[There is a] strong correlation between market freedom and lower government corruption -- not terribly surprising, since the effect of increasing regulatory power is to shift 'cheating' from the private to the public sphere.

Julian Sanchez

Categorized in : Cheating Strong Government

If it were really the case that terrorists "hate us for our freedoms," we'd be getting more popular with Al Qaeda every month.

als democracy hate

Market bashers ... might understand the claim that in some particular field, markets required no intervention--though they'd be skeptical--but the notion that, on general principle, complex systems ran themselves just fine without benign intervention seemed like it could only be the product of a quasi-religious faith. ... Of course, this gets things almost precisely backwards. It is the idea that all order must be explained by a functioning mind at the helm, not its denial, that has the closet affinity to the religious instinct.

religious order ideas

It is no response to assert that the Patriot Act has been useful; what you need to explain is how any particular safeguard would have so diluted investigative powers that it would have frustrated an investigation and created a security harm outweighing the benefit to civil liberties. If you'd rather trade scary stories, that's fine too - just let me know so I can buy a bag of marshmallows before our next round.

scary-stories frustrated liberty

But even if you thought they were adequate at the time, when you're collecting data in bulk-you've got it. The data lasts until you delete it; the rules only last until you decide to change them, and change them in secret.

adequate data secret

It is the idea that all order must be explained by a functioning mind at the helm, not its denial, that has the closet affinity to the religious instinct.

religious order ideas

Why is it that any time government takes over something for a few years, its assumed that people are too incompetent to do it for themselves?

government people years

There’s plenty of scaremongering around steps broadband providers could take in the absence of neutrality regulation —blocking off certain sites, or charging extra fees to access certain services —but not a ton of reason to think they woulddo these things, which would antagonize customers, be technically tricky to enforce against sophisticated users, and invite the re-imposition of regulations, what’s more realistic is the introduction of plans that provide higher speeds for specific bandwidth-intensive services.

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