Sure, that's exactly my point. If you choose not to sell something, you shouldn't be told you have to. The onus is on the buyer of a given product to find a seller. Trying to legislate availability of products is just dumb. If there's some kind of need for people to get something the market won't provide, then yes, the government should step in. By providing the item in question. *Not* by trying to push stubborn people around. That doesn't work, and the *unending* drama over this kind of stuff is your proof.

That's just excusemaking. This is the age of the Internet and mail-order. These problems can be *solved*. Legislating the inventory of stores is not an answer. Hell, if it comes down to it, you could dispense these more controversial bits of inventory via mail order through state-supported hospitals, of which there is a sufficient if not plentiful supply.

I should clarify my previous post: I am largely referring to the right of businesses to sell or not sell things as they choose. Individual employees certainly can assert a right to not sell things, and find out they've been disciplined or fired if their "right" doesn't happen to be respected by their employer. All this talk of "rights" when we're discussing stuff like voluntary commerce has clouded the issue beyond all rational debate, and that's what I meant to draw attention to.

It makes me giggle just saying it. Octomom. Octomom. Octomom.

...

Octomom.

"Americans welcome our new socialist overlords --A new poll shows that only a bare majority of Americans think socialism is better than capitalism"

FTA:

"A new Rasmussen poll came up with what seem to be some pretty stunning results: Americans aren't all that wild about capitalism, even when given socialism as the alternative. Only 53 percent of respondents told Rasmussen they think capitalism is better than socialism, while 20 percent think the opposite and 27 percent say they're not sure."

Please fix that. It made me dizzy.

Why are there still lead water pipes? Cars aren't allowed to burn leaded gasoline anymore.. seems like this is a problem that doesn't need to persist. Would it cost that much, really, to mandate replacement with PVC or copper?

to make oil stocks very tasty indeed. The market is such a wonderfully shortsighted beast. Bargains already abound. Hell, BP is paying an 8% dividend.

Guantanamo isn't shut down. Bagram is still up, running, and an informational black hole. I'm so disappointed in Obama. The only complicated issue is what to do with the detainees, and that'd be better resolved with them being put up, at government expense, in a Hilton somewhere while we sort it all out. Every scrap of paper should be paraded in full public view so there is no hint of coverup or of scapegoating: The people who provably committed war crimes should go to jail. This is just as important as "fixing" the economy (which after all will -eventually- fix itself). Tyrannies don't (peacefully) revert to republic status once they've decayed.

You're right, we should all just build mud huts and cower within them. That would make life much more difficult for the Terrorists.

Seriously, a couple hours to LA? Sounds good. Well, except that I don't really like LA :]. On the other hand, 45m to Monterey sounds real good. I don't know if it makes economic sense, but it makes Friday afternoon sense!

Thanks for that post, it crystallized what I think and also added to my understanding of the processes operating in these situations. I think you're about as right as it gets there.

to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

And, they will lose both. That's my opinion though, not Ben's. History in sig for anyone who doesn't know it.

"civil rights and the rule of law" in your description of topics on which we're free to say what we like. I have some things I say about those topics and Obama, unfortunately.

That was a masterpiece. Sometimes the fish really do jump into the boat.

to plan always for the best-case scenario. That way you can avoid doing anything unpleasant until the absolute last minute. And by then, the disaster is usually unstoppable anyway, so you can just throw your hands up, proclaim "Ah, there was nothing anyone could have done", and wander off to your next triumph.

Because it's the truth.

Let's have big companies put lots of money into a prize fund. Say, a couple billion. Then, they can have the fund give cash awards to politicians who are great patriots and otherwise awesome people who just also happen to do nice things for the corporations. Then, maybe the politicians will stay in power, and do more nice things for the corporations!

Prawgress!