Last Week's Top 5 Hit & Run Posts

October 19, 2009

Here's what you were reading last week at Hit & Run:

But If You Go Carrying Pictures of Chairman Mao (or Mother Theresa) Anyhow, You're Going Make It In the Obama Administration Anyhow..., by Nick Gillespie (10/15)

Corporatism: A Love Story, by Damon W. Root (10/14)

Headline of the Decade, by Jesse Walker (10/11)

Cheerios' Reign of Terror Must Be Stopped! Or, Thank God For Cass Sunstein. Really. by Nick Gillespie (10/13)

In Defense of Roger Moore as James Bond Or, Why Is Chris MatthewsFantasizing About Blowing Up Rush Limbaugh's Head? by Nick Gillespie (10/14)

Comments

John Tagliaferro|10.19.09 @ 10:21AM|#

Interesting quirk in the system. This is not on the main H&R page and appears to be a duplicate.

Spoonman|10.19.09 @ 10:34AM|#

I'm posting in the secret thread, I'm posting in the secret thread, neener neener

John Tagliaferro|10.19.09 @ 2:09PM|#

Our cloaking device has failed.

Frederich August von Hayek|10.19.09 @ 2:10PM|#

Before we can progress with our main problem, an obstacle has yet to be surmounted. A confusion largely responsible for the way in which we are drifting into things which nobody wants must be cleared up.

This confusion concerns nothing less than the concept of socialism itself. It may mean, and is often used to describe, merely the ideals of social justice, greater equality and security which are the ultimate aims of socialism. But it means also the particular method by which most socialists hope to attain these ends and which many competent people regard as the only methods by which they can be fully and quickly attained. In this sense socialism means the abolition of private enterprise, of private ownership of the means of production, and the creation of a system of "planned economy" in which the entrepreneur working for profit is replaced by a central planning body.

There are many people who call themselves socialists although they care only about the first, who fervently believe in those ultimate aims of socialism but neither care nor understand how they can be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, whatever the cost. But to nearly all those to whom socialism is not merely a hope but an object of practical politics, the characteristic methods of modern socialism are as essential as the ends themselves. Many people, on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialists, refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by socialists. The dispute about socialism has thus become largely a dispute about the means and not about the ends--although the question whether the different ends of socialism can be simultaneously achieved is also involved.

This would be enough to create confusion. And the confusion has been further increased by the common practice of denying that those who repudiate the means value the ends. But this is not all. The situation is still more complicated by the fact that the same means, the "economic planning" which is the prime instrument of socialist reform, can be used for many other purposes. We must centrally direct economic activity if we want to make the distribution of income conform to current ideas of social justice. "Planning", therefore, is wanted by all those who demand "production for use" be substituted for production for profit. But such planning is no less indispensable if the distribution of incomes is to be regulated in a way which to us appears to be the opposite of just. Whether we should wish that more of the good things of this world should go to some radical elite, the Nordic men, or the members of a party or an aristocracy, the methods which we shall have to employ are the same as those which could ensure an equalitarian distribution.

- The Road to Serfdom

|10.19.09 @ 2:12PM|#

What's wrong with carrying a picture of MAO? America wouldn't be shit without China supplying our cheap goods, and buying our debt.

I find the disconnect real funny, and sad. We want to hate MAO for being a communist, but we have no problem buying his goods, and letting him buy our debt.

I found the hub-bub about the Empire state building funny. All the people that shop at walmart buying chinese goods are acting like they have a problem with communisim, while supporting it with their own money.

Bergholt Stuttley Johnson|10.19.09 @ 2:38PM|#

You know Mao died 33 years ago, right?

|10.19.09 @ 6:11PM|#

You don't see any distinction between the post-Maoist Chinese, who have pretty much abandoned his political philosophy, and the guy whose revolution put over 40,000,000 people in the ground?

Xeones|10.19.09 @ 2:26PM|#

We want to hate MAO for being a communist, but we have no problem buying his goods, and letting him buy our debt.

Who's this "we," white man?

|10.19.09 @ 2:52PM|#

Nine-year-old Bethany Dibbs of Poole, England, "was struck by a car as she crossed the road on her scooter and ended up in a coma with a fractured skull," reports London's Daily Mail:

An ambulance crew arrived and called for help, only to be told by their operator that under strict meal break regulations the closest additional crew still had a few minutes left on their lunch break. The paramedics were informed it would take 20 minutes for another crew to arrive. In the end one of them called their colleagues directly and they abandoned their lunch and raced to help. . . .A spokesman for the South Western Ambulance Service Trust said it took its health and safety duties seriously. He added: "In line with national guidelines which must be adhered to by all ambulance trusts, it is important all staff have dedicated 30-minute rest breaks which cannot be interrupted."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....lunch.html