Leveraging change

In my last posting I suggested that we will never know when the electorate is ready to accept libertarian ideas. Can we encourage them? Can we help create the conditions for the cultural shift that might result in electing a libertarian? Good news, it's happening right now, without our help.
Nouriel Roubini a professor at New York University and a market analyst who famously predicted the financial crisis of 2007 - 09, peered into his crystal ball recently and suggested that: "a perfect storm" was brewing in the global economy as a result of sovereign debt restructuring and economic stagnation in the US, Europe, and Japan.
Roubini like others, uses the metaphor of governments and individuals kicking-the-can-down-the-road of too much public and private debt. But the can is getting heavier, and at some point, someone will trip up. Roubini thinks things come to a head in 2013, maybe, who knows, sooner or maybe later.
In Canada household debt has just reached record levels, and though many think the Canadian government is fiscally sound, factoring in provincial (especially Ontario and Quebec) and municipal debt, things are just as bad here as anywhere.
Of course with all this going on, people are starting to notice (finally). It's becoming apparent even to Joe A. Canuck (not from VYR) that government is not the solution to ALL that ails us, in fact, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, government is the problem.  
Of course it almost goes without saying that libertarians are deeply suspicious of government and are well aware of all the above. They are critical of just about everything to do with government, but most libertarians in Canada do nothing about it, and I mean NOTHING. In fact someone wrote about the libertarian malaise here five years ago, so this is not a new phenomenon, have a look.

Its time to get off your butts folks, you don't have to move the Earth like poor old Archimedes in the picture, even a small gesture multiplied by many times will do the same work as that first class lever the old Greek is using. Our mechanical advantage will not be force, but money. One hundred dollars from one hundred people is $10,000! Since Canadian politicians know how to take care of themselves, the tax break is excellent. In a moderate tax bracket you will get 75% of your donation refunded. At least you would be doing something. Why stop there?
In Ontario this Fall, the Party of Choice will be fielding a much larger slate of candidates than the last time (2007). It would be wonderful to have a candidate, real or on paper, in each of the 107 ridings across the province.
Be part of the change, join the party, be a candidate, donate to the party, volunteer for a candidate, do something, because apathy doesn't work.

Are we there yet?

The idea that a libertarian government will not happen until and unless there is a major cultural shift in our society, has almost become a mantra among libertarians around here. Imagine what that sounds like to new enthusiastic young or even older libertarians. Wait until the time is right, then we will come riding to the rescue and like the cavalry in the old cowboy movie, and we will win the day. Just wait!


Its time to cast aside that idea, because that kind of thinking only blocks action, stifles creativity, and squelches debate. We must accept that day will never come, we will never know when the time is right, and no one will whisper in our ear the magic word: "now!" It's not going to happen.

So here is a challenge, how can we make this happen? How can we engage the unengaged? Those people who know in their gut that something is wrong, but can't imagine an alternate universe, and can't or won't get out of the rut of our current paradigm. (I'll have more on this soon)

If the libertarian idea is so powerful, why do we have such a problem making it sound desirable?

How often do you find yourself using negative terminology when explaining an issue in a casual conversation with someone. For example, on health care: libertarians would abolish government programs, yes they would. On education: libertarians would get rid of the public school system, in a heart beat. On energy: libertarians would privatize the electrical system and remove government from its monopoly on power.
All of these issues are ULTIMATE GOALS of libertarians, and more often than not, expressed in a negative way. We would remove this entitlement, or stop that monopoly and of course rarely do we offer a better option. That's a turn-off, no one likes to have the status quo upset and turn expectations into uncertainty. Most people would argue that things are working fine, maybe not as well as they could be, but "I'm satisfied" they would say. "The governments are trying, and if they screw up, well, we are free to boot them out. Whats wrong with that?" 


Isn't that what you hear in the conversations you have? I hear that ALL THE TIME. That's the problem, our so-called solutions aren't really solutions, they are dreams and most often improperly framed and poorly presented. People then walk away thinking: "what a kook with a kooky idea." Before long libertarian equals kook, and can you blame them?


So, to the question in the title, I think we're there, and I'll have more to say on this.

Life is carcinogenic

More worries. An announcement from the WHO recently about risks from Radio Frequencies (RF) associated with mobile phones was all over the news.

Remember the WHO, they are the group that announced the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic, that caused no end of consternation among world governments, but proved to be a tempest in a teapot. So what are we to make of this?
Its well known that ionizing radiation can result in molecular interactions at the level of living cells and tissues. X-rays and Gamma radiation are the most common form of ionizing radiation we humans are exposed to. X-rays are generally considered "man-made," gamma rays are naturally occurring, and for most people these two would be considered identical in their effects depending on dose: exposure time.
But radio frequency (RF) radiation is non-ionizing, ie. it does not mess with molecules by breaking chemical bonds when electrons are moved around. RF is a bit like visible light, shine intense light or RF on something long enough and that light or RF will be absorbed by the something and converted to heat, another form of non-ionizing radiation. It might help to have a look at the electromagnetic spectrum to see how all these radiations are related. Or not, this is starting to sound like a physics class.
Here is what the WHO announcement said with regard to my last paragraph:
"Tissue heating is the principal mechanism of interaction between radiofrequency energy and the human body. At the frequencies used by mobile phones, most of the energy is absorbed by the skin and other superficial tissues, resulting in negligible temperature rise in the brain or any other organs of the body."
"A number of studies have investigated the effects of radiofrequency fields on brain electrical activity, cognitive function, sleep, heart rate and blood pressure in volunteers. To date, research does not suggest any consistent evidence of adverse health effects from exposure to radiofrequency fields at levels below those that cause tissue heating. Further, research has not been able to provide support for a causal relationship between exposure to electromagnetic fields and self-reported symptoms, or “electromagnetic hypersensitivity”."
Is this anything to be concerned about given those comments? There is no discussion about possible mechanisms, or comparisons with other heat producing devises. What if a heating pad is held to the head for an extended period of time? Does it present a risk? Is heat the problem or is there something special about RF? What about cordless phones so common in many homes? What about microwave radiation from leaky ovens in homes? What about the fact that we in the industrialized world, are bathed in an ocean of RF and microwave radiation almost all the time?
The online version of Reason Magazine has an article that addresses this very issue, and gives it much needed perspective. For me the entire issue sounds like a way for scientists to scare up some money from various governmental organizations, for further study to no one's benefit, quite the contrary in fact. Then there is the line I heard the other day on radio, if this were true about cell phones, entertainment and sports agents would be dropping like flies.

Magnetic bubbles at the edge of the solar system

The Voyager probes have been traveling away from Earth for over 30 years now. I occasionally check back on them because I have always been a bit of a space nut. Voyager 2 was special, because my son was born on the day it was launched by NASA in 1977. It was the first one launched and so was my son. Other than my little story, the Voyager Program was involved in the first Star Trek movie as a hybrid robot entity called V'ger, you might recall. That was 1979!
It's humbling to appreciate that these probes are now just at the edge of our solar system, past the orbit of Pluto the former planet, and hurtling into interstellar space. Space is really, really big, beyond imaginings!
These probes have returned a wealth of scientific data, and made discoveries that would be impossible in their absence. The latest one is that the edge of our solar system is filled with frothy magnetic bubbles. Here is NASA's explanation: