Den Rice

@JulieBorowski Borders should be under the control of state security forces, but their role is not to police the ideas of potential immigrants. That's ludicrous and impossible.

Me: Hey, there’s been a huge influx of people into our country who have values and ideals very different from ours. I think the government should enforce the border. Some libertarians: Borders should be privatized. Me: Sure. But this is a problem happening right now that could make our country much less free in the future. Some libertarians: Well, Rothbard said...

@Handre Would an independent Cape be better able to deal with the vast numbers of desperately poor people and criminal elements south of the N2 than the current arrangement?

Cape independence is the only way out for millions of people who still live in a civilised society on the Southern tip of Africa. I hope to see it happen in my lifetime.

@Rothmus I've come to the conclusion that the IRA was pretty much in the same category. The more I read up on their leaders, the more it becomes apparent that they were thoroughly steeped in Marxist ideology.

Left wing terrorists in California assassinated Oakland’s first black school superintendent in 1973 after he proposed student ID cards and labeled him a fascist for it. The Symbionese Liberation Army pulled the trigger then kidnapped 19 year old Patty Hearst the following year. Italy’s Red Brigades snatched former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978, killed his 5 bodyguards right there, held him for 54 days and shot him dead once the government refused to negotiate. The Red Army Faction in West Germany racked up 34 dead over 3 decades and among them was industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer whose driver and 3 bodyguards got gunned down during the 1977 kidnapping. Weather Underground members in New York built bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse basement and 3 of them died when the charges went off early instead of at an army base dance. Every one of these groups cast itself as the revolutionary vanguard hitting capitalism for the oppressed, delivering nothing but a trail of bodies that included their own. Leftist history is fundamentally based on terrorism and the murder of innocents in theory and in action. They’re still doing the same things for the same reasons. We don’t talk about it enough.

@GabeEcon Canadians are the worst for this. They think that every country besides the US has single payer health care. In fact, Canada, North Korea and Cuba are the only ones who actually do.

Do these people realize countries with “universal healthcare” achieve it by many different means, including through private insurance? Additionally, many government run healthcare systems are re-introducing some market mechanisms.

@Handre They did the same thing with perfectly usable farm tractors, simply because older diesel engines weren't designed for insanely expensive and troublesome diesel exhaust mitigation.

The Cash for Clunkers program, which Congress passed in June 2009 and burned through its $3 billion budget in under two months, destroyed functional wealth on a national scale, and somehow they called it "stimulus." The mechanics were simple: trade in a working car, receive up to $4,500 toward a new one, and watch government employees pour sodium silicate into the old engine to make it seize permanently. Around 700,000 vehicles got crushed. These were not rusted-out death traps. The eligibility rules required the trade-in to be drivable and insured. You were watching the state systematically annihilate usable capital because Keynesian demand theory told it that destruction generates recovery. Frederic Bastiat explained why this is wrong in 1850, in an essay short enough to read on your lunch break. Congress ignored it. The ripple effect hit people the government never mentioned in its press releases. Mechanics lost repair work. Used-car dealers watched their inventory evaporate. Low-income buyers who depend on the sub-$5,000 market faced prices that jumped roughly 10% in the years after the program. Free market economists call this "seen versus unseen." Politicians only showed you the gleaming new Chevy Malibu driving off the lot. They never showed you the single mother in Akron who needed a $3,000 Corolla and found nothing affordable left on the lot. Even the environmental justification collapsed under basic scrutiny. A 2009 study by Resources for the Future calculated that the program cost between $237 and $365 per ton of carbon dioxide reduced. The voluntary carbon credit market at the time priced a ton around $10 to $20. The government spent up to thirty times the market rate to achieve an environmental outcome the market was already pricing far more efficiently. This is what central planning always does. It takes your money, destroys real assets, and transfers wealth from the poor to auto manufacturers and their financiers. The program's designers received awards. The Akron mother paid higher prices. The engines sat crushed in junkyards. Nobody in Washington answered for any of it.

@Martin_ASFL Descendants of Eastern Europeans in Manitoba and Saskatchewan today are no longer part of a socialist voting bloc; in fact it's quite the opposite. So that shows you that cultural trends are not set in stone. Cultures can in fact change for the better!

People complain now that Middle Eastern immigrants in Europe vote for the same bad policies that destroyed their societies. What they don't get is that European immigrants to the United States (this will likely pick up as European civilisation collapses on the back of the welfare state) will vote for the same bad policies that destroyed Europe. What, you think the Spaniards, Swedes, and French who immigrate to the US will vote Republican? Unless and until we realise "immigration" is not the problem, but instead the abandonment of responsibility and civilisational standards, this crisis will simply escalate.

@Martin_ASFL Manitoba politics since the 1970s has been dominated by the socialist New Democratic Party. Back then, many of its legislative members had Ukrainian backgrounds. That was not a coincidence.

