Archives for September 2005

…that someone gave a speech last night, and the gist of it is that he’s going to steal about $200 billion from me and you in an attempt to buy back his political popularity. Then, I read somewhere, that:

[someone] said Friday that the Gulf Coast must be rebuilt with an eye toward
wiping out the persistent poverty and racial injustice plain to all in
the suffering of the black and the poor in Hurricane Katrina’s wake.

Oh, yea, that’s how you wipe out poverty, "racial injustice," and suffering. You go in and absolve people of all accountability for their own situation and then take near complete responsibility for managing their own affairs going forward. Yep, that’ll do the trick. After all, it’s worked so well up to now.

What a society of complete and total fucking idiots I live in: top-to-bottom and wall-to-wall.

Emotions are not tools of cognition

But set that aside, for now. Then, ponder its meaning after digesting the following.

Last March, I had occasion to blog about ABC’s John Stossel calling out the morons for thier lack of vetements.

This is a bit different. First, you must read Stossel’s op-ed, In praise of price gouging. Some key excerpts, but you ought to read the whole thing (short).

Consider this scenario: You are thirsty — worried that your baby is going to become dehydrated. You find a store that’s open, and the storeowner thinks it’s immoral to take advantage of your distress, so he won’t charge you a dime more than he charged last week. But you can’t buy water from him. It’s sold out.

You continue on your quest, and finally find that dreaded monster, the price gouger. He offers a bottle of water that cost $1 last week at an "outrageous" price — say $20. You pay it to survive the disaster.

You resent the price gouger. But if he hadn’t demanded $20, he’d have been out of water. It was the price gouger’s "exploitation" that saved your child.

It saved her because people look out for their own interests. Before you got to the water seller, other people did. At $1 a bottle, they stocked up. At $20 a bottle, they bought more cautiously. By charging $20, the price gouger makes sure his water goes to those who really need it.

The people the softheaded politicians think are cruelest are doing the most to help. Assuming the demand for bottled water was going to go up, they bought a lot of it, planning to resell it at a steep profit. If they hadn’t done that, that water would not have been available for the people who need it the most.

[…]

Consider the storeowner’s perspective: If he’s not going to make a big profit, why open up the store at all? Staying in a disaster area is dangerous and means giving up the opportunity to be with family in order to take care of the needs of strangers. Why take the risk?

Now to the funny part. The parade of useful idiots. Here are some letters republished from Stossel’s weekly email:

"John, The following is a serious question: Are you retarded? I just finished reading your op-ed piece on price gouging and I can’t decide if there is some tragic and pervasive problem with your mind, or if you are just the most dishonest, most despicable man on the planet…How do you sleep at night?" Steven Bandyk

"Price gouging is illegal. It kills people. Or is that ok with you, too?" Sharon, Binghamton, NY

"you’re article ‘in praise of price gouging’ is the single stupidest, most offensive thing I have ever read. I hope you lose your job over this you soulless cretin." Rev. T. Sam Bailey

"You sir are scum. Plain and simple, you are scum. How dare you say that the price gougers are saving lives." Robert Pearce, Knoxville, TN

"When I see someone like you on television I know you spent a lot of time under a desk somewhere. Seen you on 20/20 a couple of times and you have to be the biggest idiot I have ever seen. Guess that’s why I never tune you in anymore. What a nut case you are. ABC must really be hard up." Harold Dundee

"You’re a truly a bottom feeder, the lowest form of scum. Anyone who says that only those who can afford things like water and food are the ‘truly needy’ is just an idiot. I suppose using your logic, that if you lived in occupied Poland during the Second World War, and you saw someone selling out their Jewish neighbors to the nazis that you’d feel that they did what they had to to survive? I can’t believe a reputable media organisation like ABC keeps you on. Do you have any shred of humanity left? Do you actually feel it’s ok to sell your fellow human beings ‘down the river’ in some sick social-darwinist idea of survival of the fittest? Where do you get your ideas? Mein Kampf? You disgust me and I’m going to write everyone I can at ABC…" John Arnold, Aberdeen, WA

"Stossel, give me a break. You can’t be this dumb, can you? The price gouger isn’t saving resources for those who need it…he’s ransoming those resources to the highest bidder. So your little scenario really ends up with the baby dying from dehydration because the parent didn’t have $20 bucks on them. I guess that makes the gouger a murderer using your logic…"

Yet, not everyone who writes to Stossel is a useless moron.

