The higher type of man clings to virtue,
the lower type of man clings to material comfort.
The higher type of man cherishes justice,
the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to be received.
Confucius
Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) Wins Recall Election (53.4%)
I never really thought Scott Walker was in serious trouble of losing the recall: his approval rating last year ranged from 47-49% and has touched just above that range so far in 2012. A net plurality of Wisconsin voters opposed the recall election, and of the more recent Walker/Barrett polls registered at RCP Walker had not lost a poll against Barrett since February.
There is the usual hypocritical protest by progressives regarding election financing, e.g.,
As of late last month, about $45.6 million had been spent on behalf of Mr. Walker, compared with about $17.9 million for Mr. Barrett, according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan group that tracks spending.
“What it shows is the peril of corporate dollars in an election and the dangers of Citizens United,” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, a school workers’ union, referring to the 2010 Supreme Court decision that barred the federal government from restricting political expenditures from corporations, unions and other groups.First of all, this was not a regular election, but a recall election against a governor with better approval numbers than Barack Obama. Second, the recall was purely a single-issue political vendetta by an interest group against a governor whom was doing something he had promised to do. Whatever the political fundraising, the fact is that major polls showed Walker turning back Dem challengers around the time the recall election was approved. Third, the characterization of Citizens United by the New York Times and the hypocritical unions (benefiting from the decision) is grossly distorted and polemical in nature; the issue had to do with an unconstitutional double standard in free speech where certain parties were arbitrarily denied freedom of expression in political manners. Dollar caps have to do with earlier SCOTUS rulings.
The recall election results show that Wisconsin taxpayers understand the vested interests of the few attempting to extort the scarce revenues of the many. Thumbs UP!
Texas Star (Cordell Walker) Beats Hollywood Star (Bill Clinton)
"The Brave 38": Building on Bowles-Simpson
The House passes a partisan budget; the Senate passes none at all. I didn't find a good description of the Brave 38's tax increases. Earlier the 38 thought they had 100 on their side. Paul Ryan hates the bill because it pays ObamaCare's early costs; Democrat Chris Van Hollen hates the fact that there are no class warfare tax hikes. I'm not crazy about (unspecified) tax increases but we must "get real" about unfunded entitlement liabilities. The "Brave 38" are mounting a politically courageous battle: serious reforms are needed sooner not later: the CBO just reported in 25 years we will double the national debt unless things change. (Rep Dold (R-IL) won Sen Mark Kirk's old Congressional district (in which I lived a decade ago) and he's one of the Brave 38.)
Classical Liberalism: Dr. Ashford's Series #7 Conclusion
Good summary of the prior 6 lectures. Where do I stand? Let me start with an analogy of the Catholic Church. I see in the gospels how Christ preached simplicity, against hairsplitting. He taught marriage was forever, but the Church in the centuries that followed oversaw the development of casuistry and granted ludicrous annulments in order to retain the ideal of indissoluble marriage (e.g., the late Ted Kennedy). In a way, the Church lost sight of the spirit and intent of Christ's teachings.
In a likewise consideration, I see an America today as having lost the spirit and intent of the Founding Fathers. In the land of the free, we have morphed into a nation of busybodies consumed with controlling the behavior and property of other people. We have obsolete regulations on the books, "temporary" taxes still being collected, we pass thousands of pages of pushing-on-a-string, dubious value rules and regulations, not to mention unaccountable boards. We have a judicial system struggling to cope with out of control litigation, with the overpopulated, internationally disproportionate rent-seeking, unproductive legal profession hiring away some of the best minds away from the real economy. We also have a disproportionately large jailed population, involving not just (rightly so) violations of life and property, but participation in the underground economy (e.g., victimless crimes). We have an increasingly assertive and unfettered (e.g., warrantless) government invading our privacy (including communications and modesty (the TSA)).
I know that the future of the country requires downsizing of the government. I remember earlier in my IT career seeing voluminous printouts hundreds of pages long being dumped off at various manager officers, knowing nobody ever read these things, maybe looking at a few aggregate lines. I remember my first MIS professor mocking people whom bought $3000 PC's to computerize their recipe collection when a 99-cent recipe box would do.
I do not underestimate the difficulty of necessary change given interest groups vested in the status quo; in the case of Scott Walker (above), we've seen pushback from union interests on long-overdue public sector reform. The first step is to starve the beast; conservatives have tried to do that by limiting taxes, but the current administration has had no problem with running up publicly-held debt. I'll outline a fuller response in future posts.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Kinks, "A Well-Respected Man"
