lew rockwell gets it wrong twice in one day
lew rockwell apologizes when linking to a cooking page where the author(s) used "grams and other rotten French Revolutionary government measures, instead of the natural ounces, etc."this is simply a different flavor of randiot-style cultism, with a side of LvMI smoking-jacket dicta hurling. "natural ounces"? the usual LRC "this BBQ sauce rules all" disease at work. ounces are no more natural than official crime gangs; "natural" is not always good. the metric system, whatever its artificial origins, is generally superior to the traditional weights and measures of the US. i'll take nautical miles over kilometers, but that's about it. convert away — permanently, sensibly, and voluntarily.
no idea where lew gets such cockamamie "mozart was a red" declaratory fits, unless...
no, it couldn't be.
anyway, in his second overcompensating screwup of the day, he pronounces laborers "workers" and employers "benefactors". make up your mind, lew; either both sides of that transaction are benefactors, or none. falsely canonizing business owners contradicts the reality of mutual wealth creation through exchange (a concept i was likely first exposed to via LRC or LvMI); more "business can do no wrong" bullshit from the LRC loudmouthed nitwitted pithy pronouncement machine. randiots, look to LRC!
dangerous thing, this couching of employers as benefactors. in an argument, accusatory socialists may sometimes be stopped in their "intellectual" tracks by turning tables and accusing them of "greed" for wanting to pay the least amount of labor for an employer's wealth; helps them to see that it's mutual, voluntary exchange, not an inherently unbalanced relationship. worse, treating employers as benefactors plays into the "altruism" baloney of the coercionists. if employers are already being altruistic, knocking them on the head for more is simply a matter of degree, not principle.
Labels: derailleur
posted by saltypig @ 21:15
Doesn't the commonality of the British System (otherwise known as Imperial measure) have origins in both the Roman and British empires? That is, two of the most violent, aggressive states in the history of mankind? Let that be said against it; it was only ever adopted because there was no choice.
A similar contention against the origins of so-called metric, which ought to be called Napoleonic, to call it metric (literally, that which measures) is pure political propaganda. The very naming as such is an attempt to elevate a system no less arbitrary than any other above all the others, as somehow being more "real" than other systems. For all my quibbles though, it is, by and large, a better system. I haven't used it since high school, but as I recall it was much easier to work with once one was familiar with it than the English/Imperial system.
mmm... dunno about the claim of pure political propaganda. not familiar enough with how that term made it into US english, but i see the potential for it to have been benign, arising from the focus on the "meter". not saying you're not right, but that it's known as "metric system" doesn't, in my opinion, carry all the evidence required for such a charge.
repairing cars turned me quickly into a proponent of decimal-based measures, whatever the name or system. apart from selecting tool sizes, when i measure things, i always prefer decimal centimeters over easily confused inch fractions. obviously, "natural" evolution in measuring systems hasn't been an ideal method. doesn't have to be coercive types who put on the brakes and say, "this is goddamned stupid."
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