It's 2011 and Ron Paul is President

Michael Pack | August 6, 2007, 11:21am | #

Why is it when you try to take power from the gov. and give it back to the people there's horror stories about the results.Are we to stupid to run our lives?

VM | August 6, 2007, 11:30am | #

*imagines scene from "The Last Action Hero" where Stallone is the Terminator...

MP | August 6, 2007, 11:32am | #

Are we to stupid to run our lives?

Some typos are more fun than others.

Lost_In_Translation | August 6, 2007, 11:37am | #

No, here's what the headlines would really look like

"Colorado legalizes marajuana, DEA helpless to stop"

"New York doubles its taxes to cover it expensive healthcare plan, many citizens move to Colorado"

"Iowa abandoned due to lack of ethanol subsidies"

"US Dollar losing steadily to US gold note in international markets"

"Bridge to nowhere collapses, no one hurt."

The Wine Commonsewer | August 6, 2007, 11:40am | #

"Paul vetos yet another bill from Congress."

And the media has a hissy fit. Man in the street wonders WTF is wrong with the POTUS and why he voted for him.

whiskeyjuvenile | August 6, 2007, 11:46am | #

Speaking as one of the Something Awful libertarians, most of us are abandoning Paul in droves over the Darfur divestment vote.

whiskeyjuvenile | August 6, 2007, 11:48am | #

see:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2579649

and

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2481207

Isaac Bartram | August 6, 2007, 11:58am | #

joe, while many Tragedy of the Commons scenarios are compelling one that considers individuals' own money as a "commons" falls somewhat short.

As I recall, the grazing lands were the Commons, the farmers herds were their own.

Postmodern Sleaze | August 6, 2007, 12:07pm | #

ClubMed:

No, but you're the only one who cares. ;)

Wary | August 6, 2007, 12:19pm | #

Edward | August 6, 2007, 11:53am | #
Does Ron Paul really support colloidal silver as an effective alternative treatment for cancer? I hope not because that would make him not just an unelectable joke, but a dangerous quack.

No, that was some crazy bastard who ran for some office in Montana as a libertarian. He drank colloidal silver for some fool reason and his skin turned blue.

Also, I feel obliged to insult your intelligence in turn, so here goes: your intelligence is low, Edward. Very low, indeed. It's so low that it is at least two standard deviations below the mean. You wear velcro shoes.

Wary | August 6, 2007, 12:23pm | #

Wary,
Edward is the trolliest troll whatever trolled. Please don't feed him.

Curious | August 6, 2007, 12:30pm | #

Hey, is there a connection between Reason getting more hits and Ron Paul coverage?

All Paul, all the time!

Micheal Pack | August 6, 2007, 12:46pm | #

Joe,they didn't own the land,therefore there was no advantage to care for it.Just like my wife doesn't worry about the water bill when she washes her car.

Fluffy | August 6, 2007, 1:20pm | #

Edward, we've been over this before.

Since only one candidate can ultimately win, all the supporters of all the other candidates are "stupid enough to think" their candidate can win.

It doesn't really matter if you subjectively believe that Bill Richardson has a "greater chance" to win. The only data point that matters is actual victory. If on election day 2008 neither Ron Paul nor Bill Richardson are President, that makes these statements:

1. Ron Paul can win the election.
2. Bill Richardson can win the election.

- equally false and equally stupid. And this goes for every candidate in the race but one, in the end.

joe | August 6, 2007, 1:23pm | #

Isaac B,

I'm not claiming that private property is a commons. The private property is the sheep, and such actions as dumping one's waste or building in an unsustainable manner is the equivalent of grazing more and more sheep to try to outrun the stripping of the common.

