becomes more tenuous."

Of course, this is nothing new. During the Cold War many 3rd world countries adopted the Soviet system as an economic model. What failed them was not any lack of democracy but the centrally-planned economic system that China has now somewhat abandoned. Even in the West many countries were economically liberal before they were politically liberal. It was the wealth brought on by Capitalism that made people in the West demand more political liberties. This is also what makes the Chinese leadership so nervous.

It is Capitalism that brings stability in the first place because materially well-off people have a lot to lose if they resort to petty factionalism. (No wonder then that Communist revolutions took place exactly where Marx least expected them.) This is why democratic countries that have been made prosperous by Capitalism are stable while attempts to introduce democracy prior to Capitalism tend to result in failures.

The New Anti-Semitic Alliance

Benjamin Netanyahu:

“There is a new boiling anti-semitism of radical Islam that sweeps Europe as a whole, and there’s a strange fusion – it’s the only word I can use to describe it — a fusion with the anti-semitism of the radical far far left,”

“This is the strangest union you could possibly contemplate,”... “because radical Muslims: they stone women, they execute gays, they are against any human rights, against feminism, against whathaveyou. And the far left is supposed to be for these things.” (Washington Times)

I wonder when the left wakes up to this reality.

At Least They Have a Diversity of Opinions

Vivian Schiller, the now-former president of National Public Radio (the American equivalent of YLE, although much more insignificant), resigned after her colleague was caught saying (among other things) this:

"Liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,"

Conservatives are probably going to take the thing about not being as well educated as liberals as a compliment, as they should. It's the anti-intellectualism of American conservatives, and conservatism in general, that makes conservatism pragmatic. This is in sharp contrast to the liberal idealists now occupying the White House who are more prone to idealist, theoretical considerations that end up ballooning the federal deficit for the sake of an ideology.

The claim about liberals being more fair & balanced than conservatives is pretty funny, especially considering how this news wasn't even considered main headline-worthy on CNN while Fox News thought otherwise. This is nothing new. For example, both the despicable union demonstrations in Wisconsin and the Planned Parenthood case have hardly been mentioned by Fox's competitors. A Fox News host today noted that if the Tea Party were involved in some demonstration in a manner similar to the Wisconsin unions, CNN would be all over it. (A similar point is often raised by the lovely Megyn Kelly, who's always quick to note that a given news story was first broken by Fox.)

So why is this particular news headline-worthy? Because NPR enjoys privileges that other channels don't. The medium has lately been dominated by conservatives while Democrats have been wanting to level the playing field via legislation. Fox News, a champion of individual liberty (at least in the relative sense), is of course anxious to report scandals involving pro-government forces especially if Fox is worried that it could one day be competing with powerful state-controlled media outlets. We could use some of Fox's spirit here in Finland where the state-controlled YLE dominates and hardly anyone has any problems with it (except for the licence fee). This isn't exactly a wonder in a country where party differences are marginal and consensus dominates. The very fact that Finns (this applies to other Europeans as well) consider Fox News a problem while not noticing the obvious bias of our state-controlled broadcaster pretty much shows how YLE is a problem.

Thou Shalt Not Burn the Qu'ran

A recent stunt by Finnish freethinkers involved exchanging bibles (and other religious nonsense) for porn magazines. This aroused some controversy but, as far as I can remember, there were no calls to have the freethinkers arrested for inciting religious hatred. But in Britain, and quite probably soon in Finland too, you can get arrested for burning the Qur'an. Of course, British freethinkers would not even be able to pull off a stunt like the one described in the opening sentence because local Muslims would immediately resort to violence, if necessary, to prevent their worthless book from being traded for porn. And local authorities, instead of guaranteeing the freethinkers' right to exchange goods for goods (and voice their opinion in doing so), would side with the Muslims to preserve whatever peace and order (our consensus) Europeans happen to value over liberty.

Chief executive officer of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Catherine Heseltine, slammed the burning of the Koran - one of the most offensive acts to Muslims she could imagine.

Why have extremists been interviewed for the news article? This woman is obviously only concerned with the fact that someone dared to burn their holy book rather than with the fact that authorities arrested a 15-year-old girl for it. Some local dhimmi politician interviewed for the article also failed to see this in terms of freedom of speech and religious liberty, instead bringing up how damage control is being done to appease Muslims. Once again, it's the feelings of the local Muslim community that matter the most, not liberty.

'You can see that in the way Muslims treat the Koran - washing before touching it and in many Muslim homes you will find it on the top shelf above all other books.

