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Continue reading →: America’s debt is greater than all the money in the world.
Still not enough, say America’s voters. Sigh.
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Continue reading →: Just to get this election in perspective…
Here is H.L. Mencken speaking of politicians in general; The one aim of all such persons is to butter their own parsnips. They have no concept of the public good that can be differentiated from their concept of their own good. They get into office by making all sorts of…
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Continue reading →: When will they ever learn?
AUFERSTANDEN AUS RUINEN | Socialist Unity. The fall of the Berlin Wall was the great political event of my life. Though I wore a "free elections in the East" badge at National Union of Students conferences, it was something I never really dared to hope for. I remember either Edward…
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Continue reading →: Moral panics vs morality
New BBC row over Newsnight 'paedophile' politician probe – Telegraph. I was surprised by last night's Newsnight (available here for a while on iPlayer). Not because it delighted (of course it did) in accusing a Conservative politician of the Thatcher era of being a paedophile, but because this was an…
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Continue reading →: All organisations funded by force are immoral – Part 3: The US Government
And of course, if you substitute the Labour Party for the Democratic Party, the same is true of the Welfare State in Britain. h/t Catallaxy files
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Continue reading →: The moral limits of incentives?
NHS millions for controversial care pathway – Telegraph. My sincere belief that all organisations funded by force are immoral – and that we must therefore not be surprised when people within them behave in immoral ways (and organise cover-ups to protect each other) – was further strengthened when I read…
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Continue reading →: All organisations funded by force are immoral – Part 2: the NHS
The lethal medical arrogance behind the Liverpool Care Pathway | Melanie Phillips. Melanie Phillips, not my favourite journalist, has been writing about the "Liverpool Care Pathway." Something Goebbelish about the name of this route to death is enough to make decent people suspicious, but that's modern Britain for you; all…
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Continue reading →: Anna Raccoon’s story continues…
Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part Six. — Anna Raccoon. Anna Raccoon continues her efforts in the best traditions of the blogosphere. She was at Duncroft when the alleged abuse occurred and she is calling into question some of the evidence presented to Newsnight. She is taking some stick…
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Continue reading →: The Marshmallow Test, Revisited
The Marshmallow Test, Revisited – At the Edge (usnews.com). It seems to me that the two sets of research (the famous original testing a child's ability to delay eating a marshmallow in return for another one later and the new data suggesting that children learn such behaviours at home)…
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Continue reading →: The Tyranny of Utility: Behavioral Social Science and the Rise of Paternalism
The Tyranny of Utility: Behavioral Social Science and the Rise of Paternalism | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty. There are some interesting thoughts in this review of a book about the threat to liberty from behavioural social science. Are we liberty- and market-minded folk too hung up on the…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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There are many reasons they’re not passed down, Tom. The Triune code, laid out in scripture in all reputable versions…
I’ve always tried to live my life doing no wrong but life isn’t like that so you make compromised but…
Hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to end until you end it. You think people to whom…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
A little bird tweeted in my ear that it was time to come over and see how things are.