Archive for July, 2007

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Sugar and the Everglades

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Sugar production takes place most effectively in tropical areas. It benefits from very wet or even somewhat swampy ground. Sugar is a very water-hungry crop. Sugar cannot be reliably grown north of Louisiana.

Clearing tropical areas for sugar production is extraordinarily damaging to unique habitats.

Large-scale sugar production requires fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides, and other control mechanisms.

The Everglades is a tropical area. It is being damaged by sugar production in Florida.

Subsidizing sugar production is environmentally unfriendly.

The structure of the subsidies and the controls on price and production raise the price of sugar. High fructose corn syrup is an alternative to sugar.

High fructose corn syrup is unhealthy.

Therefore, subsidizing sugar production (under the current system) creates a health hazard.

This health hazard creates stress on our medical system. The higher price of sugar also causes the price of many other goods to be higher than it should be. The system also requires taxes – and any subsidy would as well.
Subsidizing sugar production (under the current system) is economically damaging.

There are very few politicians who are willing to stand up against the sugar lobby and say no to this many-times-damaging example of corporate welfare. Ron Paul is one of the only ones who would do it, just as he has refused attempts by other major lobbies to push him into unconstitutional actions. He has already stood against agricultural subsidies in spite of being from an agricultural district.

Electing Ron Paul to president would be a great thing for our nation in many ways.

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Posted in Economics, Government, Ron Paul, Spending | 1 Comment »

Age and Intervention – Nanny’s Classics

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

http://libertariandictionary.blogspot.com/2007/07/age.html

That link goes to a good post about the effects of government regulations regarding age. I’d like to make a more concise statement about it. Age is a classic excuse for restriction of liberties, but it’s not a legitimate one. The constant upwards creep of age regulations has increasingly “infantilized” our culture. Further, as demonstrated by the post above, it comes with problems. The enforcement that the age regulations require becomes increasingly difficult as prohibitionist morals push the age limits upwards. What’s next, requiring people to be over 25 before they can drink? Requiring them to be 21 before they can drive? The long gap between childhood and adulthood mandates an unnecessary weakness in our economy.

I believe that the legal drinking age should be moved to 18, when voting becomes possible. This step is only transitory though. It is my firm belief that at age 15 someone is either mature enough to handle both alcohol and voting or they never will be. Similarly, restrictions on the ability to work should be lifted outright at age 15, and people should be allowed to find their own jobs. I also oppose efforts to move back the age at which someone can legally drop out of our school system.

To put it bluntly the age of majority should be 15 all around. This would strengthen our economy directly. I also believe it would strengthen our nation’s moral fiber, by taking responsibility out of the hands of the state and putting it into the hands of citizens.

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Posted in Government | 2 Comments »

Green Scissors

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

Alright! A while ago I read something about Ron Paul being in a Green Scissors program. At the time I didn’t think much about it, but today a conversation with a friend of mine reminded me of it. So I decided to look into it. The Green Scissors program has a website with some very interesting policy proposals in it. I recommend it to policy wonks of all stripes, but most of all environmentalists. It’s an environmentalist program first and foremost, and advocates some unlibertarian things in addition to the bad-spending cuts that its named after. Anyways, here’s the link: http://www.greenscissors.org/

Check out the issues tab. Some of it was what I expected – cut funding for factory farming, eliminate subsidies to oil companies, don’t build unnecessary roads – but others were a little more surprising. For instance, I never expected that the peanut program would be ecological harmful. (Actually, I didn’t know we even had one, though I’m less surprised by that.)

It’s real heartening to me to find that Ron Paul supports this program. If more politicians did, I’d feel more comfortable with our system as a whole. As it is I suspect there are only three candidates who would agree with the objectives of the Green Scissors program. They are Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel. Incidentally, those are the three most honest candidates running, though I’m not at all sure I like the Kucinich platform.
Lastly, an off-topic aside. I just noticed this fellow on Technorati. His blog is the “Libertarian Dictionary” and ostensibly attempts to redefine terms to be more in tune with freedom. Whether that’s plausible or even possible aside, it makes for interesting reading. Here’s the link: http://libertariandictionary.blogspot.com/

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Posted in Government, Politics, Ron Paul, Spending | 3 Comments »

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