Dick McDonald has picked up on a good point from Condoleezza Rice's recent 9/11 testimony. She pointed out that it took many years for America to become fully democratic -- i.e. a place that treated blacks as people -- so it was absurd to expect an overnight transformation to mature democracy in Iraq.


MORE ECONOMICS

The socialist love of the State still flourishes: "A famous theory about taxes has it that wealth belongs to society and taxation merely determines how much of it the citizenry may use. This is what is argued in The Myth of Ownership by co-authors Thomas Nagel and Liam Murphy (Oxford, 2002). You and I do not own even our labor. It belongs to society and government is in charge of telling what we get to use and what remains in its coffers. According to this socialist view of wealth, there are no private property rights at all, only government grants."

There is a most illuminating and very fully referenced article here about the "Dickensian" British factory system of the 19th century and how it "abused" child labour. Economic historian Bill Hutt shows that the accounts of the system we almost always hear come from its opponents -- the romantics and do-gooders of the day. And that more objective evidence is readily available that shows factory work to have been the preferred employment of the day -- as it was "lighter" (less physically demanding) and better paid than the main alternative then available -- agricultural labour. And the health of factory workers was at least no worse than that of the general community at the time.

Icelandic blogger Willy Sutton has a good lesson in pictorial economics up. It takes a little while to load all the pictures but they certainly educate

Outsourcing is a natural force in the free market "Free markets provide what the great economic historian Joseph Schumpeter called a process of 'creative destruction.' Always dynamic, always progressive, free markets constantly generate new products, new jobs, and new wealth on the foundations of earlier creations. In the end, they replace these earlier creations. Free markets propel society forward."

Corruption: "To put it in very simple words, countries that have a free market policy are the least corrupt, whereas countries that are dependant on government are the most corrupt. This then is the simple truth about corruption. ... The government is not the solution for corruption, but it is definitely the precursor of corruption."

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ELSEWHERE

Is there anything John Kerry won't say? "Democrat John Kerry said yesterday that if he is elected president, he will not let government programs outside of security and education grow beyond the rate of inflation. Kerry pledged to abide by spending caps, even if it means cutting some of his own campaign promises and existing government programs."

Australian Labor Party leader Mark Latham has really blotted his copybook by calling for Australia to do a Spain and withdraw its troops from Iraq. Not only is the Australian public generally against it but so are many Leftists. Even such rabid Leftists as Margo Kingston are now urging Latham to keep the troops in: "I don't know about you, but when I saw Latham say we had to bring our 850 troops home after June 30 "to defend Australia" I was disgusted. Pure populism it was, and I thought Australians would see through it big time, which they have.... Is Latham really saying the danger to Australia is so acute that we need 850 troops to join the 51,0000 troops stationed in Australia? That's scare mongering at its worst. As Howard rightly said speaking to his motion in the House of Representatives today that troops should not be withdrawn before the job is done, that would mean hauling back our troops from East Timor and the Solomons too. Stupid. .... But we did invade, and we're there now trying to secure the peace, a vital task for the West to stop Iraq being over run by al Qaeda and company."

With a film about the Alamo just released, the WSJ reminds us of the point that the Left would seemingly like us to forget: "Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, in the inclusive view, is a neutral figure, even though he set himself up as a military dictator after being elected president of Mexico in 1833 and jailed those who peaceably petitioned to protest his violations of the 1824 constitution. And then there was his brutal putting down of the rebellion in Texas. Lest we forget, the rebels who captured San Antonio and the Alamo against superior forces were trying to separate themselves from Santa Anna's dictatorship. His efforts to curtail-- if not obliterate-- trade, immigration and democracy are what sparked the rebellion in the first place.

See here for a typical Leftist bleat about "poverty" being the cause of Islamic terrorism -- together with a pointed reply from one of my readers.

A good last word on Spain: "Climaxing over three centuries of defeat and decline on the world stage, Spaniards bowed to terrorism when they voted. Americans are considerably less likely to make that choice".

The wicked one has an idea that Texans should like.

Today's recipe is for Parsee Pillau. Forget fried rice. Forget steamed rice. This is the best rice. Goes well with any Indian food. See here.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

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