Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
A pair of graduate students from the U of M came to the office to learn about Minnesota\u2019s system of land title records.\u00a0 Seems they\u2019re hoping to institute a new system in Kenya where land records are not reliable, making investment risky which discourages entrepreneurship and that leaves people in poverty, dependent on government hand-outs.\u00a0 The students propose a computerized system (which will reveal changes and who made them) based on GPS coordinates (that can be re-established in the field by any hand-held GPS receiver).<\/p>\n
The students are cargo cultists<\/a>.\u00a0 They propose a technological solution to a cultural problem.\u00a0 I\u2019m skeptical.<\/p>\n
Kenya left the British Empire in 1963 and for the last half-century: \u201cthe use of land<\/a> as an object of patronage to engender support and consolidate power has been exacerbated by corruption, forced eviction, government backtracking, and lack of redress for those who have lost land through violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suppose the computer gives me absolute iron-clad proof that the land records clerk altered the records to give my land to President Uhuru Kenyatta\u2019s friend.\u00a0 Suppose when I show up in court, the President\u2019s friend arrives with a thick envelope of \u201clast-minute evidence\u201d for the judge, then glances meaningfully at his Reece Squad<\/a> escorts and says \u201cSo, judge, how are the wife and kids?\u00a0 Be a shame if anything happened to them.\u201d\u00a0 What are my chances of getting my land back?<\/p>\n
Technology can\u2019t solve that problem.\u00a0 It takes a culture of incorruptibility, of self-less devotion to the Rule of Law, and that culture takes hundreds of years to grow.\u00a0 Kenya threw that away when it kicked out the British.\u00a0 Americans are letting our own Kenyan throw it away today.<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Barack Obama’s worst facet? \u00a0He’s bringing the worst facets of Third World\/Chicago governance to a national stage.<\/p>\n
I’m going to say that before the IRS shuts me down.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: A pair of graduate students from the U of M came to the office to learn about Minnesota\u2019s system of land title records.\u00a0 Seems they\u2019re hoping to institute a new system in Kenya where land records are not reliable, making investment risky which discourages entrepreneurship and that leaves people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,49,73,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-science","category-western-civilization","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54483,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54477\/revisions\/54483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}