@MrExaminer Pragmatist thinking leads to the repeated proclamation that the bursting of some financial "bubble" is imminent, based on the observation of only a handful of specific events in isolation from observation of any contrary data.

Thinking more about this as I'm trying to better understand the mindset of pragmatists. When a specific policy is proposed (say, price controls), what the pragmatist thinks is: what will be the consequences of this policy? So he starts drawing graphs, calculates the effects on those who will benefit, those who will suffer, adds the relevant variables, while also knowing he can't really account for every concrete variable, and ends with some conclusion or another. In short, he tries to predict the concrete consequence of a specific action, which is extraordinarily complex to do. Impossible. That's why there's such uncertainty hovering over the pragmatist's conclusions. Thinking in principles is a fundamentally different. The principle asks: what is the nature of this policy? It does not ask: what will be the SPECIFIC, CONCRETE consequence of the policy. Indeed, reality is made up of too many concretes to be predicted at a specific outcome level. That's why we need principles: their role is subsume the many concretes under a general, fundamental proposition, so we know the *essential* nature, and hence the essential consequence of a specific action. Note: not the *specific* consequences; only the essential ones. Namely, in the case of price controls, we know that they lead to shortages because either the seller loses his profits (if price is too low) or the buyer loses his savings (if price is too high). The shortage can be in supply or in demand. Where exactly, to what degree, how the market will react in the short and long term—that's difficult to predict. By all means, do the research, but start with principles, then build from there.

@Martin_ASFL Eastern European immigrants to western Canada in the early 19th century formed the bulwark of a socialist voting bloc that dominated provincial politics for the last half of the 20th century. Most conservatives prefer to ignore this historical fact.

@MrExaminer This kind of thinking dominates among most free market financial analysts. This leads them to make wildly inaccurate predictions about specific market trends which craters their credibility. Only once in a blue moon do they get it right.

@Martin_ASFL @mariachammond The key to persuading people to support free markets is through broad cultural narratives focused on the arts. It's good to see this kind of work being done.

The movement for liberty has consistently lacked breadth (not depth). We're all lawyers and economists. That's why it always heartens me to see classical liberal artists, like @mariachammond, broadening the appeal! Have a look at her portfolio: maria-hammond.com

@StealthQE4 I don't think voters would stand for boots on the ground however. Any attempt to land troops anywhere near Iran would end disastrously as well.

Anyone else getting vibes that the Iran War is turning into another Vietnam? I was reading about how that war escalated with Lyndon Johnson. Does this sound familiar?

@StealthQE4 This is only going to stop when financial markets tank and don't stop falling.

Have we lost our minds? Oil is going over $100 if this happens.

@DimitrisSoudas Nice string of bromides there. Too bad none of them constitute an argument in favor of SM.

Support for supply management has been a long-standing Conservative policy. It supports Canada’s: 🥛 Dairy (milk and dairy products) 🍗 Chicken 🦃 Turkey 🥚 Table eggs 🐣 Broiler hatching eggs and chicks These industries are found across: • Quebec • Ontario • British Columbia • Alberta • Manitoba • New Brunswick • Nova Scotia • Prince Edward Island • Newfoundland and Labrador Supply management helps: ✅ Provide stable farm incomes ✅ Preserve family farms ✅ Strengthen Canada’s domestic food supply Conservatives have long recognized the importance of a strong, stable, and secure agricultural sector.

@DimitrisSoudas You are an enemy of freedom, economic rationale, and Canadian consumers. Just skip the pandering and admit you are a spineless whore for special interests.

@realdanfreeman Quite possible as long as NDP voters continue to drift back home.

I'm going to make a "radical" prediction. Pierre Poilievre will be ahead in the polling aggregate by February 1st/2027. Pierre will also poll ahead of Mark Carney in some polls before Christmas. The Liberal meltdown will be something to behold.

@Nikos_17 Every year building code requirements relentlessly expand as the guardians of public safety are compelled to find new avenues for micromanagement of private property.

Those who cannot build and produce anything, getting in the way of those trying to build something. Longest-standing injustice in the West.

So Jason Kenney now wants Canada to scrap supply management. Where was this courage when he held public office? Funny how politicians become brave once they leave. Maxime Bernier was one of the few to challenge the system while in office—and his political career paid the price, thanks in no small part to Big Dairy.

@JulieBorowski What are you proposing? Some sort of a political litmus test for immigrants? Wouldn't people just memorize the right answers and game the system?

I want to live in a free-ish society. If you bring in large numbers of people who fundamentally disagree with the values that make that society free, eventually it won't stay free. "So you're saying you have to limit some freedom to preserve freedom?" Yeah.

@JulieBorowski In the late 19th century, massive numbers of eastern European immigrants flocked to Manitoba. Their descendants overwhelmingly voted for socialist candidates ever since, in keeping with a mystic, collectivist mindset. Should we have kept them out too?