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Private Notes
Drew Carey finds the poor guy with the most congested commute in Los Angeles, and frees him from the gridlock grind with a helicopter ride to and from work. Along the way Drew mulls more practical congestion-busters--would you ride the Drew Carey Freeway?--that could rescue the rest of us from road rage.
When it comes to medical marijuana, voters in 12 states agree with Drew Carey that "People who need it should be able to get it--safely and easily." The feds, however, disagree. More than 10 years after California legalized medical marijuana, the DEA routinely raids medical marijuana dispensaries, depriving people of medicine that can help treat the effects of cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses.
Drew Carey goes to National City, California where he encounters a uniquely perverse example of eminent domain abuse. Instead of using eminent domain to acquire property to build a school or a hospital, National City wants to replace a boxing club for at-risk kids with luxury condominiums.
Poker is about as American as apple pie, and Drew Carey figures that playing poker at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post would be "about as American as anything you can do." So why would Dallas unleash a paramilitary-style raid on VFW Post 1837 and threaten low-stakes card players with fines and jail time?
Drew Carey tells the tale of a Hollywood bar owner whose business gets bulldozed when politicians plan to "redevelop" the area by letting a private developer erect a giant hotel complex in its place. Eminent domain is perfectly legal, but is it necessary? Down the road, Anaheim is redeveloping without resorting to bully tactics.
In the Arizona desert, Drew Carey discovers a modern-day "Footloose" story. A few years ago, Dale and Spencer Bell built a family oriented steak house with outdoor seating, fire pits, lots of old western style, and live music. But beware if you get the urge to scoot your boots--county officials have invoked an anachronistic ordinance that bans dancing outside.
On Monday, January 28, reason.tv host Drew Carey sat down with PBS's Tavis Smiley for a wide-ranging conversation about videojournalism, The Price Is Right, medical marijuana, Barack Obama, and much, much more.
To hear the Lou Dobbses and Bill O'Reillys of the world--not to mention politicians ranging from Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton--the middle class of America (however you define that term) has never had it so tough. Between credit squeezes, out-of-control immigration, rising costs of education and health care and everything else, it's all darkness out there for those of us who are neither millionaires nor welfare cases, right?
When we go to the doctor's office for a checkup, most of us get annoyed if we have to thumb through old waiting-room magazines for a half-hour. Yet many people wait much longer for something much more important. Sally Satel, a researcher at The American Enterprise Institute, waited for new life in the form of a kidney transplant, until an unexpected someone stepped forward. Since giving Sally her right kidney, Virginia Postrel, former editor of Reason, has thought a lot about how to increase the supply of kidneys for people like Christina Deleon. Like 75,000 other Americans, Christina has no living donor and has no choice but to endure dialysis and wait-she's been on the list since 2003. Postrel and UCLA's Dr. Gabriel Danovitch take on some common misconceptions about kidney donation, but they disagree sharply on the most controversial proposal-paying people to donate kidneys. Each year more than 3,000 Americans-a figure comparable to the death tolls from the 9/11 attacks-die waiting for kidneys. Is it time to legalize the sale of kidneys?
As soccer superstar David Beckham kicks off the Los Angeles Galaxy's 2008 season, Drew Carey asks what this says about immigration in the U.S. in a new reason.tv video. While workers from Mexico draw the ire and fiery rhetoric of anti-immigration forces, there was no outrage or concern when the English-speaking soccer hero brought his family and curling free kicks to America. "I think we should welcome all peaceful people to our country," says Drew Carey. "They get to the pursue the 'American Dream' and we get to benefit from all the wonderful things that immigrants bring to our country-like good old fashioned soccer. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me."
Amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, there exists another world, an underground world of illicit trade in - not drugs or sex - but bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Street vendors like Elizabeth Palacios must choose between satisfying customers' desire for bacon or government regulators who call the salty pleasure "a potentially hazardous food." Palacios knows the regulations have teeth - she spent 45 days in jail for selling black market bacon dogs.
When Drew Carey and reason.tv last checked in on San Tan Flat, a family-oriented restaurant in Pinal County, Arizona the father-and-son owners Dale and Spencer Bell were fighting against a ridiculous, anachronistic, and anti-business ban on outdoor dancing. Check that video out here. What a difference a video-and ongoing litigation courtesy of the libertarian public-interest law firm the Institute for Justice-makes! As The Arizona Republic reports: Pinal County Superior Court Judge William O'Neil overturned a decision from the county Board of Supervisors that said the country-Western-themed restaurant was operating an illegal dance hall by allowing patrons to dance to live music on its back patio. The judge's ruling brings closure to the conflict between the county and restaurant owner Dale Bell, who have been at odds for more than two years after San Tan Flat neighbors complained about noise coming from the property. The saga of San Tan Flat drew national attention, prompting commentary from actor Drew Carey and conservative Washington Post columnist George Will. The case also received several comparisons to the 1984 Kevin Bacon film Footloose, in which a small town bans rock music and dancing.
