Nicky Cheese

Back in March I wrote a post entitled My “right” to purchase your product, critiquing Adbusters lawsuit against Canwest Global. The latter entity, a broadcast company, refused to sell airtime to the the former.

Abusters lost the case and, in realizing that you can’t simply force another into business - that it, in fact, takes the mutual consent of both parties to make a contract valid - apparently now rejects the very concept, evident by one of the latest ABTV videos.

Titled Ad-idas, the 5-minute video documents Neil Boorman’s quest “to claim due advertising fees from a brand giant”.

The brand giant in question is Adidas and the “due advertising fees”? According to Boorman, it amounts to 10,000 pounds based upon - nothing consensual, of course, but rather - the 10-15 years Boorman has voluntarily spent being a “human billboard” for the company. You know, wearing Adidas shirts, shorts and shoes out in public.

Now obviously, Mr. Boorman isn’t a true Adidas fan. He isn’t a fan of any corporation. In the same vein as Naomi Klein, he’s a hardcore anti-consumerist borderline luddite; and in the same vein as Michael Moore, the video is dishonest in strategy but authentic in message. But yes, Boorman believes this garbage. As the tagline states, “Why do we buy clothes that advertise brands? They should be paying us!”.

Yeah!

Companies should be paying consumers who choose to buy their branded products for the subsequent advertising that the aforementioned companies never asked for. The consumers deserve it. It’s just!

Yes. In fact, tomorrow I’ll be sending Adbusters an invoice for showcasing the crappy Neil Boorman video in question.

Take a look. Or don’t! It doesn’t matter really. There isn’t a contract or any criteria whatsoever I have to meet. I don’t even have to speak highly of the content. I determine what they owe me. It’s that simple!

…is clearly one of delusion.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

How do you communicate with individuals that out of touch with scientific reality? How do you respond to such an irrational, hyper-emotional pysche?

Call it for what is it, I guess. Patrick Moore - Canadian ecologist and founding member of Greenpeace International - says it better than I ever could (0:18 in 2nd video):

To talk about how the tree is alive and has feelings and it hurts it when you cut it down and that sort of stuff - that’s pretty well kindergarten talk. I mean, it’s not true. Trees are plants, like carrots and cabbages.

1st case? I guess Al Gore has never been to a psychiatrist…

From the Aussie-based heraldsun:

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children’s Hospital say this delusion was a “previously unreported phenomenon”.

“A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events”…

“The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies.”

The rest of the article goes on to cite (non-psychiatric) climate change delusions coming from various individuals in the Australian government.

But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What’s scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this “climate change delusion”, too.

Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: “If we do not begin reducing the nation’s levels of carbon pollution, Australia’s economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands”…

Rudd hopes this pain will make you switch to expensive but less gassy alternatives, and — hey presto — the world’s temperature will then fall, just like it’s actually done since the day Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth.

But you’ll have spotted already the big flaw in Rudd’s mad plan — one that confirms he and Garnaut really do have delusions.

The truth is Australia on its own emits less than 1.5 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide. Any savings we make will make no real difference, given that China (now the biggest emitter) and India (the fourth) are booming so fast that they alone will pump out 42 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases by 2030.

Indeed, so fast are the world’s emissions growing — by 3.1 per cent a year thanks mostly to these two giants — that the 20 per cent cuts Rudd demands of Australians by 2020 would be swallowed up in just 28 days. That’s how little our multi-billions of dollars in sacrifices will matter….

So almost everything depends on China and India copying us. But the chances of that? A big, round zero.

A year ago China released its own global warming strategy — its own Garnaut report — which bluntly refused to cut its total emissions.

Same deal with India. Goodness! Why haven’t they caught the green bug?!?

Indian experts went to the trouble to check what the climate was actually doing and why.

Their conclusion? They couldn’t actually find anything bad in India that was caused by man-made warming: “No firm link between the documented (climate) changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established.”

In fact, they couldn’t find much change in the climate at all.

Yes, India’s surface temperature over a century had inched up by 0.4 degrees, but there had been no change in trends for large-scale droughts and floods, or rain: “The observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend . . .”

Whenever I hear the term “social justice”, I think of a direct and necessary absence of individual justice. It’s a sick visceral reaction to a sick erroneous concept.