The important part of the tragedy of the commons is the observation that certain actions (ie, maximizing your own sheep in order to cash in before the common is stripped) are only in one's self-interest if others are free to do the same. It would actually be in everyone's greater self-interest for everyone's grazing rights to be limited, and individuals pursue destructive unlimited grazing not because they're stupid (Michael Pack's theory), but because it can actually be the smart thing, on individual level, to take part in behavior which is irrational in the aggregate.

joe | August 6, 2007, 1:26pm | #

Michael Pack,

Joe,they didn't own the land,therefore there was no advantage to care for it.

No, wrong. They did have an interest in caring for it. They most certainly did have an interest in making sure the common was preserved.

They just didn't have an effective way, on an individual level, to make that happen. Just making decisions about what to do with one's own sheep wouldn't solve the problem.

highnumber | August 6, 2007, 1:32pm | #

Awesome, ProGLib! I'll send my kids to the Mom & Pop schools until Wal-Mart shuts 'em down.

Isaac Bartram | August 6, 2007, 1:37pm | #

Fair enough, joe, rereading I see Micheal Pack used the word power. I hastily took that took mean the power to tax. On second thought I see that he meant power as in self-determination.

I'm still a little confused as to what commons is going to be depleted by everyone having "too much" power of self-determination.

MikeP | August 6, 2007, 1:45pm | #

The important part of the tragedy of the commons is the observation that certain actions (ie, maximizing your own sheep in order to cash in before the common is stripped) are only in one's self-interest if others are free to do the same.

?

The important part of the tragedy of the commons is, as Fluffy notes, that commons should be minimized. Costs should accrue to those who benefit, and the most effective way to do that is to privatize everything that can be privatized.

Going back to the first comment, that includes virtually everything the government does.

joe | August 6, 2007, 1:51pm | #

Take an example of eight property owners who have abutting multi-acre parcels that they want to develop. The land is dotted with streams and wetlands.

Each individual has an interest in filling all of their land and building on it, but each owner also has an interest in there being enough wetlands to handle to the stormwater. Each individual can only contol his own behavior, which doesn't include forcing his neighbors to maintain their wetlands. If left to their own devices, this leads to each of the owners filling their entire lots and everyone having water in their basements.

It's a Mexican standoff situation, and rationality alone is going to lead to everyone firing their gun, or everyone standing there frozen.

crimethink | August 6, 2007, 1:56pm | #

joe,

Why can't one of the landowners volunteer to devote part of his land to wetland, in return for a fee from the other landowners?

MikeP | August 6, 2007, 2:00pm | #

joe,

The marginally least interested developer offers to the others that he will turn half his own land into drainage for a price. One of three things now happens: (a) they pay the price, (b) the second least interested developer offers half of his land for less, or (c) the developers build buildings with flooding basements.

Or can only someone with magical powers at the city planners' office foresee the drainage problem?

NoStar | August 6, 2007, 2:25pm | #

I took a 560 mile round trip to visit my sailboat. On the way I saw a "Ron Paul 08" yard sign about 75 miles north of Seattle

I saw no signs for any other candidates.
Run, Ron, Run!

Frater Plotter | August 6, 2007, 2:27pm | #

Of course, the problem with the "Tragedy of the Commons" is that it is ahistorical. It's simply a lie about history, of the same sort as the "social contract" (the idea that government originated by mutual agreement, rather than by conquest).

In actual, real history, commons grazing was governed by substantial property rights that limited the number of animals each commoner could graze, and the times and seasons in which they could do so. These property rights were enforceable at common law.

The "Tragedy of the Commons" is much more appropriate to ranching on Federal lands in the American West than to a medieval commons. It is under government mismanagement that overgrazing happens.

It turns out that herdsmen know a hell of a lot more about maintaining a commons than economists do.

Fluffy | August 6, 2007, 2:41pm | #

"The problem with any large commons is an information problem. Not really. In the classic sheep-grazing example, everyone had all the information they needed."