At a time when pundits and politicians of all stripes endorse securing the border between the United States and Mexico, reason.tv travels south to see what's really going on-and what the human and monetary costs are of amping up border patrols. Building a wall along the border with Mexico is a great idea-if America wants to be like China and the former East Germany. In the 13th episode of reason.tv's acclaimed and controversial Drew Carey Project, our host suggests there are better ways to ensure American security while also promoting free trade with our neighbor to the South. "One way out of this mess would be to simply allow peaceful workers to enter our country through legal ports of entry," says Carey. "If we did that we could stimulate our economy, bring a huge underground labor market out into the open and we could put unscrupulous smugglers out of business. More importantly, we'd free up border patrol resources that could be used to fight criminals and terrorism."
Campaign season is just getting warmed up, but looking back on the primaries we've already seen plenty of the usual fare: candidates shaking hands, hanging out at diners, and scaring voters about foreigners who are taking your jobs. Sometimes the threat comes from China, Japan, or outsourcing to India. Today, it's NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement-you know, all those Mexicans taking our jobs. Senator Barack Obama joins the likes of CNN's Lou Dobbs in decrying NAFTA. So many free trade foes fret about cheap foreign labor, yet they rarely holler about competitors who will work for far less than any foreigner. Politicians don't pay much attention to it, but-from Terminator to Ice Pirates-Hollywood films have been warning us about humanity's inevitable war against the machines. "Now, think about it," says Reason.tv host Drew Carey. "How are we supposed to compete against something that doesn't get paid, doesn't get health insurance, and never goes on breaks?" Today, we don't need human workers to book our travel, do our banking, or file our taxes. From factory workers to symphony conductors, countless workers are locked in battle with soulless job stealers known as computers, websites, and robots. "No job is safe from the robot threat!" warns Carey. Of course, the warning is more than a little tongue-in-cheek. There's no need to take a sledgehammer to a robot, because, although technology shakes up the labor market, it ends up giving us higher living standards as well as more and better job opportunities. Like technology, trade gives us more good stuff than bad-yet Americans are likely to cheer technology and fear trade. No doubt TV talkers and White House wannabes will keep stoking our fears of foreigners until voters and viewers stop buying it-or until robots snag their jobs, too.
Whether you love it, hate it, or have never thought about it, chances are some politician wants to ban it. "Welcome to the Nanny State Nation," says reason.tv host Drew Carey. "Where the government minds your own business." Saggy pants, fire places, plastic bags, light bulbs, poker-it's all been banned somewhere. Same with owning swine or fowl, feeding pigeons, owning pit bulls, and chomping on trans fats, a naughty little substance that makes food taste better. Of course, smoking's been banned in all sorts of places-indoors, outdoors, near doors, beaches, casinos, even private homes. America's smoking ban craze began in California. So many bans start there. "But is New York City the new California?" asks Carey? Smoking, trans fat, aluminum baseball bats, straddling a bike, wearing in-line skates or drinking coffee on a subway-the Big Apple bans them all. Even if we don't particularly like something we should be wary of banning it because every ban is backed up by the force of law. Plus, would you want to live in a nation that bans everything that offends someone? Carey wonders when so many of us turned into "ban-happy busybodies," and compliments the British on their more civilized approach to bans.
Drew Carey takes us on a guided tour of Second Life (SL), a virtual world with more than 500,000 residents. But SL isn't your typical virtual world. Unlike other popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games, like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, there are no defined roles or objectives in SL. Just like in real life, SL residents determine their own goals and decide for themselves how best to achieve them. Moreover, virtually everything in SL was created by the residents themselves using tools provided by Linden Lab, the company that launched SL in 2003. SL is based on a simple set of institutional arrangements that would make F.A. Hayek proud. In essence, the people who own the property in SL make the rules. The result is a spontaneously ordered world in which residents are free to fly, teleport, build, trade and interact with others without interference from the state. Recently, Linden Lab-the SL equivalent of a state-has begun acting more and more like a real life government by restricting activities such as gambling. But open source competitors based on the SL platform are currently in development. so better virtual worlds offering even more freedom are just around the corner.
"The government is bailing out the banks...but who's going to bail out the government?" asks Texas cotton farmer Ken Gallaway, a vocal critic of agricultural subsidies that cost U.S. taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars a year in direct payments and higher prices for farm goods. Agricultural subsidies were put in place in the 1930s during the Great Depression, when 25 percent of Americans lived on farms. At the time, Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace called them "a temporary solution to deal with an emergency." Those programs are still in place today, even though less than 1 percent of Americans currently live on farms that are larger, more efficient, and more productive than ever before. Consider these facts. Ninety percent of all subsidies go to just five crops: corn, rice, cotton, wheat, and soybeans. Two thirds of all farm products-including perishable fruits and vegetables-receive almost no subsidies. And just 10 percent of recipients receive 75 percent of all subsidies. A program intended to be a "temporary solution" has become one of our government's most glaring examples of corporate welfare. U.S. taxpayers aren't the only ones who pay the price. Cotton subsidies, for example, encourage overproduction which lowers the world price of cotton. That's great for people who buy cotton, but it's disastrous for already impoverished cotton farmers in places such as West Africa. U.S. farm programs cost taxpayers billions each year, significantly raise the price of commodities such as sugar (which is protected from competition from other producers in other countries), undermine world trade agreements, and contribute to the suffering of poor farmers around the world. It's bad public policy, especially in these troubled economic times.