On the subject, Rhode Island’s free market think tank, the Ocean State Policy Research Institute, wrote one of the best op-eds I’ve read in the last month or so. Entitled Freedom is the Cost of Social Justice, I’ll excerpt it liberally:

Ayn Rand once said that the difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time. It appears that that time is now in many parts of the world. London decides who is worthy of [health] care and Canada holds its market captive like America holds the poor in public schools. Oppression sells its wares under the guise of “social justice” that demands that state’s safety net instead become society’s fabric. Once people become dependent, individual freedom is lost.

So, when Governor Caricieri announced that some of our tax dollars would be used to discourage out of wedlock childbirths and promote marriage, the reception was less than homey. Government isn’t supposed to help people make choices, it is simply supposed to write them checks.

But for those of us who truly relish freedom – this is indeed a perplexing situation. It is beyond debate that two biological parents is the preferred environment for a child. But does government have the authority to influence lifestyle, or, dare I say, “moral” choices? The governor’s response was the only logical statement anyone might accept: ‘if taxpayers must pay for other people’s lifestyle choices, we have the right to influence those choices.’

In a market driven social service world, people put their money with groups representing the values they support. Secular or not, donations were a way for people to “make the world a better place” in a manner these donors found worthy. But it’s not like that anymore, at least not in RI.

Rhode Islanders like to say they are compassionate, but that compassion isn’t voluntary. In 2005 the Catalog of Philanthropy released a report called the Generosity Index that ranked states on their “giving.” Rhode Island ranked second lowest in the nation on the amount of money donated to charity according to itemized deductions. During that same year, RI spending on public assistance programs was the third highest in the country. And this is nothing new. Our “giving rank” from 1997 to 2004 (most recent year reported) was either 49th or 50th.

So now that we have developed a system that dictates a high level of government enforced charity, whose morals will we use to administer it? Even if the proceeds are derived by coercion and government charity is given without condition, this itself is a value system that sends serious economic and moral signals. Rather than representing the absence of judgment, the evaporation of stigma within our politically-correct, amoral government welfare state is a choice of values….

Society can strike a balance between the Scarlet Letter and Murphy Brown. It is far better that this dynamic process takes place without the fear the government will pick the winner. Instead competing value systems can exist simultaneously and their successes and failures can inform one another. The best deal we can possibly hope for is for government to recede a bit, making space for private action to strengthen the fabric of society with the safety net remaining just that. But if society does continue government administered charity, you must accept a little totalitarianism. Me, I prefer freedomism.

Although it’s quite difficult to identify what she stands for - her first book, the populist No Logo, rallied against the ubiquity of advertising, and her latest, The Shock Doctrine, maligns Milton Friedman and free-market economics by association (yes, oddly enough, by association) - assuming she has some, I’m fairly certain I loathe the ideals this woman espouses.

Ordinarily, I’d dismiss her as yet another drop in the misanthropic, anti-consumerist, socialist well, but she’s a popular misanthropic, anti-consumerist socialist. Really popular. According to wikipedia:

Klein ranked 11th in an internet poll ^[1][2][3] of the top global intellectuals of 2005, a list of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals compiled by Prospect magazine^[4] in conjunction with Foreign Policy magazine. She was the highest ranked woman on the list.

Plus, all my lefty friends cite her as an authority source.

Check out this video:

Sounds like another name to add to the list of modern-day Ellsworth Tooheys.

Expect more on this evil and contemptuous soul…

A great comedian died yesterday, one that rallied against mysticism for reason, against government censorship for free expression.

Of course, he spewed a lot of irrational anti-business rhetoric as well, but at the very least my college English professor was incorrect about him authoring that platitude-of-platitudes, the Paradox of our Times. George Carlin may have been economically misguided, but he wasn’t trite.

Anyways, on my way to work today, I had my Zune on shuffle - take that Apple! - and came across a sweet bit from comedian Doug Stanhope. Totally reminded me of George Carlin sans, of course, the lefty political bent.

Check it out:

Some thoughts I wrote down on Sunday’s flight back from SamSphere Kansas…

The first time I ever flew on a plane I was 22. Most people would find this fact rather odd. Yes, I agree. I’ve led a fairly grounded early life…arguably insular. Part of the reason, I suppose, lies in my parents. They don’t fly. Family vacations involved our old white ‘94 Suburban, limited - of course - to the contiguous United States. I don’t think my folks had, nor continue to have, any particular aversion to the mode of travel. They just don’t fly.

