Thursday, May 31, 2007
The latest sin tax
Horrendous gas prices annoy us all. Of course, liberals complain about them more - they complain about everything more - and blame them on everyone in the world who drives a car any larger than a cantaloupe. The irony of it all is that liberals are the ones who have made gas prices as high as they are.
I didn't realize just how bad it was, but there I was in Ucluelet, British Columbia a few weeks ago, paying the equivalent of $5.10 US a gallon for gas, and I happened to notice a sticker on the pump entitled "components of gasoline prices in Canada". And the numbers were...
Crude costs: 48%
Tax: 34%
Refining costs, transport costs, marketing costs, and profit: 18%
In other words, the government makes almost twice as much profit on every liter of gasoline sold in Canada as the extraction, refining, distribution, and point-of-sale companies combined. The incredible thing is that the only G8 country with lower fuel taxes than Canada is the US (where taxes amount to an average 18% of gas prices).
I had a professor a few semesters ago who advocated putting a 100% tax on all gasoline in order to "promote conservation". I argued that it wasn't the government's place to legislate morality or direct citizens' purchasing decisions, or to economically cripple every commuter in the country for that matter. The debate fizzled at that point, as I find debates with liberals often do when I make a good point.
The real issue is that fuel tax is becoming a sin tax. Like alcohol and tobacco, gasoline is now thought of as something morally dubious that people need to be punished for buying. And, as an added bonus for the government, they pull in enormous amounts of money for no work. Most companies can only dream of a profit margin of 34% (the average American corporation has a profit margin of a little over 8%) - and that's when they're actually making an effort for that money.
It's a pretty fun setup, actually. They tax us to death on gas so they can pay for ministers to fly first-class and stay in five-star hotels when they head off to Japan to sign the next eco-alarmist manifesto. Vicious circles are always interesting.
I didn't realize just how bad it was, but there I was in Ucluelet, British Columbia a few weeks ago, paying the equivalent of $5.10 US a gallon for gas, and I happened to notice a sticker on the pump entitled "components of gasoline prices in Canada". And the numbers were...
Crude costs: 48%
Tax: 34%
Refining costs, transport costs, marketing costs, and profit: 18%
In other words, the government makes almost twice as much profit on every liter of gasoline sold in Canada as the extraction, refining, distribution, and point-of-sale companies combined. The incredible thing is that the only G8 country with lower fuel taxes than Canada is the US (where taxes amount to an average 18% of gas prices).
I had a professor a few semesters ago who advocated putting a 100% tax on all gasoline in order to "promote conservation". I argued that it wasn't the government's place to legislate morality or direct citizens' purchasing decisions, or to economically cripple every commuter in the country for that matter. The debate fizzled at that point, as I find debates with liberals often do when I make a good point.
The real issue is that fuel tax is becoming a sin tax. Like alcohol and tobacco, gasoline is now thought of as something morally dubious that people need to be punished for buying. And, as an added bonus for the government, they pull in enormous amounts of money for no work. Most companies can only dream of a profit margin of 34% (the average American corporation has a profit margin of a little over 8%) - and that's when they're actually making an effort for that money.
It's a pretty fun setup, actually. They tax us to death on gas so they can pay for ministers to fly first-class and stay in five-star hotels when they head off to Japan to sign the next eco-alarmist manifesto. Vicious circles are always interesting.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
You'll want to kill me for saying this, but...
...I hate Memorial Day. And Veterans' Day, and Remembrance Day. The whole lot of them. For two very simple reasons: first, we shouldn't need a special day to remember our heroes, and the fact that we think we do is a sad commentary on how often we take time to think about such important things. It's an embarrassing revelation of human nature, really, and I wish it weren't such an accurate one.
Second, and more importantly, these days which were supposed to be reserved to celebrate the people who have preserved our freedom are little more than a day off work or school to most people these days. Memorial Day weekend is called a "holiday weekend", just like any other three-day break from our responsibilities, and the extra day is used to go shopping (at Memorial Day sales), vacationing, fishing, or somesuch. And the rare sort of person who looks for a ceremony of some sort to attend can't even find one. Our war dead are remembered with extra streamers at car lots, with gigantic salmon, or with hot dogs and a ghost story. I suppose you could say people are celebrating by taking extra enjoyment in the freedom our heroes fought and died for, but I doubt that's really the case. As Freud might have said, sometimes a hot dog is just a hot dog.
