RoR: Forum

Heidi, the next time you're in the Detroit Metro, check out the José Cuervo Tequilera, I think it's around the B gates. I guarantee your impression of the airport will change for the better (or maybe that's "blurrier," haha!).

Post 1

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 1:51am

Heidi, might be interesting to analyse the opportunity cost the Founding Fathers had to deal with 230 years ago. Think Jefferson, Adams, Washington, et al, would have found it more profitable to turn a blind eye to the Brits?

Regardless, if the army recruiting office saw Christian Bale in The Machinist...

...they wouldn't let him anywhere near an M16.

Ross

PS: still wearing those boots?

Post 2

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 1:57am

My first question was: what type of person is a Christian Bale? I know of Fundamentaist Christians, and Catholic Christians, and Baptist Christians, but what is a Christian Bale? Oh, imdb says he is an actor, the actor for Batman.

Second, where is the government getting this $20,000 from? Voluntary means, or by forcing the population to pay up or go to jail?

Post 3

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 2:40am

Well, of course through force. No man would pay the government, if it were volontary. They would rather develop other means to the same end, including probably multiple national army services. However, those services would be much more reluctantly in going to war, because they would have to pay the bills. The government, in return, has no regrets about going to war, because they know that they can get the costs back by coercing taxes out of the mass.

Sadly, it is that simple, a state can't be a state without a forced basis, because otherwise it would be a voluntarily contract and more of an enterprise than anything else.

Post 4

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 7:45am

I was with DMG on this: Who the heck is Christian Bales? (And like him, I found the answer on www.imdb.com)

The argument about the loss of economic value is an important consequence. Whenever the government makes a decision, economic losses are inevitable. I wonder if this could be proved. I mean, is it possible for a government (any government) to make an economic decision except as a consideration of power? Is there some metaphysical problem? Certainly, by induction -- about 3500 or maybe 8000 years of experience -- government decisions overwhelmingly tend to be uneconomical.

The replies from governmentalists are many. They can point to a "higher good." More was achieved by the death of Joyce Kilmer than was lost in the poems he never wrote. I looked quickly on Google for a chemist or physicist killed int he same conflict -- very promising young man, did seminal work recognized by Planck or men of that level and then killed... So, the governments claim that those noble heroic valiant sacrifices are worth the important historical gains ... or something ...

When governments make decisions based on power (common good, politics, etc.) economic losses are logically inevitable. I just wonder if a government by its nature must always make power choices over market choices.

Post 5

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 7:48am

Michael Marotta, since government is nothing but power constrained by law, any choice it makes other than the choice to stay out of the way is likely to be a "power choice" instead of a "market choice". The only market choice available to the state is laissez-faire.

Post 6

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 8:31am

Good luck to Don. If need be, good hunting. It's notable that some people with high opportunity costs nonetheless join one of the military services.

Post 7

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 8:41am

Someone sanctioned this garbage?

Value is subjective...calling out a "pathetic friend" who is "worth less" than a certain amount of money(if I were your friend, I would be pissed at your mean-spirited description)...the War on Terror is wrong?

Shame on you, Morris. Just remember next time who helps defend that freedom you find so damn valuable.

Post 8

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 12:51pm

John Enright: "It's notable that some people with high opportunity costs nonetheless join one of the military services."

I thought the very same thing, John.

What was the name of that football player who was killed in Afghanistan? He volunteered for the Marines, I think.

My son had a great job and college money waiting for him when he got out of high school, but chose to enlist in the Army instead. Same situation with the son of a friend.

It's a little insulting to suggest that joining the Armed Services is somehow a "step down" or "last resort" in the job/career market. And I think you missed an opportunity to make a stronger argument against the draft the insinuation. I'm sure it wasn't intentional.

My husband and father both volunteered for the military (Navy, WWII, and Marines, two tours in Vietnam, respectively).

Post 9

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 1:36pm

Teresa Summerlee Isanhart: "What was the name of that football player who was killed in Afghanistan?"

His name was Pat Tillman. He was an Army Ranger. "He walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million offer from Arizona to join the Army."

It's interesting to ask why a person does that. He never made a public statement as to why. But one of his coaches is quoted as saying "He truly felt committed and felt a sense of honor and duty at this point in his life that this is what he wanted to do."

From a von Miseian point of view, honor is a psychological value that he obviously held very highly indeed.

My quotes/facts are from here:
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/7277321

Post 10

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 3:09pm

Heidi:

In the article, you say:

I think the War on Terror is wrong and I would actually pay to stop it.

What should America do in response to an attack like 9/11?

Post 11

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 3:13pm

Boy oh Boy! Did Heidi ever put one over on the "principled thinkers" of SOLO?? Or, maybe every post in this thread is put here with a wink and a grin. (?) I could hope for nothing better, but I fear I'd be dead wrong, every bit as dead as Pat Tillman who was the victim of friendly fire. (!)

The morality of the draft is a question of economics?? Not on your life! Not on anybody's life! It's a question of "Who owns your life?" Without the Draft, Viet Nam would never, Could Never, have happened. And even though there WAS a draft before we got into WWII, one hell of a lot of soldiers did not wait for any draft notice -- they signed up by the thousands, thanks to one very nefarious President FDR.

I said I would not post again, that I would only lurk for awhile. But this gem is too much, even for me. SOLO doesn't even merit lurking.

Even worse, I don't think that SOLO actually stands for Sense of Life Objectivists. Along with all the rest who have left (including even Barbara Branden, for whom I have very little respect though I don't believe she lied in her Rand biography), in my opinion SOLO stands for S.O.L. Objectivists. So much for today's "New Intellectuals."