I’ve flown my fair share since 22 - recently, in fact, it’s been bordering on overkill what with five or so trips in the last couple months.

In any case, every time I fly - specifically, every time the plane launches from land and, thereby, surmounts gravity - I get this subtle (and yet, at the same time, mildly overwhelming) feeling of triumph, of pride in human ingenuity, innovation and determination. Our ability to transcend our biological and environmental situation, to conquer nature’s harsher, inconvenient elements and do what we want in a comfortable, timely fashion - it’s fucking awesome. I mean, excuse the f-bomb but, seriously, no other qualification will do. Yeah, you’re with me here!

Of course, the anti-consumerist, luddite crowd rejects such sentiments. They loathe industry, lament civilization and venerate pure nature, ignorant that it is the very ability to put distance between ourselves and nature (by, hark! - industry and civilization) that allows us to enjoy nature, an environment that is - more often than not - hostile to the human endeavor.

Anyways, I’m trying to understand this philosophy….

At the recommendation of TNCM, I’m currently reading Alston Chase’s biography of America’s most notorious - and arguably most violent and intelligent - luddite, Ted Kaczynski.

Kaczynski was the most intelligent killer in modern history, and unlike every other serial murderer, he killed not for the enjoyment of it but to promote ideas. (p.39)

Entitled Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist, Chase does - thus far - a great job of explaining the cause and effects of the Unabomber’s “revenge on the technological society”.

Expect more as I get through it. Point is, though, Kaczynski detested flight, and moreover, human progress. I, obviously, do not.

According to self-described “futurist” Richard Neville, due to hyper-consumerism and its detrimental environmental effects, “there are going to be very turbulent social times ahead”.

[youtube]8_MovAWNxMc[/youtube]

What individuals will be the “target for outrage in the future”, the object of this turbulence? His hit-list includes:

1. economists

“People are going to start getting very angry at economics because their whole profession is based on encouraging growth.”

2. directors of corporations:

“[C]orporations also need to promote growth and, of course, we love them–how can we know who we are unless we identify with a brand.”

3. the rich

“How can you be rich and be carbon-neutral?”

Ah, the very individuals who create the conditions, materials and investments necessary for prosperity. A winning formula to be sure!

Adbusters. What a piece of work. If you thought last week’s rant against Menial Matters was harsh, you have yet to hear my thoughts on the misanthropic, anti-consumerist luddites at Adbusters. Suffice it to say, they’re not positive.

But that diatribe will have to wait as I’m limiting this post to their unsuccessful lawsuit, which–in ten words or less–was an attempt to force TV networks to air their advertisements. From Adbuster’s 3/3 press release:

On Monday, February 18, Adbusters lost its court battle against two of Canada’s television networks that refused to sell airtime for its commercials. Adbusters claimed the CBC and Canwest Global had violated its right to free speech under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by refusing to sell air time, but the court decided that the Charter does not apply to private corporations.

The fact that Adbusters sued both a private and a public corporation makes the case not so cut and dry. For, it seems correct that there ought to be equal-access to entities that are government-funded–in this case the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). But in press releases and other articles, Adbusters has largely ignored this element, focusing instead on the fact that their free speech “does not apply to private corporations”. Which leaves me to believe that the private sphere is their real target and CBC was thrown in there for strategic purposes.

Coming from imcWINNIPEG:

For over 10 years Adbusters has been trying to pay major commercial broadcasters to air its ads, only to be routinely blocked by network executives, usually with no reason given. This amounts to censorship and suppression of free speech, says Lasn.

“Lasn” is Adbusters’ Editor-in-Chief Kalle Lasn. He believes–as the quote demonstrates–that people have a right to free speech on other people’s private property, that (to frame it more generously) people have a right to demand purchase of another person’s product–in this case, advertising airtime.

…an understanding of private property and ownership that, if you ask me, makes the concepts completely meaningless. For, what good is private property if I am unable to qualify what activities occur and what activities do not, if any outsider can at any time come in and use it? What value does ownership have if at any time you can force me to make a sale?

Not much.

Now I’m not all that familiar with the world of broadcast licensing but, if I’ve correctly interpreted the situation–and let me know if I haven’t–the philosophical and moral principles of self-ownership seem completely applicable.

