The EU aspires to superpower status: it is giving itself a Foreign Minister, and forming an Army.
It seeks to rival the USA - a neo-imperialist aspiration which I cannot see is in anyone's interest, and risks conflict with our closest ally.
The penny is just beginning to drop.
Of course Richard North got there long ago on the EU Referendum website.
December 11, 2004
How to Cut Tax
The way to cut taxes is for governments to do less.
If they really want to cut tax, the Tories will have to do more than cut waste.
They need to make clear why they want to cut tax - then act on it.
They need to change the moral climate and sell the benefits of people doing things themselves rather than having so much of their income already spoken for by the state.
Why does anyone still think the state is an effective provider of service?
If they really want to cut tax, the Tories will have to do more than cut waste.
They need to make clear why they want to cut tax - then act on it.
They need to change the moral climate and sell the benefits of people doing things themselves rather than having so much of their income already spoken for by the state.
Why does anyone still think the state is an effective provider of service?
December 10, 2004
Animals Use Tools Too
What is the difference between humans and other animals?
Is it that man uses tools while other animals do not?
A team from Cambridge University has seen wild capuchin monkeys in Brazil's Caatinga forests digging with stones, using tools to help collect food.
So man is not alone in using tools.
How much longer can Man consider himself something apart from the rest of Nature?
Is it that man uses tools while other animals do not?
A team from Cambridge University has seen wild capuchin monkeys in Brazil's Caatinga forests digging with stones, using tools to help collect food.
So man is not alone in using tools.
How much longer can Man consider himself something apart from the rest of Nature?
December 09, 2004
Government Does Too Much
I look at the paper this morning and see more proposals to cut the debt of the poorest countries, and increase aid.
But what is the point? Foreign aid is counterproductive, sustaining corrupt regimes, lining pockets, and avoids real reform, both in the recipient countries, and in the trade terms offered by donor countries.
The politicians are buying votes again with gesture politics.
Just as they buy votes by their health and education programmes. No matter that pets are treated better, faster, and cheaper by private vets than their owners are by the NHS. No, the politicians pretend they can run a health care system for the entire country better than it could be done privately.
Just as they pretend they can run a schools system for the entire country better than it could be done privately. Even when the private sector is patently better than the state sector, a gap that widened with the closure of the grammar schools, and widens still.
Politicians are such good organisers, aren't they? We elect them as managers, don't we? They know one size always fits all: they have no compunction about making it fit.
Why do people keep voting them in?
I think because too many people have become dependent on the state, not only for direct provision of the services, but for money, and often for their jobs. They find it hard to imagine how things could be any different. They fear the disruption of change.
And there is a moral degeneration: people have become less self reliant, and less charitable. In the past it was widely accepted that people were responsible for those less fortunate than themselves, and charitable giving, work, and benefaction were far more common than today. And now people are far less concerned to maintain themselves (or others), and have a far greater willingness to be dependent on the state (and let the state look after others). Between the two the state is picking up an ever larger clientele of dependents, the burden of which becomes an excuse for ever greater regulation of us all.
It changes the ethics and culture of health and education provision too. The principle motivation is no longer charitable, with patient or pupil interests at the centre, but bureaucratic, with political interests dominant.
In the long run everyone would be much better off if the state did far less than it does now. It seems obvious to me. Is it not obvious to everyone?
But what is the point? Foreign aid is counterproductive, sustaining corrupt regimes, lining pockets, and avoids real reform, both in the recipient countries, and in the trade terms offered by donor countries.
The politicians are buying votes again with gesture politics.
Just as they buy votes by their health and education programmes. No matter that pets are treated better, faster, and cheaper by private vets than their owners are by the NHS. No, the politicians pretend they can run a health care system for the entire country better than it could be done privately.
Just as they pretend they can run a schools system for the entire country better than it could be done privately. Even when the private sector is patently better than the state sector, a gap that widened with the closure of the grammar schools, and widens still.
Politicians are such good organisers, aren't they? We elect them as managers, don't we? They know one size always fits all: they have no compunction about making it fit.
Why do people keep voting them in?
I think because too many people have become dependent on the state, not only for direct provision of the services, but for money, and often for their jobs. They find it hard to imagine how things could be any different. They fear the disruption of change.
