Life, Liberty and Property

Update: Well, I’ve learned my lesson about believing things I read on blogs. This story is a fake. Sorry.

I’ve heard a lot of stories of outrage over ‘offensive’ art. I certainly agree that much of what we call art these days is done in bad taste. Now I fully support the right of people to make whatever statement they want to make in whatever LEGAL way they choose to make it.

However, I feel pretty justified in questioning the moral compass of individuals who choose to get pregnant by artificial insemination for the express purpose of aborting the baby as a form of performance art (via The Agitator). There are lots of ways to create art that makes a point, offends or shocks the viewer, this girl chose a way that trivializes a matter as serious as abortion. Keep reading →

• William Shughart writes about the dangers of having the Fed “stabilize” markets. (via Cafe Hayek)
• Russ Roberts on the bad precedent of Bear Stearns bailout.
• Dizzy Thinks that it is ironic when government owned banks act just like privately-held ones. (by not passing-on the lower base-rate to consumers)
• The Mises folk do a two-for-one and criticize both Ben Bernanke AND Milton Friedman! (Friedman, I should point out, was invited to join the Mont Pelerin Society by Austrian Super-Hero F.A. Hayek).

Apparently the State of Oregon is trying to force a number of freely-available legal resources to stop publishing their statutes. Why? Well, apparently those statutes are copyrighted.

They have of course, posted the statutes freely on the state’s website, and they haven’t sued the FOR-PROFIT corporations that publish their statutes online. The state’s website does, however, have a number of accessibility and standards-compliance issues. That may make it difficult for some to access these laws freely.

Nonetheless, wouldn’t a statute by necessity, have to be in the public domain? How can people be asked to follow laws that are not freely available for them?

What is the government’s purpose in claiming a copyright here? The purpose of intellectual property protections is to encourage innovation. A statute’s “innovation” is certainly encouraged plentifully by public outcry and yearly elections.

I think Oregon is simply trying to scrape up a few cents that it isn’t due. Par for the course in government these days.

Selling kidneys is a popular topic of debate among the libertarian crowd. Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution recently noted that in Iran, not only is selling your kidneys legal, but they have eliminated any waiting lists for those transplants. Without getting into that debate at the moment, it seems from the evidence, that this market-transplant system saves lives by increasing the number of available (living-donor) organs for transplant.

So why can’t the market do other things for us? Keep reading →