Sorry, my bad. I was attempting to describe the problem with any scheme to regulate the use of the commons. We can't know in advance that the regulations chosen will work. If the regulations don't work, and we have made ourselves dependent on the commons, we all lose. That means that when confronted with the existence of the commons, we can either eliminate it [and be at the mercy of our own ability to manage our own section of the distributed commons] or we can attempt to regulate it [and be at the mercy of how everyone else administers the commons]. It's only rational to choose A.

The thing is that you believe that the regulation of the commons protects system participants from failures of the commons, and you can't know that in advance. The shepherd dependent on an unregulated commons and the shepherd dependent on a regulated commons are actually in the same position: they're dependent on something that everyone else might fuck up. They may fuck it up in the manner described in the classic "tragedy" example, or they may fuck it up by designing bad regulation. The rational position is therefore to not be in a situation where you are dependent on a commons [or to minimize the instances in which you're dependent on a commons].

joe | August 6, 2007, 3:05pm | #

crimethink,

The landowners might do that. Then again, they might not. In any case, it is highly unlikely that any one landowner could make as much money from not developing his land than from developing it, and none of the landowners can make as much money from building on part of their property than building it all.

Mike P,

See my response to crimethink. Once again (and again, and again, and again, and again, apparently), it's not a question of knowing about the problem, but of it not being in any private party's interest to solve it.

It's clear how in love you are with accusing other people of thinking they're smart. A dodge from answering the actual issue, perhaps?

(I never actually manage to get anyone to take on the problem of the divergence of interests on these threads.)

MikeP | August 6, 2007, 3:18pm | #

Once again (and again, and again, and again, and again, apparently), it's not a question of knowing about the problem, but of it not being in any private party's interest to solve it.

But it is in their interests to solve the problem. If they all build on all their land, their buildings' basements will flood.

You seem to assume some absolute symmetry among the developers. In reality there are differences among their interests, their plans, and their land such that one of them would be willing to put up some of his land for drainage if he is compensated for it.

This is the Coase theorem applied. And it will result in a better solution for each and every developer than, say, the government requiring that each of them provides his own drainage.

It's clear how in love you are with accusing other people of thinking they're smart. A dodge from answering the actual issue, perhaps?

I regretted that statement after I reread your example and saw that you were clear that all the developers knew all the facts of the drainage problem. Sorry about that.

The Wine Commonsewer | August 6, 2007, 3:47pm | #

I'd never buy a building with a flooding basement.

Secondly, 3/4 of the land I own is virgin (the rest is a slut).

Fluffy | August 6, 2007, 4:45pm | #

No, Edward. That's not what I said. I said there is no real way to come up with a hard number to measure the difference in the likelihood that Richardson will win and the likelihood that Paul will win, and once the election is over and they haven't won, those odds revert to zero anyway.

Anyway, you wanted to talk about stupidity. And if we're talking about stupidity, if we're taking a test and the question is: "Who will win the Presidential election in 2008?" people who write as their answer "Ron Paul" and people who write as their answer "Bill Richardson" both score zero on the test - as does everyone else whose candidate doesn't win. People with equal zero scores on their test are equally stupid. And if you bring your test up to the teacher and say, "But - but - but - my answer had a better chance to be right than all the other wrong answers!" the teacher is entitled to say "Wrong is wrong, so put your duncecap on and get in the corner, dopey."

Sandy | August 6, 2007, 10:35pm | #

I wonder if food safety liberals have even heard of UL?

wayne | August 7, 2007, 4:21am | #

As a proud graduate of the public school system, I see plenty wrong with WalMart High. What happens to the kids whose parents can't afford to pay the tuition?

Vouchers you say... What is the difference between vouchers and public schools? The problem with public schools is multi-generational poverty.

MikeP | August 7, 2007, 3:47pm | #

joe,

Getting back to the classic Tragedy of the Commons, each individual shepherd has an interest in enclosing a piece of the pasture as his property.

There is a solution. It is in their interest to find it. The solution they find will almost always be superior to some externally imposed regulation of the commons or one-size-fits-all regulation of a property. Just as with your drainage example.