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Mailvox: the police respond

EJ replies to my column on America’s devolution into a police state:

I just read your article in World Net Daily. I was somewhat surprised by your article. I have been employed by a state law enforcement agency in California for 22 years. I was a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept., before my current position. I have a bachelor’s degree from a state university in California. My father retired from this department after serving 27 years. My brother is also an officer with this department.

Having worked and socialized around officers and deputies throughout my life, I have determined that these are some of the finest people I have met. I am a christian and am a deacon in my church. Certainly I see a rougher crowd in church than the people I work around. I have never felt bad about arresting criminals. I didn’t go into this line of work for the authority I would receive. In college, I struggled to determine whether I would rather be a teacher at a high school, or a law enforcement officer. I finally chose law enforcement.

I too believe in the 2nd Amendment. I believe without the second, all other amendments (freedoms) would soon be lost. I am an NRA member. I don’t know what happened to the gentleman in Las Vegas. You don’t either. But some of your rhetoric sounds like far left revolutionary propaganda. Currently I reside in far northeast California. I cite motorists everyday for traffic violations. I have never considered myself a tax collector for the state. I give as many verbal warnings as I do citations. I don’t do this for the money, and having watched media report only stories for which they make money, I suspect they are more interested in making money than my department.

I am a conservative and receive respect for my position from other conservatives. Liberals (far left) usually look at me with disdain. I guess I am just surprised at your attack on me and others in law enforcement. When I was growing up, my father taught me to protect those weaker than I. I have taught my son the same values. Recently my 17 year old son told me he will not be attending college as I hoped, but will be joining the United States Marine Corp to defend his country. I’m sure you feel the same disregard for the military as you do law enforcement.

I think it’s safe to assume EJ is unfamiliar with my attitude towards teachers, at least the unionized public school variety. As for his email, he sounds like a nice, normal, largely clueless man who is paying less attention to the observable reality around him than he is to a romanticized version of it. For example, it is irrelevant that he does not consider himself a tax collector for the state, because that is in fact what he is. Due to what appears to be his kind and positive nature, he may be a bad and inefficient tax collector, but that is a question of job performance rather than the nature of the job.

It is interesting to see how he attempts to defend the police by conflating them with the military. This is common practice among the police; they have a severe inferiority complex and for obvious reason. There is nothing “far left” about my criticism of the police, and what is particularly troubling about this email is that EJ clearly believes it is “far left revolutionary propaganda” to insist that police officers guilty of murdering an innocent man in public should be punished for their crimes and that it is an intrinsic conflict of interest for the police to investigate alleged crimes committed by the police.

Green shoots!

Good news! The NBER’s business cycle dating committee has determined that the recession is over! Actually, it ended more than one year ago!

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of the start and end dates of a recession, determined that the recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009.

The business-cycle dating committee met by phone on Sunday and came to the determination. “In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month,” the committee said in a statement.

Strike another nail in the flesh-stripped skull of Keynesian economics. First they’ll have to announce a double-dip. Then, a few years later, they’ll revise their numbers and announce that it was all just one great big depression… long after it is accepted wisdom.

Mailvox: Monday column

TA writes in response to today’s column on Police State America:

I had a chief of police as a neighbor while growing up. He pistol whipped a black kid once. And I had a neighbor that became a cop and a friend that became a cop in spite of his criminal record and both of them were cowards. I have said for many years that 25% of any police force should be in prison, 25% should be under psychoanalysis regularly and 50% should get better pay.

We would get fewer nuts on the force if we drafted our police forces instead of hiring them. Only management that doesn’t come into contact with the public on a regular basis should be career personnel. And as you said, cops should not be allowed to investigate cops. Because they have been indoctrinated into an “us against them mentality” ‘them’ being the public and ‘us’ being every cop a self appointed heroic martyr who is the law instead of an enforcer of the law.

These three cockroaches will get theirs some day and of coarse be amazed at the injustice of it all.