And there is a moral degeneration: people have become less self reliant, and less charitable. In the past it was widely accepted that people were responsible for those less fortunate than themselves, and charitable giving, work, and benefaction were far more common than today. And now people are far less concerned to maintain themselves (or others), and have a far greater willingness to be dependent on the state (and let the state look after others). Between the two the state is picking up an ever larger clientele of dependents, the burden of which becomes an excuse for ever greater regulation of us all.
It changes the ethics and culture of health and education provision too. The principle motivation is no longer charitable, with patient or pupil interests at the centre, but bureaucratic, with political interests dominant.
In the long run everyone would be much better off if the state did far less than it does now. It seems obvious to me. Is it not obvious to everyone?
December 08, 2004
Man Killing Sea Life
A UK report from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution says man has caused commercial fish stocks to decline by 80% or more.
Fishing is subsidised globally to the tune of £8bn - £16bn a year; the destruction continues with industrial fishing on a massive scale; and meanwhile consumers are recommended to eat still more fish.
The report recommends banning fishing from 30% of the sea to let stocks recover.
However, the UK must look to the EU to introduce any ban, because control over fishing has been surrendered to Brussels.
The same EU which has created much of the problem of over-fishing around Britain, with a system of quotas which cause huge quantities of fish, including immature stock, to be caught, killed, and dumped.
The same EU which has refused to take measures to stop the killing of hundreds of dolphins in British waters.
And the same EU which - along with the Royal Commission - also seems unaware that simple bans are likely to exacerbate the damage to some species as some stocks overwhelm others.
While the UK needs desperately to take back control over its own fisheries, and manage them properly, mankind generally should take far less (and more carefully) from the sea. We are rapidly altering the sea's ecology, and risk destroying the species which rely on the stocks we are decimating.
But how, when most people regard the rest of creation purely as means?
Fishing is subsidised globally to the tune of £8bn - £16bn a year; the destruction continues with industrial fishing on a massive scale; and meanwhile consumers are recommended to eat still more fish.
The report recommends banning fishing from 30% of the sea to let stocks recover.
However, the UK must look to the EU to introduce any ban, because control over fishing has been surrendered to Brussels.
The same EU which has created much of the problem of over-fishing around Britain, with a system of quotas which cause huge quantities of fish, including immature stock, to be caught, killed, and dumped.
The same EU which has refused to take measures to stop the killing of hundreds of dolphins in British waters.
And the same EU which - along with the Royal Commission - also seems unaware that simple bans are likely to exacerbate the damage to some species as some stocks overwhelm others.
While the UK needs desperately to take back control over its own fisheries, and manage them properly, mankind generally should take far less (and more carefully) from the sea. We are rapidly altering the sea's ecology, and risk destroying the species which rely on the stocks we are decimating.
But how, when most people regard the rest of creation purely as means?
Incitement To Religious Hatred
Freedom requires tolerance, and a certain resilience.
If no-one is prepared to tolerate things they don't like to hear, then no-one will be able to say anything contentious. If no-one can say anything contentious, then no-one can challenge the status quo - whether that is in terms of ideas or institutions.
Those who hope to benefit from a law against inciting religious hatred ought to develop a thicker skin, because if they don't our society will be less free, less flexible, less adaptive, less rational, and less worth living in.
If no-one is prepared to tolerate things they don't like to hear, then no-one will be able to say anything contentious. If no-one can say anything contentious, then no-one can challenge the status quo - whether that is in terms of ideas or institutions.
Those who hope to benefit from a law against inciting religious hatred ought to develop a thicker skin, because if they don't our society will be less free, less flexible, less adaptive, less rational, and less worth living in.
December 05, 2004
Dogs That Talk
Did you know dogs can talk?
Professor Slobodchickoff from North Arizona has been researching prairie dogs for many years now, and believes the dogs have a language they use to communicate. He believes he's identified at least 20 different words.
To me it is evidence that more goes on in animals' heads than they are generally given credit for, and there is less of a divide between mankind and the rest of the animal kingdom than most people would like to think.
Time to revisit meat eating?
Professor Slobodchickoff from North Arizona has been researching prairie dogs for many years now, and believes the dogs have a language they use to communicate. He believes he's identified at least 20 different words.
To me it is evidence that more goes on in animals' heads than they are generally given credit for, and there is less of a divide between mankind and the rest of the animal kingdom than most people would like to think.
Time to revisit meat eating?
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