We Don't Need THAT Education, We Don't Need No State Control

The liberal-conservative (i.e. statist-statist) government in Great Britain has suggested raising tuition fees in British universities to a maximum of £9,000 per year. This has led to mass protests and rioting in London. The protesters say that this will exclude children from poor families from going to university. The solution, as always, is to deregulate.

First of all, we don't need as many people continuing on with higher studies. For a lot of people high school would be more than sufficient. We've ended up in a situation where countries compete with each other about who can have the highest percentage of young people with a university degree (regardless of if it's needed or not), and where more and more career paths require you to have a degree that is completely unnecessary. It's as if they're saying that unless you have a degree, you're not quite as good as everyone else, so you better put yourself in debt and get that piece of paper.

There is no need for people who are not qualified to study to become doctors or engineers. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's the way it is. And some educations are simply ridiculously long – you don't need three years at a university to be a journalist, for example (then again, I guess three years is about the time it takes to completely brain-wash someone, so I guess they have a reason).

Completely deregulate the educational system and you will see companies either paying for gifted students to go to college or university, or lending them money in exchange for them working for the company for a couple of years – regardless of how much or how little money their parents have. This will ensure that only the people who are the most gifted end up becoming engineers, doctors, lawyers etc. and that's the way it should be.

How Does The Free Market Handle Recycling?

Recycling, just like everything else on a free market, works according to the deceptively simple law of supply and demand. To understand this we first have to distinguish between finite and infinite resources. Finite resources are resources that we as humans can't make more of. Uranium is one such resource. Timber or water, however, are not finite resources. If we notice that the demand for timber is growing, we can plant more trees, and 50 years from now we can cut them down and repeat the process.

The supply isn't just the amount of a finite resource that we have available at the moment (which is the supply the market sees), but the term “supply” includes all of that resource, even that which we might not have found yet. From time to time there are headlines saying that a drilling company has found a new pocket of natural gas that contains so and so much gas. Before they found it, it was still included in the term supply.

We see therefore that the supply of a finite resource is always decreasing unless we stop using said resource. We can however find ways to use less of a finite resource. In the case of uranium, we might for instance build power plants that are more energy efficient, or find new ways to extract uranium, giving us the opportunity to excavate ore with a lesser percentage of uranium and still make a profit.

Demand, on the other hand, can be increasing, decreasing or remain constant. If the demand decreases faster than the supply does, the price of the resource goes down. If the demand is constant, the price will eventually rise. If the demand is increasing, the price will also increase, and at a faster rate than if the demand was constant.

That is how recycling would work on a free market. Why are we being paid to recycle aluminum cans today? Because making new aluminum is a very costly process, so it's cheaper to recycle old cans. The same thing goes for plastic soda bottles that are made from a plastic called PET. It's cheaper to recycle than to make new plastic. When the supply of oil eventually drops, making plastic more expensive, the same thing will happen with other types of plastic containers and products as well. There simply is no need for a government to tell us what to recycle. But what about littering and pollution, you say? That's a subject for another blog post.

Just A Quick Message To My Readers

Hello guys and gals. I just wanted to make a quick post to let you know that the promised post on recycling and finite resources won't be posted tonight. I've picked up a bug somewhere and I have a terrible fever, so I'm going to bed to try and sleep it off. I'll try to get it posted sometime this weekend.

How Does The Free Market Handle...

I thought I'd start a series of blog posts where I talk about how the free market would handle things that a lot of people mistakenly think you need a State to manage. If any of you readers has a topic you'd like me to cover you can either leave a comment here or send me an e-mail at stateenemy@hushmail.com.

I'll start with a post later tonight on how the free market handles recycling and finite resources.

Dutch Government To The People: Spy On Your Neighbors

In a move fitting the former East German secret police, Dutch politicians have started sending scratch-n-sniff cards smelling of cannabis to 30,000 households in Rotterdam and The Hague, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) reports. On the card is the phone number to a police department. The idea is that the politicians want people to spy on their neighbors. Do you feel a faint smell of cannabis when you pop over to borrow the lawnmower? Just call the police and have them arrested.

The danger, a State-sponsored anti-cannabis organization says, is in part the danger of cannabis use itself (which is a blatant lie; cannabis is the least harmful drug in the world), but also the fire hazard associated with cannabis growing.

Here's a suggestion, law makers all over the world: make it completely legal to grow, sell, buy and use cannabis, and people won't have to cram ten plants into a closet filled with blankets and a heat lamp.

For now all I have to say is: Dutch growers, I hope you're better at smelling a rat than they are at smelling cannabis.

War Is Peace, Ignorance Is Strength, Freedom Is Restriction?