If our society isn't going to emphasize Memorial Day any more than Arbor Day, why have it at all? Because we need a long weekend to get us through the long stretch between Easter and the Fourth of July?
There's good news, at least. You can probably get a flag half-price.
Second, and more importantly, these days which were supposed to be reserved to celebrate the people who have preserved our freedom are little more than a day off work or school to most people these days. Memorial Day weekend is called a "holiday weekend", just like any other three-day break from our responsibilities, and the extra day is used to go shopping (at Memorial Day sales), vacationing, fishing, or somesuch. And the rare sort of person who looks for a ceremony of some sort to attend can't even find one. Our war dead are remembered with extra streamers at car lots, with gigantic salmon, or with hot dogs and a ghost story. I suppose you could say people are celebrating by taking extra enjoyment in the freedom our heroes fought and died for, but I doubt that's really the case. As Freud might have said, sometimes a hot dog is just a hot dog.
If our society isn't going to emphasize Memorial Day any more than Arbor Day, why have it at all? Because we need a long weekend to get us through the long stretch between Easter and the Fourth of July?
There's good news, at least. You can probably get a flag half-price.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I love reading things like this
The latest list of the nation's top public high schools is out, and just like last year, the northeast, generally thought of as America's wonderland of intellectualism and education, was almost totally unrepresented in the top fifteen. The top two are in Texas, and ten more of the top fifteen are in Texas, the South, and the Southwest. And most of those have rather large numbers of students on free lunch programs. Read that again: some of the best schools in the United States are in poor areas in conservative states.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
One small step for a circuit board
It would appear that to many Americans, space is a waste of time.
I've just been reading up on NASA's plan to have a permanent lunar base up and running in 2020. Then I started reading a few opinion pieces on the subject (such as those found here, here, and here), and was struck anew by just how pig-headed and gutless people can be.
"Science can be done for far less money by robotic missions", argues one person - apparently, humanity isn't cost-effective. The Borg generally feel the same way.
"Robots are better," says the Los Angeles Times; "just look at their success on Mars." One hopes they're joking.
With the space shuttle program's end in sight, a third commentator recommends that we use space telescopes to study the Sun and the solar system from the safety of solid (Earthly) ground, and leave the flying to the robots because it's safer.
Whoever said that humans were natural-born explorers was a romantic idiot. The truth is that one in a thousand people will leave the confines of their comfortable existences when there's money involved. Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Simon Fraser, Hernando Cortes, Lewis & Clark...they were explorers, yes. Most of them also went where they went because they thought they could make a buck. And a lot of others stayed behind because even making a buck wasn't enough to get them to go somewhere new. So is it any surprise that most people today couldn't care less about going to the Moon? That they'd rather have robots go instead, because it's easier?
Almost forty years ago, Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to enter lunar orbit. Today, NASA's dwindling and aging shuttle fleet is facing the prospect of decommission with no replacement until 2014, and nobody seems to care. What happened to the spirit of people like Neil Armstrong and Edmund Hillary? True explorers who went where they went because - to update the terminology - it was cool?
If humanity is so useless, why not replace us all with robots and have done with it?
I've just been reading up on NASA's plan to have a permanent lunar base up and running in 2020. Then I started reading a few opinion pieces on the subject (such as those found here, here, and here), and was struck anew by just how pig-headed and gutless people can be.
"Science can be done for far less money by robotic missions", argues one person - apparently, humanity isn't cost-effective. The Borg generally feel the same way.
"Robots are better," says the Los Angeles Times; "just look at their success on Mars." One hopes they're joking.
With the space shuttle program's end in sight, a third commentator recommends that we use space telescopes to study the Sun and the solar system from the safety of solid (Earthly) ground, and leave the flying to the robots because it's safer.