"Would you rather have the baby die because there IS NO water left? Or have the chance that the store owner sees a dying baby and gives up a $20 bottle of water? In your world, there is no water left for the baby regardless of the kindness of the store owner. On the other hand, the baby has at least a chance, even if the mother has no means or money (which is unlikely she wouldn’t be able to scrounge up something to save her own child). Stop assuming business owners are evil. They are just like you. Have you learned nothing from the price caps applied to the gas market in the 70’s, look what that did for supply? You could only buy gas on certain days, supply was nearly run-out completely. Take a look at history and stop being so naove…"

"The store owner who charges $20 for water might have the resources to help the woman with the thirsty baby. When prices are controlled, the store owner closes his doors, and the baby dies. When the free market moderates the prices, lower priced water floods into the area in a normal competitive fashion, and the baby gets a drink. Gouging saves lives, hoarding at artificially low prices (set by the truly evil politicians and bureaucrats) kills babys. John Stossel is courageous for standing up for good, amid the politically correct morons that post here."

"the everyday consumer does in some fashion horde resources for themselves if they can get it for a lower price. That is why I witnessed everyone last week rushing to top off their gas tanks before the prices went up…Price is the primary signal to efficiently direct limited resources to those with the most need. Without it we would have to rely on our incompetent goverment (republican and democrat) to ensure everyone got what they needed (and we’ve seen how well that works)."

"Anti-price gouging laws have been passed for builders in areas affected by hurricanes dating back to hurricane Andrew. In every case, these laws have effectively ended rebuilding in the area. I know your government school educated mind has a hard time understanding the market, but it’s irresponsible to be so naive…Anti-price gouging laws will leave the entire Gulf Coast in disrepair and make it impossible for the rest of the country to get the gasoline it needs. Here is a link to help you start your re-education. I hope you can learn enough to abandon your destructive viewpoint.

Question begging has to be the most prevalent of the logical fallacies. It’s also my experience that few people actually know that it means. It does not mean "raises the question," which error I hear all the time.

So, assuming you’ve done your homework, above, see if you can detect the logical fallacy in the following claim:

– We must maintain a government, precisely because of the need to respond to natural catastrophes like Katrina.

Here’s a hint, below, and I publish in its entirety because Cosh refuses to get a decent blogging service and his "permalinks" go bad after a while.

I’ve been ducking Katrina coverage this week after
saturating myself in it (didn’t want to say "swimming" or
"drowning") for the week before. I gather from the squealing at Hit
& Run that some people are proclaiming the occasion to be a pretty sharp blow to laissez-faire,
libertarianism, minarchism, anarcho-capitalism, classical liberalism,
or whatever you want to call the general idea of less bloated, less intrusive,
less grasping, less powerful government.

