Campaign Contributuions and Institutional Corruption

If you have a free hour, I highly recommend you watch this excellent presentation from Harvard University's Lawrence Lessig on the dynamics of financial dependence and perceptions of institutional corruption. He makes the case that one of the most damaging aspects of our current system is that it fosters deep cynicism and distrust about the efficacy of important institutions (e.g the FDA, Congress) and thus inhibits their effectiveness. So people perceive the FDA and the medical establishment as being in the pocket of Big Pharma. So more and more people begin to discount the unassailable scientific evidence that immunizations improve health. This leads to an increase in easily treatable diseases like the measles. The perception of undue influence, whether or not you think it is actually occurring (I do), therefore detracts from the public health goals of the FDA.

It's a wide-ranging lecture that touches on a whole lot of issues, such as financial sector regulation, the economy of lobbying in Washington, and copyright law. Really worth your time.

Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a young girl in 1990?

Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a young girl in 1990? We don't know, and Glenn Beck has yet to come forward and address the questions we need to ask. But I know you, like myself, want answers.

http://gb1990.com/

Libertarians can surprise me. Who knew?

Five Reasons Why Libertarians Shouldn't Hate Government - Reason Magazine:

When we tell our limited-government friends that we have written a book titled If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Big Things Done in Government, about how government can better accomplish what it sets out to do, the reaction is often horror.

“I don’t want to make government work better, I want it to go away" is the typical response. Government, in their view, is the enemy.

This way of thinking is deeply misguided, a troubling blind spot that keeps libertarians on the fringe of many policy debates. If you reflect only scorn for government, it’s hard to get anyone who hasn’t already drunk the Kool-Aid to take your opinions on the topic seriously.

This is not to disparage the argument that government is too large, for which the case is strong. But holding government in sneering contempt is a misinformed corruption of that sentiment.

Our Founding Fathers, fondly quoted by limited-government advocates, didn’t view government as evil, but as a flawed institution with some important jobs to do. They studied how government worked and they served in office, not because they viewed government with disdain, but because they knew the importance of good government...

The whole thing is worth checking out.