Whoever said that humans were natural-born explorers was a romantic idiot. The truth is that one in a thousand people will leave the confines of their comfortable existences when there's money involved. Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Simon Fraser, Hernando Cortes, Lewis & Clark...they were explorers, yes. Most of them also went where they went because they thought they could make a buck. And a lot of others stayed behind because even making a buck wasn't enough to get them to go somewhere new. So is it any surprise that most people today couldn't care less about going to the Moon? That they'd rather have robots go instead, because it's easier?
Almost forty years ago, Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to enter lunar orbit. Today, NASA's dwindling and aging shuttle fleet is facing the prospect of decommission with no replacement until 2014, and nobody seems to care. What happened to the spirit of people like Neil Armstrong and Edmund Hillary? True explorers who went where they went because - to update the terminology - it was cool?
If humanity is so useless, why not replace us all with robots and have done with it?
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Libertarian Linguist: "Sexist language"
Between finals and a roadtrip, it's been a while since I've written anything. Today's is going to be my first post of the summer, and a topic seems to have fallen right into my lap. You see, the friends I went on that roadtrip with last week - we'll call them A and C here - are both from Ontario, where it has somehow become "incorrect" to say the word "waitress". Apparently the term now is "server". The amazing thing is that A is a very intellectual person who thinks critically about almost everything, and doesn't simply accept political correctness when she stops to consider it; yet even she, in casual conversation, avoids sex-differentiated terms, it appears, as a matter of instinct. I've even heard both of these particular friends refer to male massage therapists as "masseuses" rather than masseurs, and I don't think I'd care to be around if anyone referred to "stewardesses" in front of C, who is normally very apolitical but unfortunately swallows everything the CBC says hook, line, and sinker (yes, this is my very best friend!).
What political-correctness junkies do not seem to understand is that there is a difference between differentiation and discrimination. "Waiter" and "waitress" are not words which either connotatively or denotatively carry value markers. Neither are "actor" and "actress". There are only two pieces of denotative information they carry: the subject's occupation and the subject's gender. In speakers' or listeners' minds, they may also imply wage levels, appearance, age, or any other myriad assumptions created from years of encountering various actors, actresses, waiters, and waitresses. But there are very few people I know of who would value an actor over an actress or a waiter over a waitress, or vice versa.
Think of words which are differentiated by something other than gender. I can tell the difference between a "couch" and a "futon", or between a "truck" and an "SUV", without valuing one over the other. As yet, nobody has seen the need to require that we all simply say "furniture" and "vehicle". Why replace "waiter" and "waitress" with the generic "server"?
"Server" carries only one piece of information: occupation. Use of words like this has many drawbacks. First off, if you say "server", how am I to know what pronoun to use? It requires me to ask what the gender of the person was - or to make an assumption and thereby make myself a target for accusations of sexism - and extend the conversation unnecessarily. This is a symptom of the larger issue: replacement of sex-differentiated words with unisex ones undermines the very purpose of language, which is to communicate information. Efficient communication requires that we make use of words which can transmit more than one piece of information at a time. For example, "building" is a general word; "tower" is a more efficient way of saying "tall, slender building"; and "skyscraper" is a more efficient way of saying "modern, very tall tower". When left to its own devices, a language will employ a sort of "natural selection" which establishes both general and specific words. Political correctness, however, now demands that we avoid words which are specific to gender. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. But for my part, I refuse to say "server" unless I am referring to a computer, or I find myself in a situation where I do not know the gender of the person I'm talking about (for example, "that restaurant is hiring servers" rather than "hiring waiters and/or waitresses").
Switching gears slightly, I am also intrigued by the feminist objection to the term "guys" being used as a gender-neutral plural. "You guys" is considered offensive; we are now to address crowds as "you folks", "you people", or something similar. Let's take a moment to consider the irony, shall we? The same people who are trying to make us replace "actresses" with "actors" – therefore insisting that we use the male noun to refer to women – are against the use of "guys" in its recently-established unisex role. Once again: you can refer to women with a male-gendered word only when the Women's Action Network says it's okay.
