Reading Hayek

During my considerable leave of absence, I was fortunate enough to come upon the idea of buying, with my dirty corporation-stained blood money, Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek. Instead, because the bookstore did not have that particular book in stock, I picked up The Road to Serfdom by the same author. And, if you have not already noticed, which you probably have not; I can classify myself as Libertarian more so today than three months ago. However, I am not completely so, and therefore the title of my blog itself shall not change.

More to the point; Hayek is something that, admittedly this is going to sound cliche, has truly affected me. Now, it has not changed much; merely, it has reinforced those beliefs which I had previously held as infirm and slightly baseless. And yet, this book provided more proof of the left's aptitude towards totalitarianism and the reasonability of "liberalism" as Hayek would call it- America terms it as Classical Liberalism or Libertarianism. So, I proudly admit; my social beliefs have stayed relatively the same, but economically, I have found that the individual is truly the only way (and this is said carefully and with discretion) to some form of utopianism. Not in the sense of perfection, but in the sense that people will become, fill their own destiny out of their own free will, and no coercion should take place to undermine that.

Now, before I enter the usually leftist (I have to get in a hit somewhere right?) paradise of kooksville, in your opinion anyway; I must admit that this book does not change much, it only serves as evidence and reason and intellectual stimuli for something that already exists. No leftist will be able to take this book up and readily admit it's wisdom, that certainly is out of the realm of plausibility, which in fact this book seeks to sustain.

The Road to Serfdom is not a "fun" book to read. In fact, some areas were stale, coming off as an overly long essay, which in fact it is. It is, however, informative and in some ways frightening, especially with the emerging leftist factions and the leanings of certain Democrats to ultimately fulfill the totalitarianism promised in the book. This was written over fifty years ago, and interestingly enough, some of what Hayek warned about is now true in our American society and political structure. It was both saddening and amazing when I looked up from that book and realized how much we are being regulated and "planned" today. It is a realization that Socialism is not as far away from our economic system as I once thought it was.

I am positive that I have left something out, but if I remember I will post an update. Please put your comments and opinions, I love to hear them.

Goggalor
The Young Conservatives

The Undocumented Choice

Unless you did not pick up on what I was inferring in my Post title, this article is about Illegal Immigration/Undocumented "Workers." Now, we must all admit that this is a major problem, draining the "fair" in Welfare (if that even exists) and the Security in Social Security (If again, that actually exists). Our hospitals are overrun by these "workers" who have no medical insurance, flooding Emergency rooms and lowering the overall efficiency of everything they come in contact with, and even more so when those things are government-operated (if in fact they were efficient to begin with, but that is another topic).

Therefore, there are only about two real and valid options, all others being attempts at Political Appeasement. These options are:

1) Enforce immigration laws, such as the new bill that felonizes illegal immigrants.

OR

2) Reform, or even get rid of most social programs such as public school and welfare.

All others are just futile attempts to solve a problem, or more diabolically; just political appeasement. Which is doing things that sound as though they would work, but don't (and the politicians know this) actually work. The Dubai fiasco was an example of this, "Don't let them get any ports" even though Communist China owns about 3/4 of port companies in the US anyways.

The other options, and this word is somewhat extreme, are Amnesty or things close to it, like the McCain-Kennedy bill. Amnesty is not the answer, these people are breaking the law, UNLESS you go with option number two. McCain-Kennedy and Bush are, or should be, both classed (even though they have different ways of going about it) as Amnesty.

Unfortunately, option 2 is politically unviable, providing the best way to solve the solution. However, too many obstacles and too much opinion blocks that route. Option 1, is therefore the remaining solution, and sadly must be taken to solve this crisis.

If you have concurring or dissenting opinions, please comment.

Goggalor
The Young Conservatives

SongBird

Okay. The first Official post of the second era of Goggalor and Friends. As such, I thought it would be great to mix it up a little with some, Progging (Program Blogging)which sounds thoroughly insane, but Applicogging sounds worse.

If, in fact, there is better term, please enlighten me. Well, let's get started.

This is it: The Songbird, the new opensource Multimedia Application with usage of XUL (in other words Firefox). It combines the internet and something sort of, but completely better, like iTunes.

That pic you see in the top left corner is just glance at this program (Click for bigger pic).

But, there are better writers than I; so here is some technicalingo for you to read thanks to Boing Boing:

A team led by ex-Winamp-er Rob Lord today released a preview edition of Songbird, a desktop media player that offers an open source alternative to services like Apple's iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Instead of connecting to one locked store full of DRMmed goods, it can connect to any and all available music (and video) on the internet.

Code brains behind the project include people who helped build Winamp, Muse, Yahoo's "Y! Music Engine" media player, and developers from Mozilla Foundation. Initial release is for Windows only, with editions for other OSes to follow in the coming weeks.

Built on the same platform as Firefox, Songbird acts like a specialized web browser for music. It sees the online world through MP3-colored glasses -- it looks at an archive of public domain sound files or a music store's catalog, and displays available media for you.

That is just a summary, but I tried it out. It is great, fantastic and everything in between. However, it is still very beta; Version .1.1 is the latest.

It is what they call, "Proof of Concept." It doesn't yet do everything the developers want it to, but it is still enough for me to use more often than iTunes. However, iTunes has (as of now) better organization and things, well, completely work. This program shows a lot of promise. Check it out at Songbirdnest.com. In fact, I am using Songbird right now to write this blog entry, it is definitely an all-in-one program. Download it if you have the time to check it out.

Again: Songbirdnest.com

Goggalor
The Young Conservatives

We Are Back!

Ladies (if you exist) and Gentlemen (if you exist), we are back.

Back.

I want to apologize...profusely for my leave of absence. I just could not do it. I could not keep up with my competitors and this blog no longer became an outlet for my opinions, but an outlet for my overly competitive nature. And thus, I became tired of putting words on this here page.

From now on, this site will be directed, but not limited to, politics. Every so often I might tell you about a program or video I like, movie reviews; but ultimately this will be no different, save for those few changes, than before my unfortunate leave.

I want to thank Libertarian Jason for actually caring that I went missing and...well thats everyone I want to thank. If, you had noticed and you are now experiencing a tinge of indignancy, thankyou even though I did not have the patience to actually notice your complaint of my absence.

It is going to still be mostly me, Jake is kind of a flake when it comes to posting, so; back to the topic, I hope you start reading us again with far more vigor than before, because look how far down the blog rankings we are! We have to catch up.

Just joking. But, tell your friends. We are back.

Goggalor
The Young Conservatives