Is this supposed to make one respect Muslims' beliefs? I for one consider it merely hilarious and pathetic that some people feel the need to clean themselves before touching junk.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some British Muslims arrested the next time they incite ethnic hatred by burning the Union Jack, for example. Of course, both Muslims and non-Muslims should have the right to express their opinion but for as long as these double standards exist, Muslims won't give a damn about freedom of speech.

Unnatural selection

A 25-year-old Brit, Keith Macdonald, has fathered 15 children with 14 women while living on unemployment benefits like most of his "victims" (the article doesn't use the word specifically but it's implied; I'd use a less flattering word) who're also dependent on government assistance and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Biological fitness can be measured by the number of offspring an individual produces during his or her lifetime. What biological features increase fitness is defined by the environment which, in human context, includes the society. It is then no wonder that the welfare state has changed the environment so that people who less than a hundred years ago would have been considered "unfit" are now among the fit thanks to taxpayer-funded welfare checks.

One could draw the apparent conclusion that we're on a degenerative path heading towards some kind of an idiocracy. Obviously, this won't happen as the welfare system is dependent on production which in turn is defined by how the society allocates its factors of production; capital and labor. The overall tax burden cannot be increased indefinitely without causing the system to collapse (at high tax rates, government revenue starts to fall) which would leave the high-breeding, non-working individuals without a safety net.

The Economist and its leftward spiral

The Economist warns of the dangers of Big Government. Funny, because I vaguely remember the Economist advocating not only Barack Obama's election but also the fiscal stimulus, the bank rescue package and the health care reform. This is the trend the news magazine has had for at least the past four years that I have been a subscriber. First they advocate interventionist policies and then, especially if those policies backfire, they argue that we should be cautious of such policies. Usually they leave cunning openings for themselves, allowing them to take credit however things turn out. I guess they really want to make it seem like they're sticking to their stated principles while in fact advocating policies that betray those principles.

Finland, the best country according to some

Newsweek ranked Finland as the best country in the world to live in. Finns just love it when they're noticed abroad which, if you ask me, is quite pathetic. What's even more pathetic is the way our media is treating this. They're referring to Newsweek as "prestigious", completely leaving out the fact that it suffers from a heavy left-wing bias. A quick look at the "advisory board" behind the ranking reveals something the media hasn't been able to figure out: that the ranking was written by leftists (including Stiglitz) and a few centrists. And this is what our Minister for Foreign Affairs considers the best news of the year.

Maahanmuutolla "pelottelu"

Porissa järjestetyn SuomiAreena-keskustelutilaisuuden aikana uutisissa joku ihmetteli, miten suhteettomasti maahanmuuttokysymykset olivat keskusteluissa esillä. Haastateltu mies viittasi Suomen suhteellisesti alhaiseen maahanmuuttajamäärään verrattuna muuhun Länsi-Eurooppaan ja esitti, että tällaisessa tilanteessa on "epärehellistä pelotella maahanmuutolla".

On totta, että Suomessa on vähän (islamilaisia) maahanmuuttajia verrattuna esimerkiksi Ruotsiin, mutta nimenomaan tästä syystä maahanmuuttokysymykseen tulee puuttua nyt eikä vasta sitten, kun meillä on jokaviikkoisia mellakoita ja koulunpolttajaisia ranskalaisten lähiöiden tai Malmön tyyliin. Maahanmuuttajien määrän kasvaessa heidän poliittinen valtansa myös kasvaa, mikä vaikeuttaa maahanmuuttokysymysten ratkaisua. Koska moni maahanmuuttaja on riippuvainen valtion tuista, hyvinvointipalveluita ajava vasemmisto vahvistuu. Näin syntyy antisemitistinen allianssi. Samaan aikaan lisääntyvät ongelmat vahvistavat (ääri)oikeistoa. Äärimmilleen vedetty polarisaatio voidaan välttää, jos maahanmuuttokysymykset nostetaan esille heti.

Islamilaisen maahanmuuton järkevyyttä on siis syytäkin miettiä nyt, kun muiden eurooppalaisten valtioiden idealistisen maahanmuuttopolitiikan vaikutukset ovat kaikkien nähtävillä. Suomi on tämän takia hyvässä asemassa, kun taas esimerkiksi Malmössä on jo liian myöhäistä miettiä, kannattaako niitä rajoja pitää auki. Siellä mietitään pikemminkin, että voisivatko muslimit hoitaa asiansa sharia-tuomioistuimissa ja että voidaanko kouluissa opettaa evoluutioteoriaa muslimilapsille. Jos suomalaiset haluavat joutua pohtimaan samanlaisia asioita, niin pidetään suut kiinni maahanmuuttokysymyksistä ja rajat auki. Perussuomalaiset eivät ole nousseet siksi, että suomalaiset olisivat yhtäkkiä alkaneet pitämään ahdasmielisestä populismista, vaan siksi, että suomalaisten mielestä maahanmuuttokysymyksistä tulee käydä korkean profiilin keskustelua.

Alle minimipalkan

Kauppalehti:

SAK:n ja STTK:n ylläpitämään kesäduunari-infoon on ilmoitettu ympäri Suomen jopa alle viiden euron tuntipalkoista. Moni työnantaja laistaa myös sunnuntain tuplapalkasta.

Puhelujen perusteella joillekin jäätelökioskimyyjille on maksettu ympäri Suomen alle viiden euron tuntipalkkaa, joka on liian vähäinen kaupan työehtosopimusten mukaan.

Ehkä nyt ei ole paras aika lähteä vaatimaan työehtosopimusten mukaista palkkaa. Monet firmat eivät ole finanssikriisin aikaisina kesinä kovin innostuneesti palkanneet kesätyöläisiä. Jos kesätyöläisiä pidettäisiin tuottavina, heitä palkattaisiin. Yleisesti ottaen firmat eivät ole mitään rahasampoja, joten pienikin ero tuntipalkassa voi olla hyvin merkittävä.

Kauppalehden kommenttiosaston porukka nähtävästi kuvittelee, että firmoilla on suurin piirtein rajattomasti rahaa tällaisinakin aikoina. Firmat eivät vaan silkkaa ahneuttaan maksa työehtosopimusten mukaista palkkaa. Muutenkin vaikuttaa siltä, että porukka ajattelee suuremman minimipalkan olevan automaattisesti hyvä ja edistyksellinen juttu, vailla haittavaikutuksia.

LaFeber's recipe for economic growth

In one of the most biased textbooks I have ever read, Walter LaFeber states the following in his America, Russia, and the Cold War:

5. Are the American people prepared for the post-Cold War world?
(...) The Soviet Union, after all, rotted from the inside out. On the other hand, Japan's and Germany's rise to economic power occurred because of their educated workforces, intelligent governmental guidance, ability to plan long-term and high savings rates (three to four times the rates of Americans) that catered money for investment rather than a towering consumer indebtedness.

Not a mention of free markets, only references to planning, guidance and having lots of intelligent people. If that's all it takes, then why exactly did the Soviet Union collapse? They had some of the best scientists in the world, free university education and a whole lot of planning. I guess their planning wasn't intelligent enough. The Soviet Union also had a high investment rate, with investments allocated by "intelligent" technocrats. And how did it turn out?

As for Japan and Germany, neither really managed to plan long-term. The Japanese government got so entangled in subsidizing its enterprises that when the time came to pull the plug, they couldn't, as a result of which Japan has had two lost decades. Germany has been liberalizing its economy precisely because some of the welfare state policies it adopted are not sustainable in the long run. When these two economies grew the fastest after the war, it was in large part thanks to catching up after being torn to pieces by years of war. Compared to the rest of the world, their economies were still overwhelmingly liberal (as in free). The fact is that both countries would have witnessed similar, maybe even much higher, growth rates if their governments had simply kept their hands off. This is the recipe that allowed the West to rise above the rest of the world in the first place, long before anyone even dared to mention "public education".

Praising education as some Holy Grail is dangerous; it sends governments on a wild-goose chase, as if educating the people of Africa somehow could bring about an economic miracle. Don't forget that our comprehensive public education system appeared relatively late, decades after we had shed ourselves of extreme poverty that so plagues the (un)developing world.

Sosialismin ja kehitysavun runtelema Tansania

Kirjassa Presidentin ministeriö II (1970-1981) paneudutaan yhdessä alaluvussa Suomen kehitysyhteistyötoimintaan Tansaniassa, joka oli "tärkein Suomen kahdenkeskisen kehitysavun päävastaanottajamaista" 70-luvulla:

Pohjoismailla ja sosiaalidemokraateilla oli erityinen "ideologinen rakkaus" Tansaniaan. Nyereren pyrkimykset ja tavoitteet nähtiin "jaloina".

