Cow Civics

Found this gem on the internet today, as a comment in response to this article about the raw milk debate.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "Cow Civics:"

FEUDALISM:
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk. 

FASCISM:
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk. 

PURE COMMUNISM:
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk. 

APPLIED COMMUNISM:
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. 

DICTATORSHIP:
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you. 

MILITARISM:
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you. 

PURE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk. 

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk. 

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:
The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair “Cowgate”. The cow sues you for breach of contract. 

EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY:
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows. 

CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. 

TOTALITARIANISM:
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned. 

COUNTERCULTURE:
Wow, dude, there’s like…these two cows, man. You have *got* to have some of this milk.

And here's a surrealistic YouTube video featuring cows, since we're on the subject:

A Case for Legalized Prostitution

This guest piece was originally submitted as an academic paper and some formatting has been edited.

Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in existence.  Sumerian records show that sex was sold as early as 2400 B.C. Societies have attempted to get rid of prostitution almost since it began, usually because it violates a moral or religious belief.  The goals of those in favor banning prostitution are good, but when put into practice, prohibition yields dangerous consequences.  Throughout history, societies' efforts to prohibit prostitution in an attempt to protect morals and decrease the demand for paid sex have always resulted in a disregard for the law, the endangerment of sex workers, and the creation of an underground black market.

Outsource It, Please!

I am taking an economics course this semester, and on the second day of class we talked about some of the basic principles of economics, including trade.  We watched a video of Milton Friedman explaining the ideas behind a famous essay titled, "I, Pencil," written by economist Leonard Read.  The purpose of the video (and originally, the essay) is to explain that free trade benefits us all by allowing us to trade some of our time (in earnings) for a minuscule bit of many other peoples' time (in labor), and that trade all over the world benefits all of us.

A woman in the row in front of me raised her hand and, and starting her sentence with, "Yeah, but," proceeded to explain how a company she had worked for had outsourced a portion of their jobs to India, causing some American workers to be laid off.  "How could this be beneficial to Americans?" she demanded.  "When big greedy corporations outsource, it only benefits their culture, and it hurts ours!"  This is a common objection Americans have when jobs are outsourced to other countries, and the misconceptions behind it also account for the belief that buying products that are "Made in America" benefits Americans more than worldwide trade.

Placebic Public Policy: The Ineffectiveness of “Feel Good” Legislation

As a society, we have a tendency to try to collectively make ourselves feel better about subjects that make us uncomfortable. Unfortunately, while legislation may make us feel better collectively, it also can be ineffective, or even detrimental.

When tragedy strikes, whether on a national level or a personal one, we feel we must take action to prevent such tragedy in the future. The most recent example of this is our response to mass killings involving guns in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut. But there is another set of public policies that are based on tragedy on a smaller scale, the tragedy of drug addiction. Anyone who has seen a friend or relative slip into addiction can understand that there is a need to address the drug issue and “fix” the problem of addiction, although as we have seen in the last 100 years, drug prohibition is a failed policy, albeit one derived from the best of intentions.