MSK, you are welcome to say "good riddance" together with whatever profanity you can throw in. I'll be surfing those parts of the web where the air is breathable, thanks all the same.

John Allen

Post 12

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 5:16pm

Drukenmiller & Allen,-

There are many fields of cognitive discipline which may be made the subject of an article. Tomato farming, the aesthetics of dark age pocket calculators, the morality of the draft. But Miss Morris didn't choose any of those things, she wrote about the economics of the draft.

You want to fight for a free world you gotta do it on a great breadth of fronts, not only the moral front. Along with the philosophical front, of which Ayn Rand is our general, there is another vital line in the cause of capitalism- the economic front.

Heidi was a bit soft on the Robber Barrons for me, but I see nothing in the above to make me think that by daring to focus on economic aspects she rebukes a moral substructure. This has been an easy-to-read little breeze through economic thinking, the sort that makes free-market thinking spread to new followers.

If you think it was garbage that slipped under editorial radar it suggests that Heidi knows something about the intellectual requisites for capitalism to flourish that escapes the both of you.

Post 13

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 5:46pm

Rick,

"easy-to-read little breeze through economic thinking"

There was more there than that. A pointed insult to the people who choose to be a part of the armed forces was hard to miss. And a sort of "I'd never be caught dead in the armed forces because I'm not retarded" sort of attitude. Goes beyond economic decision making.

And:

"95 percent of the wars America has been involved in during the last, oh ... fifty years or so ... has been unjust, unnecessary, and basically evil.".

I'm sick to death of that crap. I'm afraid I have to go with Steve on this one.

Post 14

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 5:52pm

There was more there than that. A pointed insult to the people who choose to be a part of the armed forces was hard to miss. And a sort of "I'd never be caught dead in the armed forces because I'm not retarded" sort of attitude. Goes beyond economic decision making.

And:

"95 percent of the wars America has been involved in during the last, oh ... fifty years or so ... has been unjust, unnecessary, and basically evil.".

I'm sick to death of that crap. I'm afraid I have to go with Steve on this one.

I'm sorry to repost this immediately after it's original posting, but this bears repeating and I wish I could post it over and over. That was well said Mike.

This is not an article that is a breeze through economic thinking, but a breeze through the pacifist/peacenik/anit-america/appeasement mentality and it deserves to be called such.

Post 15

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 6:09pm

"Did Heidi ever put one over on the "principled thinkers" of SOLO??"

Sadly, it appears that you are correct. I would like to think that there is an economic argument against war & the draft. I'd like to think that a future graduate in economics from Hillsdale college might be able to put a coherent case for it.

I'd really, really like to think that someone with aspirations of bringing a "libertarian/free-market viewpoint to a field [conservation biology]" might actually be able to put forward a more thoughtful, philosophical, and libertarian argument against conscription than "my opportunity cost is higher [than an army salary]."

Sadly it seems that I'm wrong on both points. All talk of conscription being a form of slavery, an initiation of force, and all that libertarian/objectivist/freedom philosophic shit seems to have washed over Heidi without leaving a mark.

And like Mr Druckenmiller, I too am sickened at the snide commentary on how much the life of Heidi's "friend" is worth.

But I am also pissed at seeing yet another example of a 20-something-academic-know-it-all automatically assuming that anyone who joins the military must have a room temperature IQ and nothing to recommend them other than possessing sufficient girth to stop a bullet.

Heidi, are you so retarded as to think that it doesn't require brains or skill to maintain, repair and tanks, artillery, mortars, jet-aircraft and helicopters all with computer-controlled-communication, navigation and fire-control systems? This attitude from someone that - I'm betting - doesn't even know how to change the oil in her own car.

I won't even bother about the brains and skill that goes in to getting that computerized, jet-fuel-powered equipment half way round the world, keeping it supplied and then using it properly. I shouldn't have to! You should have an appreciation for the logistics behind commercial global-distribution networks - it should have been something you encountered and learned to appreciate during your economics studies. What? Do you think the army uses a magic wand to feed, house, clothe, arm and move it's 150,000 troops in Iraq?

In short, I think that the people who sanctioned this load of unscholarly codswallop ought to be ashamed of themselves - regardless of which side of the Iraq-war debate they were on.

(Edited by Robert Winefield on 11/05, 6:24pm)

Post 16

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 6:20pm

Why the hell is she even accepted here? From what I've noticed, she steps down from the academic mount olympus, enlightens the peons here, and then tucks tail and runs like hell without engaging any of us in debate about her 'articles' which are not much more than what I read from my fiancee's english 1102 students. If she hung around, and stooped to our level to discuss her articles, that would be one thing....but she doesn't. The powers that be allow her to post her drivel here, and she doesn't even have the balls(or should I say boots) to engage us in discussion. I want a way to personalize my SOLO home page so that no further articles by the esteemed Heidi C. Morris show up. I think she wears nothing but the academic-emperors new clothes.

Post 17

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 6:46pm

Having just read the article after seeing the kerfuffle here, I agree with its critics. It's a bunch of pomo-snide, Saddamite crap. Definitely shouldn't have been let through. Knowing Andrew, I figure he must have been too mesmerised by Heidi's photo to focus on the content of her article. Or maybe he was pining for another of my paddlings.

That said, I don't see a surfeit of articles by the critics in the queue.

Linz

Post 18

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 6:51pm

Knowing Andrew, I figure he must have been too mesmerised by Heidi's photo to focus on the content of her article

I understand Andrew. I think the acceptance of any further articles be contingent upon some more author photo's.

Post 19

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 7:07pm