I'm sorry that I'm beating the proverbial dead Orwellian horse again, but when I read the the New York Times article saying that Obama Presses to Complete Free-Trade Deal With South Korea, I just couldn't help myself.

It's funny how politicians and journalists alike seem to think that “less restrictive” is the same as free. If I chain you to a tree and later decide to exchange the 30' chain with a 300' chain, does that make you free? This is not a free-trade deal at all. True, it is a deal that will lower some tariffs and remove some regulations, so we should still see it as a positive step towards economic freedom, right?

Wrong. Why, you may ask? Because as long as there are trade agreements between nations, no matter how insignificant the restrictions may be, we have morally accepted restrictions on trade as the norm, when the only moral position is that all human interactions should be free and voluntary.

No Charges Against The CIA For Destroying Tapes

Some of you may remember the headlines from early last year: CIA Destroyed 92 Interview Tapes. These tapes contained interviews and “interrogations” with suspected terrorists. At first the CIA claimed that only two tapes had been destroyed, in violation of a 2005 ruling that all evidence regarding the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo should be preserved.

It was soon discovered that it was actually 92 tapes that had conveniently disappeared, some allegedly showing water-boarding, an “interrogation” technique that the Obama administration classified as torture (pretty much the only good thing Obama has done since he was elected).

The Department of Justice has now – after what I'm sure was a long and difficult and thorough investigation (yeah, right) – come to the conclusion that no-one is to be prosecuted for destroying the tapes. The DoJ choosing not to prosecute the CIA? I know, I'm just as shocked as you...

Move Over Snowball And Napoleon, There Are New Pigs In Town

One of my favorite bloggers is Henrik Alexandersson. He's always on point and isn't afraid to speak his mind. But I also hate how fast he is. Whenever I see something in a Swedish newspaper that I feel is worth blogging about, you can be sure that he beat me – and everyone else – to it. However, this is a piece of news that I think might be of interest even to those of you who don't speak Swedish.

Residents in the new Stockholm city district of Royal Seaport will be faced with severe regulations regarding their lifestyle, Stockholm politicians have announced. This would include not only sorting waste and participating in carpools, but also exercising, buying only eco-friendly products  - even socializing with neighbors. They will even tell you what route to take when you go to work, just to make sure you're as eco-friendly as possible.

To ensure you're thinking the right thoughts, they will "offer" courses in "green living". Think about this for a minute. They will force you to carpool and socialize with your neighbors. Even if these courses are voluntary, how many people will have the courage to refuse to attend them? Just as with the public school system this is nothing but a way for the government to make sure their propaganda gets out there.

I am all for privately owned communities of like-minded individuals, but this is the State telling us how to live our lives. Stockholm is a city in desperate need of more housing, and they plan on building 5,000 homes in the Royal Seaport area. With housing in such high demand, we will see people having to choose between having every aspect of their lives controlled by the government's latest whim, or not being able to live in Stockholm.

It's ironic that the district is called Norra Djurgårdsstaden in Swedish. Literally translated it means North Animal Farm City. I would laugh at the obvious Orwellian connection if it weren't for the fact that the Stockholm politicians really do think that we are all equal, some are just more equal than others.

Obama: Liar, Hypocrite, War Criminal

Just a quick post to comment on President Barrack Obama's speech during his visit to India, where he said the following:

The United States seeks security-the security of our country, allies and partners. We seek prosperity-a strong and growing economy in an open international economic system. We seek respect for universal values. And we seek a just and sustainable international order that promotes peace and security by meeting global challenges through stronger global cooperation.

Only if “a just and sustainable international order that promotes peace and security” is a euphemism for American imperialism and going to war to force other countries to conform to your will.

This is the bond we share. It's why we insist that nothing ever justifies the slaughter of innocent men, women and children.

I'm sure you mean nothing except the “War on Terror”. Right, Mr. President? Of the 150,000 killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq, 80% or 120,000, were civilians. Innocent men, women and children.

The Abortion Debate: Midwives And Conscience

Nurses, midwives and doctors should not be forced to perform abortions if it goes against their conscience, so says Eva Johnsson and six other politicians and members of Parliament for the Swedish Christian Democrats in an article published on the Newsmill website. I agree with her, but the solution is not to make new laws regulating the health care industry. This isn't even a question of morals or ethics; it's a question of contractual obligation.

If you took the job knowing that you would be expected to perform or assist in abortions, and you did not object, you have no right to refuse. Well, of course you have the right to refuse, but if you do, your employer should likewise have the right to fire you, since your refusal constitutes a breach of contract. As always, the solution is to deregulate.

By deregulating the health care industry there would be the option for those who oppose abortion to open and run their own clinics and hospitals where such procedures are prohibited, a solution that should please both Johnsson et al. as well as those of us who feel that abortion should be an option, albeit the very last one.