Michael Cloud decades ago said, profoundly, “In the jungle, the rule is kill or be killed. In politics, either define or be defined. Because words are weapons; words are tools.” (From the Essence of Political Persuasion CD series.)

If you want to control the direction of a debate, find a way to control the language of the debate.

I want to talk, though, not about the linguistic tricks used in the healthcare debate, but about the term “healthcare reform” itself. The healthcare issue is exceedingly complex, and relatively little good research has been done to understand it, much less to be able to analyze possible futures. Most of what people claim to know about healthcare is just myth and conjecture. And even within the myths, there are a number of possible courses of action. But none of this stops them from leaping on the pro- or anti-reform bandwagon.

And as a libertarian, I find this deeply troubling.

There are actually four separate questions to global warming: 1. Are world temperatures rising? 2. Are humans causing it? 3. Can we do anything to stop it? 4. Should we do anything to stop it?

First, you have to get past #1, which you can, because we have indeed measured a gradual increase in temperature over the past 100 years or so. This is not a steady rise, year after year. It is a long-term trend, like the stock market, 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

What caught my eye about Long’s article was his claim that in a genuinely free market, businesses would be significantly smaller than they are today. He points out that large, hierarchical businesses are subject to many of the same inefficiencies that plague government bureaucracies. The executives of the largest corporations cannot possibly have enough knowledge to make good decisions about the thousands of different projects various parts of their companies are undertaking, and so it’s inevitable that large companies will suffer from inefficiencies greater than those that afflict smaller firms.

For example… the Internet’s success depends on the fact that it isn’t owned or managed by any single entity. Back in the 1990s, when the Internet was competing with proprietary online services like AOL and Compuserve, the Internet’s lack of centralized control turned out to be its most important strength. The hierarchical decision-making processes of the AOL and Compuserve companies simply couldn’t keep up with the spontaneous order of millions of Internet users acting without central direction.

As I tell my kids, don’t believe a single thing a politician says during the campaign, because–unlike the way things work out here in the real world–you can’t sue a politician for not making good on his promises.

David Boaz, at the Cato Institute’s blog, makes a short list of executive orders Obama could rescind, in order to show that he was actually sincere, and not just pulling BS out of his butt.

Some interesting, angering, and inspiring tidbits I ran across this weekend:

Do you think that Sunni and Shi’a fight, have fought since forever, can do nothing except fight? Think again! Guest blogger at Informed Comment, Sumbul Ali-Karamali, author of The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and That Veil Thing, posts an eye-opening article: Sunni and Shi’a have not historically fought; in fact, they have more respect for each other than some Christians and Jews.

Video! I’m a huge fan of Penn and Teller. Half-ashamedly love their show Penn and Teller: Bullshit!, especially the political episodes. (Even the one on Mount Rushmore.) Penn Jillette posted a “Penn Says” video talking about Bob Barr and Wayne Root, and why he probably would not be formally supporting them, and someone called him on his cell phone right in the middle of filming. And if that doesn’t convince you to watch, he also has no shirt on.