I don’t think a police draft is the answer, but it’s true, there probably would be fewer issues with psychologically disturbed individuals seeking employment.

Postchristian!=secular

Britain is leading the way in demonstrating the way in which secular atheist culture is little more than a very brief waystop in the return to paganism:

A Mail on Sunday investigation – which will alarm anyone concerned about animal cruelty – has revealed that schools, hospitals, pubs and famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public.

All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley has secretly been prepared in accordance with sharia law, while Cheltenham College, which boasts of its ‘strong Christian ethos’, is one of several top public schools which also serves halal chicken to pupils without informing them.

Even Britain’s biggest hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, among many others, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal.

It will certainly be interesting to see if Britain’s aggressive public atheists speak out about this, or if they do what one would expect and remain silent since so many of them are actually more anti-Christian than they are anti-religion. The amusing thing, of course, is that the story is being portrayed as one that concerns animal cruelty, not corporate submission to Islam.

To Murder and to Lie

Needless to say, we can be confident that all of the tapes and videotapes of the unprovoked shooting are going to mysteriously vanish:

Erik Scott was a West Point graduate, Army veteran, MBA graduate of Duke University, and a medical sales rep for Boston Scientific. He was gunned down by three Las Vegas police officers after they responded to a 911 call by Costco store employees reporting a man with a gun, possibly on narcotics, behaving erratically.

Scott was 38 years old, shopping with his girlfriend for items they needed as they moved in together. Unfortunately, those are the only details of the story on which anyone agrees.

To hear the side of the story presented by Scott’s family, friends, and some eyewitnesses, Erik Scott’s death was the result of ignorance and embellishment on the part of the Costco staff, and a combative, deterministic mindset from responding officers….

There are no commands or communications between Erik Scott and police captured on a nine-minute audiotape during which the shooting occurred. Officers not directly in front of the store are heard over the radio establishing a perimeter and trying to block off access to the store’s parking lot. The first indication Scott and the police have made contact is when a officer breaks in to call “shots fired” after Scott is on the ground, already dying or dead.

It’s time for conservatives to wake up and realize that America’s jackbooted, militarized “law enforcement” thugs with badges and attitudes are not the friendly smalltown policemen of yore. The police are far more of a problem than most of the “criminals” they affect to be saving everyone from.

And I’d like to hear those who will seriously attempt to argue that it was just the inherent stress and confusion of the job that caused the Las Vegas police to murder a military vet shopping at Costco with his girlfriend and then immediately initiate a coverup try to rationalize away the behavior of this brave brother officer:

A former Boise Police officer charged with sexually abusing several infants has been sentenced. Stephen Young was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Wednesday. He’ll have to serve 12 and a half years before he’s eligible for parole. Young changed his plea in June from not guilty on four counts of lewd conduct to guilty of one count of sexual abuse of a minor. That charge was for a victim between 14 and 18 months old.

The fact is that the police are disproportionately sick and depraved individuals who get off on adrenaline and exercising power over others. They are also psychologically weaker than the norm; those who believe the reason they have more failed marriages and commit more suicide than the norm is the stresses of the job have failed to consider the mindset of the average individual who wants to become a law enforcement officer.

UPDATE: The “stress and danger” faced by the policeman in the course of his job is massively exaggerated. 15 per 100,000 police die on the job, (even fewer are killed), which is 7.5% of the 200 per 100,000 fatality rate of the most dangerous occupation in the country, that of fisherman. Loggers, airplane pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers, ironworkers, sanitation workers, truckers and drivers, industrial machinists and construction workers all face more danger on the job than police do. And nurses, EMTs, and doctors all see much worse human carnage than police do on a daily basis.

It should be reasonably easy to statistically demonstrate that the police are the psychologically weak individuals their bullying behavior suggests them to be. If they have higher rates of suicide despite facing less danger than the more dangerous occupations and less stress than the emergency medical occupations, the logical conclusion will be that the problem is with the individuals who seek to become police rather than the nature of the job itself.

