No Free Trade from China

A while ago, I wrote about the perverted application of the theory of competitive advantage in a post called Everything we ignore about Free Trade. I want to be clear: I love free trade.

What I hate is the fact that free trade does not exist and everybody ignores injustice in the economy. Recent international events constantly demonstrate that we do not have international free trade. In China, local citizens are protesting the construction of a coal-fired plant where they live. The Chinese stooges who work for the government are beating them into submission.

There may be nothing that anybody can do to stop the evil Chinese government. However, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that the cheap junk we get from Chinese factories demonstrates the benefits of industrialization for them and the benefits of free trade for us.

The truth is that we benefit from both outright theft and our ignorance of the truth.

Let her cover her face

I am 100% against the offensive and oppressive edict from the Conservative government that muslim women who, as an act of faith, choose to cover their faces must remove their niqab to take the oath of citizenship.

I have heard no good argument in favour of this measure. There are other ways of confirming identity, and their are other ways to accommodate the very few new Canadians with this particular religious conviction. This move is based neither in principle nor in necessity. The Tories have an axe to grind, and they don’t care if they chip away at our freedom of religion.

Lethbridge MP Hillyer Keeps on Embarrassing Himself

It’s almost too painful to watch:

Here’s the video of him firing his air guns!

All of this isn’t too surprising considering his stellar performance during the last election campaign:

Atheism and social entitlement

There is a great post over at Filibuster Cartoons called Those awful atheists wherein the author asks the question: “All things considered, if given the choice, would you prefer to have less of them [atheists] in your life?” This question comes from the revelation that theists generally distrust atheists.

Read that post and the comments. The comments from the atheists are very intriguing. They seem to have great difficulty accepting the free choice of theists to peacefully disassociate themselves from atheists when given the choice.

I have a question of my own for the atheists: Do you feel entitled to socialize with people who freely choose to avoid you?