Sirs,
Tuesday's report by Vincent Y. Chao on the reaction of so called environmental groups to the EPA's proposed carbon trading system draws attention to the purported benefits of the system to speculative investors and its' likely ineffectiveness at reducing carbon emissions. Good job!
I also applaud Mr Chao's alternate emphasis on the views of one Herlin Hsieh to the effect that the government in Taipei must impose itself more heavily upon domestic industry for, although I hold such views in contempt, Mr Chao's reporting does help to turn the flashlight upon them. Now let me give you the batteries you need to switch it on:
The State - whether it be the one in Taipei, Beijing, Washington, London or Tokyo - is nothing but the monopoly on legal force. It acts upon a single premise: the power of violence. This is the starting point, and ultimate conclusion, for all State action - violence. People such as Herlin Hsieh, who advocate greater regulation and taxation of private property, are, most essentially, hyperventilating for the use of violence (in this case theft and blackmail) against the one institution - private property - which alone provides for the freedom of the individual human being. For the Taipei Times, a paper which is quite rightly opposed to any future annexation of Taiwan by the State in Beijing, to give air to such views as these is, to put it sweetly, ironic.
Perhaps the wise sages on your editorial board could reflect for a moment upon the words of a very odd man in the history of European philosophy:
"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Intransigently yours,
Michael Fagan
(Sent: Tuesday 8th December 2009. Unpublished by the Taipei Times)
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