So let’s just recap briefly, shall we? We’ve got a million
or so human beings living in a low-lying area created in the first place by
government engineers. The local government of New Orleans, apprised of an
approaching storm, summarily orders everybody out of the city about 36 hours
too late without lifting a finger to provide the means to do so. At the last
minute it occurs to somebody to herd those left behind into a large
government-built structure, the Superdome; no supplies are on hand for its
inhabitants, and the structure itself is rendered — according to the
government’s assessment — permanently useless. Even though the storm misses the
city, government-built levees fail in unforeseen and catastrophic ways. Many of
the New Orleans cops opportunistically quit their jobs, many more simply fail
to show up for work, others take the lead in looting supplies from storm-stricken
neighbourhoods, and just a few have the notable good grace to shoot themselves
in the head. The federal government announces that assistance is on its way,
sometime; local and state authorities–who have the clear-cut burden of
"first response" under federal guidelines nobody seems to have
read–beg for the feds to hurry up while (a) engaging in bureaucratic
pissing-matches behind the scenes and (b) making life difficult for the private
agencies who are beating the feds to the scene. Eventually the federal
government shows up with the National Guard, and to the uniform indignation and
surprise of those who have been screaming for it, the Guard turns out to have a
troubling tendency to point weapons in the general direction of civilians and
reporters. I’m not real clear on who starts doing what around mid-week, but the
various hydra-heads of government start developing amusing hobbies;
confiscating guns from civilians, demanding that photographers stop documenting
the aftermath of America’s worst natural disaster in a century, enforcing this
demand by seizing cameras at gunpoint, shutting down low-power broadcasting
stations in shelters, and stealing supplies from relief agencies and private
citizens. In the wake of all this, there is probably no single provision of the
U.S. Constitution left untrampled, the Posse Comitatus Act appears destined for
a necktie party, and the 49% of Americans who have been complaining for five
years about George W. Bush being a dictator are now vexed to the point of utter
incoherence because for the last fortnight he has failed to do a sufficiently
convincing impression of a dictator.

It’s been said that
Hurricane Katrina has confirmed pretty much everybody in his
pre-existing political beliefs. I can’t say the record gives me any reason to
change mine. But if I can’t have a libertarian paradise where state power
defers to social power, or use recent events to urge others to the wisdom of
such a state of affairs, I’m willing to propose a second-best for America:
replace the three branches of republican government with permanent joint rule
by Wal-Mart and the Salvation Army. Go on, tell me you could honestly do worse.

(via Beck)

Watch this awesome trailer for a new film about Van Nuys general aviation airport, the busiest in the world.

Big Fucking Suprise:

Katrina: Airborne Aid Workers Thwarted…

Crews Frustrated

Many who are trying to offer help to the devastated Gulf region are
still grounded. Dr. Aziz Kamali, a family practitioner in Stockton,
Calif., mobilized a volunteer group of 20 nurses willing to donate 7 to
10 days of vacation time to help out. Angel Flight America is ready and
willing to fly them there, but having gone through "proper channels" as
of Friday, Kamali still couldn’t get the OK to leave. The Louisiana
governor’s office has told him, "’We don’t know where to put you and
how to use you,’" Kamali told The Stockton Record.
They said they’ll get back to him. Dave Pechan, an Angel Flight pilot,
told the Record that he was grounded for a week, ready and willing, but
unable to get approval to fly. An agreement was signed in August with
the Department of Homeland Security saying that pilots could be
deployed within two hours of a disaster, but when the hurricane struck,
that didn’t seem to help.

…Working Around Katrina’s Bureaucracy…

Despite beauracratic obstacles, hundreds of volunteer pilots and their GA aircraft are contributing to the relief effort. Civil Air Patrol
pilots who live in Mississippi fly all day and return at night to homes
damaged by the storm. "These people have drawn on some inner strength
to get the job done," says Maj. Owen Younger, who is overseeing
operations in Jacksonville, Miss. CAP cadets are helping out on the
ground, checking on victims and handing out thousands of pounds of
basic supplies. Even the vintage aircraft of the Commemorative Air
Force are helping. A CAF R4D
(a Navy version of the DC-3) based in Lancaster, Texas, has been
delivering freight from Austin to Hammond, La. Most of the crew flying
the 60-plus-year-old airplane are age 70 and over. Angel Flight
has kept busy with over 1,000 supply runs and relocation flights.
LifeLine Pilots have been filling in for the regular Angel Flight
missions. More pilots keep volunteering — LifeLine alone signed up 14
pilots in the last week. From Friday, Sept. 2 through Monday, Sept. 5,
more than 200 civilian and military aircraft safely coordinated by
Operation Air Care evacuated nearly 20,000 people, while bringing in
relief supplies.