And that is that you do not have a right to my production, even if you pay for it. Even if you pay market value, even if you pay 10x the market value–you do not have a right to purchase product x. Who cares that you have the means to do so? I always retain the right. I determine whether or not I want to sell my property to you. Trade is always contingent upon my consent.

I mean, using Adbusters’ logic, McDonald’s has a right to buy advertising within the pages of the magazine. And if you’ve ever seen anything Adbusters has put out, you know they’d first buy something on Buy Nothing Day than allow that.

In any case, I’ve been looking for a reason to link to this audio for some time now: a 911 call on behalf of an unsatisfied Burger King customer. It’s a hilarious situation that includes the same I-have-a-right-to-purchase-your-product mentality, demonstrating the ridiculousness of such a philosophy.

For those of you who didn’t know, I’m living in Houston now. Tonight will be two weeks. Woo-wee, Texas!

Anyhow, over the weekend, my roommate and I drove a couple hours to Austin to go to a few bars and check out the atmosphere of SXSW. I wasn’t really interested in any of the bands except Digitalism, a German-based act that I really like dancing to. But yo! At over $500, I wasn’t about to buy a festival pass for a mere two hours of enjoyment.

So we went to a (surprisingly) non-celebratory Irish pub and, following that, the club next door, Molotov Lounge. The artist playing there: Nullsleep. See below and notice the tee.

Not one to pass up a conversation with contentious political potential, I asked him about the tee-shirt and its associated message (I figured it was predictable environmental alarmism). He tells me, ‘kinda but more’. Not only did he think that the Earth was environmentally “dead” but culturally, socially, politically and philosophically as well. Yeah, the whole gamut. Whatever. Generally when your critique is that broad, it’s bordering on meaninglessness and not worth getting into.

So I move on and talk with other SXSW enthusiasts, where I learned that — because of the festival’s decentralized, multi-venue format — one can, in most instances, actually see a single show without paying the entire SXSW price-tag.

And that’s all it took. Current time: 12:15am. The time Digitalism took the stage: 12:30am.

I power-walk a mile to the venue in question, the roommate (& her acquired company) trailing at least 10 feet behind me. No diff. I have a goal in mind and altruistic social norms aren’t about to get in the way.

By the time I get there, it’s 12:25am and I have 5 minutes. Sweet. Moreover, I find out that the venue is, in fact, allowing “walk-ins” to trickle in at $20 a pop. Sweet! But argh! I need cash. Quickly. I look around and see an ATM about thirty feet away.

And then the whoa. As I’m working the ATM magic, I receive an unprecedented proposition, an offer that–up until that point–hadn’t ever entered my universe of discourse (…to borrow a term from logic class).

Yes, the highest ATM fee I’ve ever seen: $5.25.

Caught off guard, my immediate impulse was to hit “cancel” and search for more options. But the show, the line, the time! Hell, all things considered, I was pretty lucky–yes, lucky–in finding an ATM so close. So after quickly weighing my options, I decide that, yes, the fee is well worth the convenience because that very convenience consequently enables me to do what I really, really wanted to do that night: to see Digitalism in person and dance my ass off. So, exercising my volition, I choose to accept the $5.25 fee. I owned the decision.

However, as I’m sure you’re well-aware, this is an unpopular view, rarely shared by others. People like to prop up the “victimization” of capitalism and ignore the daily benefits it breathes into our lives. Pretty one-sided.

Yes, free-market opponents will go on and on, and point to situations like my own as evidence that the system is fundamentally exploitative, that it’s always out to get you at your expense. But notice that, as an individual who paid $5.25 for an ATM fee, the system didn’t hurt me. No, it helped me have an awesome night!

Are free-markets opportunistic? Definitely, but so what? It goes both ways. Without a profit-driven market, ATM convenience wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Are they exploitative? Gimme a break. The choice is always in the hands of the individual.

UPDATE: I think Liberty Girl’s gas-station comment (see below) was in some way prophetic. Coming from reason.com, check out I’m Not Going to Pay a lot for that Gasoline. Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter is making gas stations engaging in “excessive pricing” give refunds to customers.

Suppose you pull into a gas station and notice that the price for a gallon of regular unleaded seems awfully high—more than $4, compared to the $3.30 or so you’re used to paying. If you’re in a hurry, you might decide to pay the premium. If you have a couple minutes to spare, you might go to the station down the street where prices are lower. In Indiana, you would have a third option: Buy the gas and call the attorney general…