The magic number matters

At least, it does insofar as a man is interested in lowering his probability of not getting divorced and asset-raped when marrying:

“The results presented in this article replicate findings from previous research: Women who cohabit prior to marriage or who have premarital sex have an increased likelihood of marital disruption. Considering the joint effects of premarital cohabitation and premarital sex, as well as histories of premarital relationships, extends previous research. The most salient finding from this analysis is that women whose intimate premarital relationships are limited to their husbands—either premarital sex alone or premarital cohabitation—do not experience an increased risk of divorce. It is only women who have more than one intimate premarital relationship who have an elevated risk of marital disruption. This effect is strongest for women who have multiple premarital coresidental unions. These findings are consistent with the notion that premarital sex and cohabitation have become part of the normal courtship pattern in the United States. They do not indicate selectivity on characteristics linked to the risk of divorce and do not provide couples with experiences that lessen the stability of marriage.”

Players and traditionalists, take a close look at that graph. When a woman has had 16 or more past lovers, the odds that a marriage to her will end in divorce rise to over 80%! Even “average” women with “only” five past lovers — women that few men would admit in public qualify as sluts — see an increase in odds of divorce to 70%.

I have to admit, that’s a more significant factor than I’d ever imagined. No wonder men value Chaste Janes more than Slutty Barbies! While numerous female writers advocate evasion, if not outright deception, it would appear that men would do well to make sure they have an accurate numerical history in order to determine which category a woman to whom they are attracted happens to fall, high divorce risk or low divorce risk. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing the former, just dont be surprised with the results when not only the odds, but the statistical evidence is stacked against you.

The evictions continue

If the multiculturalists are upset over the ongoing French Roma expulsions, just think how apocalyptic they’ll sound once Sarkozi or his eventual successor begins to tackle the challenge of the banlieus.

The truth is that there is a long tradition of open hostility towards Roma, one with uncomfortable echoes of the open hostility shown towards another ostracised minority in the past. Right across Europe, including in Britain, casual anti-Gypsy remarks are simply not taboo in the way that slights on other ethnicities mostly are today. Some of this, it is true, can be explained by distinctive facets of Roma culture, which do not fit comfortably within contemporary capitalist societies. Rolling caravans do not lend themselves to rooted integration, and especially when they are decoupled from standard western ideas about property rights. The latest French crackdown followed on from rioting that was sparked by the shooting of a young Roma man, and with dire school drop-out rates Gypsy communities tend to rub up against authority more often than most.

I like that. The Roma aren’t dirty and useless thieves, they’re just “decoupled from standard western ideas about property rights”. Actually, that would explain a lot about Goldman Sachs and the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, come to think about it. It’s fascinating to see how conflicted eurofascists are already calling for France to be kicked out of the European Union over these racial expulsions; the EU is certainly showing stress fractures in some interesting and unexpected places.

Government efficiency

$2 million per job:

DPW has received $70.65 million and created or retained 45.46 jobs, though they are expected to create 238 jobs overall (the fraction of a job created or retained correlates to the number of actual hours works). LADOT has been awarded $40.8 million and created or retained 9 jobs, though they are expected to create 26 jobs overall. Overall, the Departments have received $111 million in federal stimulus funds out of the $594 million the City has been awarded so far and created or retained 54.46 jobs.

I’m disappointed that we’ve only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million in ARRA funds.

At that price, one wonders what these jobs involve. NFL quarterbacking? Jobs programs don’t work. They’d be better off just cutting a direct check to people.

Mailvox: defending free trade

EJ takes exception to my previous post critiquing Ricardian comparative advantage:

I have to disagree with you regarding free trade.

You write: “This example assumes that there is something that the old man can do that is of value to the young man. But that’s not necessarily true. What if instead of 2 people, there are 20 and all the old man can usefully do is gather 5 coconuts a day when two young girls with no other useful skills can gather 100, more than the castaway society needs, in the same time? Yes, total production will increase +5, but so what? No one is going to give him anything for his worthless coconuts because there is already a coconut glut thanks to the highly productive young girls. Austrian-savvy individuals should be able to see the seeds of an Austrian critique of Ricardo here.”

Your example fails to take into account that there are always other needs to be satisfied, needs which require other goods beside coconuts. Either the old man or the young girls can, for instance, gather berries, help build a hut, etc. Ricardo is right in that, by shifting the old man’s production into that which he does comparatively best, society benefits. The only time this isn’t true is if every need has already been satisfied and there is absolutely no other task that the old man can do. Your assumption strikes me as an unwarranted; it is certainly not true that all needs have been met in the world we live in.

Ricardo’s discovery has astounding consequences for libertarians. I’ve noticed in your writings that your libertarianism seems to stem from an understanding that men is fallen, and that, therefore, it makes little sense to allow a fallen man to lord it over his fellow creatures. This was largely my take, too, but thanks to Voxiversity, I’ve been reading my Rothbard. Since voluntary exchange benefits both parties, free trade between two people is a good which should be extended as far and wide as possible.

This is not to say tariffs are always wrong. As Ilana Mercer pointed out in last week’s column, a revenue tariff on all goods would be a reasonable way to fund a minimal state. But free trade itself remains sound.

There are two significant errors here that render EJ’s criticism invalid. The first flaw is this erroneous simplification. “The only time this isn’t true is if every need has already been satisfied and there is absolutely no other task that the old man can do.”

The proper formulation would have been as follows: “It isn’t true whenever there is no other need that the old man is not only capable of satisfying, but willing to satisfy in return for the compensation that he is offered in return.” It is irrelevant to argue that all needs have not been met in the world; the old man on his desert island has no ability to meet the needs of a hungry child in Somalia and the meager compensation he is offered for collecting sea shells may be insufficient to move him to collect them.

Furthermore, there may be no demand for the services he can supply. The bankruptcy of Say’s Law can be seen in the way the old man’s ability to donate sperm to his nubile female castaways in no way creates any demand for the product. In much the same way, the international market for American workers whose only skills concern filling out paperwork for regulatory compliance and creating Powerpoint demonstrations is extremely limited.

The second and much more serious error is in the statement that “voluntary exchange benefits both parties”. This is both logically and empirically false because it posits a non-existent human rationalism without temporal limits. While it is true that value is subjective, thereby allowing the possibility to defend totally irrational actions as at least nominally rational, this still doesn’t avoid the problem of how the subjective values that the Misean acting man assigns are necessarily momentary in nature. What the acting man defines as a beneficial exchange at one moment he may very well not define as beneficial in the very next moment for a wide variety of reasons. And it is this fatal flaw in the logical foundation that causes the entire edifice in support of free trade to collapse.

Eat, pray, die

Best stick to the cats, ladies

A British grandmother was strangled and beaten to death by her Tunisian boyfriend, an inquest heard today. Pauline Richardson, 64, had travelled with a friend to the resort of Port El Kantaoui in Tunisia in June 2008. She was due to fly back on June 29 and on that day visited Qabeel Jabir Al-Wardani, who was then in his 20s. Mrs Richardson missed her flight home and her body was discovered the next day.

There is a tremendous black comedy waiting to be written regarding the growing practice of post-menopausal women desperately chasing sex in the third world. The absurd thing is that they’re uniformly convinced the young con artists who prey upon them have fallen in love with them and genuinely wish to pursue a committed romantic relationship with them, presumably because of their superior if wrinkled white skins. Between the instaslut behavior of the 15-19 year-old on an airplane crowd – only a recent divorcee in her thirties is easier – and this geriatric imperial cougarism, one wonders if it is women’s suffrage or women’s travel that is the worse idea. It is customary to scoff at the Victorians who insisted that women travel with a guardian of some sort, but this sort of thing reminds one that such societal customs usually arise from necessity.