Ulkoasiainministeriön sinisilmäiset virkamiehet, lähinnä sosiaalidemokraatit, kannattivat kymmenien miljoonien markkojen hankkeita Tansaniassa. (Näiden virkamiesten joukossa oli myös suurlähettiläs Martti Ahtisaari.) Tansania oli tuolloin sitoutunut suunnitelmatalouteen ja "maailman uuteen talousjärjestykseen", jota myös Suomi kannatti. Lukuunottamatta Paul Samuelsonin kaltaisia, matemaattisen mallentamisen sokaisemia ekonomisteja, suunnitelmatalouden ongelmat olivat hyvin taloustieteen tiedossa. Tämä ei estänyt satojen miljoonien markkojen sysäämistä tähän(kin) afrikkalaiseen katastrofiin. Wikipedian mukaan Tansania muuttui muutamassa vuodessa Afrikan merkittävimmästä maataloustuotteiden viejästä Afrikan merkittävimmäksi maataloustuotteiden tuojaksi. Kollektivisointeja tehostettiin mm. polttamalla kyliä. Näin toimi diktaattori Nyerere, jonka tavoitteita vasemmistolaiset pitivät "jaloina".

Tässä siis vain yksi esimerkki ei ainoastaan kehitysavun hyödyttömyydestä, vaan myös siitä, miten häikäilemättömästi diktaattorit käyttävät kehitysapurahoja omien mielisairaiden projektiensa toteuttamiseen. Käytännössä mikä tahansa afrikkalainen valtio toimisi esimerkkinä tästä, mutta eipä näytä menevän suomalaiselle intelligentsialle kaaliin.

Kirjassa mainitaan vielä, että 70-luvulla "Tansania kuului maailman 25 köyhimmän maan joukkoon". Maailmanpankin mukaan Tansania on tänään maailman 23. köyhin maa. Aid well spent!

Rooted in the same philosophy

Parts of a Nazi Party program adopted in 1920:

We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living.

The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all. Therefore, we demand: ... an end to the power of the financial interests.

[We] combat the... [Jewish-]materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of The Common Good Before the Individual Good.

-Der Nationalsozialismus Dokumente 1933-1945, edited by Walther Hofer

Ecuador

BBC (13th December 2008):

Ecuador is to default officially on billions of dollars of foreign debt it considers "illegitimate", says President Rafael Correa.

Mr Correa said he had given the order not to approve a debt interest payment due on Monday, describing the international lenders as "monsters".

The Economist (January 2010):

To finance its budget, the [Ecuadorean] government is likely to have to borrow more than $4 billion this year. Sine defaulting on a third of its foreign debt in December 2008, it has scoured the world for cash, without much success. It was late in paying legislators' salaries last month.

Hah! Another Latin American country exhibiting the wonders (and the impossibility) of building a welfare state at the expense of free-market capitalism (or without free-market capitalism). Like Venezuela, another Latin American country run by a socialist madman, Ecuador went on a spending spree when the price of oil was high. Oil revenue was then allocated to social spending, i.e., buying votes and turning people dependent on the government. Anti-West rhetoric and threats to private companies have not exactly helped government finances, unless you count Hugo Chávez's support, which is not really a good bet in the long run.

Rape in Finland - a Case of Welfare State Morality

Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding. -Ra's al Ghul

A 51-year-old policeman uses his badge to lure a 16-year-old runaway girl to his apartment where he then rapes her. Being a stupid piece of human trash, the "policeman" even takes pictures of her, pictures he then stores on his computer. He was given a two-year suspended sentence. Also, charges for misuse of an official position and violation of official duties were dismissed (he was off-duty at the time of the rape but that should be irrelevant).

This is not an exception to the rule. In Finland, this is the rule. Less than half of rape convictions result in any actual jail time and those who do serve time (a year or two) get away easily, considering the fact that our prisons are closer to hotels than actual prisons. The severity of a sentence has to do with your criminal background and the level of violence used during the rape. This is of course ludicrous. A couple of days ago a 30-ish man was given a six-month sentence for raping a 15-year-old. The reason why he has to spend any time in jail is because of his criminal background. Also, he wasn't even convicted of rape but of coercive sexual contact. Why? Because the level of violence involved was low. (Of course it was! How hard can it be to restrain a 15-year-old girl?)

What is going on? Nothing should compel our judges to hand out such lenient sentences and yet the practice is systematic. Maybe law students are forced to go through some kind of an operation before they graduate, an operation that removes their ability to separate just from unjust. This results in sympathizing with the offenders, the genetic trash that should be of no consequence to anyone. The welfare state has no respect for individual liberties and as such it fails to understand the concept of individual responsibility. According to the welfare ideology, the society made you and therefore you cannot be held fully responsible for your actions. By handing out lenient sentences the society puts a big part of the blame on the victim.

Sources:
-HS 1, 2, 3, 4
-Freodom