On one reading of Plato, he advocates rule by philosopher kings.* He might be right, but you’ve got to be suspicious, given that he’s a philosopher. On one reading of Aristotle, he thinks the best form of life is philosophical, and even God is a kind of philosopher (eternally thinking of perfection). Aristotle might be right, but you’ve got to be suspicious, given that he’s a philosopher. Certain (but not all) deliberative democrats and some other political theorists think society would be much better if most people began acting like political theorists at a colloquium. They might be right, you’ve got to be suspicious, given this is coming from political theorists. Now, when Rawls and various other high liberals try to determine which liberties matter the most—which are really important for people to develop their moral personalities—they just so happen to come up with the liberties that make the most difference in the life of a typical philosopher. So, freedom of speech is in (good thing for us book writers!), freedom of personal property is in (we like our Subarus, Macs, bicycles, and nice houses), but freedom to own productive property is out. (Who has time to run a pizza shop on the side, anyways?) This is a touch snarky, but there’s a more serious point here. It may well be that political philosophy is parochial—that it reflects the concerns, values, and (rather limited) life experiences of philosophers at the expense of understanding the concerns, values, and life experiences of non-philosophers.

The table above shows how the prison incarceration rate for in the United States (per 100,000 population) in 2010 compares to some of the roughest countries in the world. The full list of 216 countries is here, the countries above were selected as some of world’s the most repressive regimes (Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya), some of the world’s least economically free countries (Venezuela, Turkmenistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, according to the Heritage Foundation), least politically stable (Israel) and some countries with the biggest narco-terroism problems (Colombia and Mexico). But none of them even come close to the incarceration rate of the World’s #1 Jailer - the United States, largely because of the “war on drugs.”

Union rules prohibit citizens from being volunteer fireman, from volunteering to help their schools, from seeking non-union employment, and from controlling their own lives. Now we see union rules dictate a city councilman who does not want to hire an assistant to waste $70,000 hiring one. People cannot yell “fire” in a movie theater, for good reason. For the same reason, union rights to “organize” must stop at the point when they tread on the rights of others to pursue employment, to do whatever they want with their own time, and to not waste money hiring employees they do not need. No one who stands up for the taxpayer in public union contracts. Worse yet, many of those contracts intrude on private rights as noted above.

Currently, many eyes are riveted on the battles taking place in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states where public sector unions are desperately fighting to hold on to their privileges. I don’t blame them for that–privileged classes generally find it easy to believe that their privileges are well-deserved–but, while the results of these battles are in doubt, I wonder whether the war is not, in essence, over. The reality is that we, the taxpayers, can’t afford public sector unions. And the unions and their members have nowhere else to go–no one else to sell themselves to, except us. So I think they are doomed.

Alas, most people who are interested in politics are more concerned with defending their turf and maintaining their sense of themselves than seeking the truth.

Let’s dive deeper into one of Obama’s statements: “We need to come together, Democrats and Republicans, around a long-term budget that sacrifices wasteful spending without sacrificing the job-creating investments in our future” Since when is getting rid of wasteful spending “a sacrifice”?

One lawyer will be able to do the work of 500 in the area of document discovery and beyond that technology will cut the rest of the legal workforce in half. In his new book Eat People, Andy Kessler, says “the best way to leverage Abundance and Scale and to create Productivity is to get rid of people.” Oh course Kessler is talking about getting rid of worthless jobs. Those who don’t like change don’t want to hear it, but “really, truly, the road to wealth passes through the graveyard of today’s jobs.”