All this is not to say that there is not sexist language in the world, however. It's just not where the feminists insist on seeing it. I'd like to point out a few instances of sexist language in English:
"fathering" vs "mothering": "Mothering" refers to parenting and/or nurturing; "fathering" refers to making a baby.
"Mother Earth": Again, suggests that nurturing and/or the giving of life is a predominantly female trait. "Father time" used to be a phrase as well, but has fallen out of common use.
"mother tongue": Even the United Nations' declaration of the rights of children requires that education must be offered "in the language of the mother". Fathers are again thought of as unimportant.
sex-differentiated insults/swears: "Bitch" and "slut" are considered far more impolite than "jerk" and "bastard". "Whore" is a derogatory term, where "man-whore" is thought of as almost humorous in most cases, and "gigolo" is fairly neutral. It appears our society cares more about women's feelings than men's.
"gunman": Tell me, when will feminists begin to demand that this be replaced with "gunperson"? Interesting that they've skipped words like this in the crusade which gave us terms like "mail carrier" and "chairperson".
"hunk" vs "chick": Objectification is apparently just fine if it's done to men.
"mistress": The lack of a male equivalent maintains the common illusion that only men are unfaithful.
Do I contend that all of these facets of English are created and established by some Vast Feminist Conspiracy? Of course not. But the people who claim to be crusading against sexism certainly aren't paying them any mind. Makes you think.
What political-correctness junkies do not seem to understand is that there is a difference between differentiation and discrimination. "Waiter" and "waitress" are not words which either connotatively or denotatively carry value markers. Neither are "actor" and "actress". There are only two pieces of denotative information they carry: the subject's occupation and the subject's gender. In speakers' or listeners' minds, they may also imply wage levels, appearance, age, or any other myriad assumptions created from years of encountering various actors, actresses, waiters, and waitresses. But there are very few people I know of who would value an actor over an actress or a waiter over a waitress, or vice versa.
Think of words which are differentiated by something other than gender. I can tell the difference between a "couch" and a "futon", or between a "truck" and an "SUV", without valuing one over the other. As yet, nobody has seen the need to require that we all simply say "furniture" and "vehicle". Why replace "waiter" and "waitress" with the generic "server"?
"Server" carries only one piece of information: occupation. Use of words like this has many drawbacks. First off, if you say "server", how am I to know what pronoun to use? It requires me to ask what the gender of the person was - or to make an assumption and thereby make myself a target for accusations of sexism - and extend the conversation unnecessarily. This is a symptom of the larger issue: replacement of sex-differentiated words with unisex ones undermines the very purpose of language, which is to communicate information. Efficient communication requires that we make use of words which can transmit more than one piece of information at a time. For example, "building" is a general word; "tower" is a more efficient way of saying "tall, slender building"; and "skyscraper" is a more efficient way of saying "modern, very tall tower". When left to its own devices, a language will employ a sort of "natural selection" which establishes both general and specific words. Political correctness, however, now demands that we avoid words which are specific to gender. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. But for my part, I refuse to say "server" unless I am referring to a computer, or I find myself in a situation where I do not know the gender of the person I'm talking about (for example, "that restaurant is hiring servers" rather than "hiring waiters and/or waitresses").
Switching gears slightly, I am also intrigued by the feminist objection to the term "guys" being used as a gender-neutral plural. "You guys" is considered offensive; we are now to address crowds as "you folks", "you people", or something similar. Let's take a moment to consider the irony, shall we? The same people who are trying to make us replace "actresses" with "actors" – therefore insisting that we use the male noun to refer to women – are against the use of "guys" in its recently-established unisex role. Once again: you can refer to women with a male-gendered word only when the Women's Action Network says it's okay.
All this is not to say that there is not sexist language in the world, however. It's just not where the feminists insist on seeing it. I'd like to point out a few instances of sexist language in English:
Do I contend that all of these facets of English are created and established by some Vast Feminist Conspiracy? Of course not. But the people who claim to be crusading against sexism certainly aren't paying them any mind. Makes you think.
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