liberty
Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
July 5, 2010 - 01:31 — bhugaPretty interesting.
This one wasn't what I expected. I figured it was going to be something along the lines of a criminalization of everything tome, where the author laments the ridiculous growth of zoning rules and driveway corner angle restrictions. Not at all the case.
It's written by a defense lawyer who has defended a number of white-collar clients. They include politicians, businessmen, accountants, lobbyists, and spies. Some of the cases are an interesting read.
Some of the cases in the book are pretty clear-cut, with no real issues to speak of--its just bullshit that these people got convicted. Coerced testimony (i.e. 'cooperation') and district attorneys that eventually become governors are a common reoccurrence. On the whole, he makes some good points. In particular, those points are that DAs are twisting existing laws to get people arrested for things that are not explicitly prohibited, and thus it's impossible to know what's illegal. In particular, 'wire fraud' and the 'denial of honest services' seem to include just about any conceivable act done by anyone with a certain amount of authority. People even get indicted for shredding documents with no summons issued. It's pretty nuts.
I agree with the book on the whole; it has an aura of 'defending the undefendable', such as sleazy politicians and fantastically wealthy accountants at big firms. He does a good job of pointing out that some politicians get re-elected after being convicted by the feds--does the federal government have business arresting politicians that seem to be doing things acceptable in their communities?
That being said, there's a hint of objectivism in the book that I dislike. I'll grant that I agree that substantially all of the examples in the book represent cases where no reasonable person could have known what they were doing is illegal. But I also feel that no ethical system can be completely objective--our minds are not wired for it. If it's 100% objective, there will be loopholes for what is strictly speaking legal but morally speaking, for most people, okay, and vice versa. But I concede that I could only draw the line of what's subjective or not in a far worse place than a lot of people.
Thus recommended with mild reservations. I do appreciate that it was written--it's a point of view one does not hear much of these days.
Mobs, Messians and Markets
April 14, 2010 - 16:14 — bhugaOne of the reasons I started writing book reviews was so that I could take the time to coherently write a few paragraphs of summary on a book. It changes how you read--it's a more critical eye, because when you find things you disagree with you want to note them so that you can reference them later while writing. Some books require a very critical eye, others, whatever.
And some books have me realizing that the review is going to be wildly negative within the first 40 pages. I didn't really expect this to happen, but it's made me start a habit of putting down bad books. I don't read enough as it is, and I don't want to waste that time on garbage. Reading with an eye for a basic review, even if nobody reads these things, has given me the ability to see, clearly, when a book is not worth it. I have decided I will start to write reviews of the ones I stop, because I think now that it's just as important to write down these thoughts as the ones I have when I finish a book.
So Mobs, Messiahs and Markets is one of the books I will not finish. It made the rounds on the blogs a while ago, and during a recent internet outage I picked it up from the basement. It does not appear to have anything to say.
It reminds me in a big way of Kunstler's The Long Emergency. Namely, the author states a point he wants to make, then writes 20 pages of self-righteous, anecdotal crap, rarely tying it to the core issue. He rambles on, blaming society's failures on the usual things that one could roughly associate with traditional American conservatism, rarely offering solutions, hard data, or more importantly, a framework for abstracting these complaints into part of a coherent point. It just comes off like a really long-winded old man complaining about the kids on his lawn.
The table of contents betrays this lack of substance. There's no progression of ideas, no buildup to a point, just several 'topics' with barely-witty names, like 'Empire of Delusion' and 'Love in the time of Viagra' (which is the second chapter, and appears to be the usual conservative rant about how much it sucks that girls wont do what they say anymore). In part 6, 'Far From the Madding (sic) Mob', he offers a chapter named 'How not to be chumped by Wall Street'. Perhaps this chapter contains actual, practical information, but I will never see it.
It's unfortunate. In trying to figure out what the hell it is that Mr Bonner and Ms Rajiva are trying to say, I think I might often agree with them. But near as I can tell, this book is just fear mongering, the sky is falling, the world is changing. Maybe a political and/or financial collapse is forthcoming, but this book is no way to discuss it.
Save your time, non-existent reader. A number of economics blogs provide significantly more insightful examinations than this book.
Emergency!
January 13, 2010 - 16:10 — bhugaQuite good!
Neil Strauss has the dream lifestyle. He writes books about learning stuff, then uses the income to pay for a bunch of courses to learn about. Just live a life interesting enough that it's worth writing a book about, then write a book. I love it.
Anyway, this one is about his transformation from the girl-chasing smooth talker in The Game to a gun-toting survivalist. He becomes an EMT, learns to shoot, gets a second passport, kills a goat, and buries food in the mountains. It's quite an interesting read, since I'm sort of living the same transformation, but without the time to go learn all of this awesome stuff. I want to learn to clear a house with a .45!
It makes for a fun read, and the chapters are short. I didn't learn much about paranoia or philosophy, save for the term Fliesian, which I kind of like. It's basically the assumption that governments can't protect people, and that when governments fail people will be ruthless. It's a way of coming to lots of the same ideas the 'liberty' crowd does, but from a utilitarian perspective. I had started to worry they were incompatible groups.
Anyways, recommended.
