I will charge thee nothing but the promise
that thee will help the next man thee finds in trouble.
Mennonite proverb
Bureaucratic Moment of the Day
I'm hesitant to write about these incidents because (if you aren't aware of them), you might think that I'm making this stuff up. Yes, I understand threats of violence should be taken serious, particularly in the aftermath of the Newtown Massacre, but when you're dealing with kids, you have to look at context and apply some common sense. Small children play games; what little boys at that age don't play cowboys and Indians with toy guns (and cap guns)? It is highly unlikely that parents would leave weapons accessible to their young children, and I don't remember kids at that age physically threatening other kids. (I'm not saying it's impossible, but you have to look at the context of the alleged threat, e.g., is it consistent with the child's patttern of behavior.)
The first incident is a 5-year-old Pennsylvania kindergarten girl, proud owner of a pink bubble gun. Someone overheard a conversation between the girl and her friend at the bus stop where the first girl playfully suggested that she would first shoot the friend with her bubble gun (not with her) and then herself. The school got wind of the incident and questioned her without parents present, labeled her a terrorist threat, suspended her for 10 days, and required that she see a psychiatrist. Are you kidding me? Reportedly the school has reduced her sentence to 2 days, and the parents are trying to to get the terrorist smear expunged from the record. The real terrorists in this story are the incompetent administrative thugs questioning an intimidated, harmless little confused sweetheart without her parents or lawyer present; talk about a lack of due process (and common sense).
If it was in my power, I would terminate the principal and all the other school personnel involved. I'm sure that they wouldn't have trouble finding jobs with the TSA, patting down kindergartners and scrutinizing babies' poopy diapers for explosives.
The second incident involved two Baltimore area 6-year-old boys, caught playing cops and robbers during recess using their index fingers as play gun barrels and being subsequently suspended. Isn't it time we start demanding standardized exams in common sense for public school employees and management? This reminds me: a travel tip--don't do your impression of pro wrestler Cactus Jack (Mick Foley), aka "Mr. Bang-Bang", while standing in the security line at the airport.
40 Years, 55 Million Dead:
A Date Which Will Live in Infamy: 1/22/73
I realize the issue is controversial; I've known conservatives and libertarians whom are pro-abortion choice. as well as two of my best friends. For me, it's a matter of conscience, based on science. Whereas I am Catholic, and the Church's stand has been consistently against abortion (what confuses people is a minor theological disagreement over the seriousness of the sin based on obsolete Aristotelian science on child development), I remember learning about the issue not from Church, but my mom. I had seen the term in a newspaper and asked my mom what it meant. My mom gave a very clinical description, avoiding judgmental references. I remember my first reaction, stark disbelief any woman would even consider the notion: "But, Mom, that's MURDER. What does the Church have to say? They have got to be against it!"
Among libertarians, pro-lifers are probably a strong minority, including Fox Business News personality Judge Andrew Napolitano and former Presidential candidate Ron Paul:
Libertarians believe, along with the Founding Fathers, that every individual has inalienable rights, among which are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Neither the State, nor any other person, can violate those rights without committing an injustice. But, just as important as the power claimed by the State to decide what rights we have, is the power to decide which of us has rights.
Today, we are seeing a piecemeal destruction of individual freedom. And in abortion, the statists have found a most effective method of obliterating freedom: obliterating the individual. Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the "right" of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the "property rights" of slave masters in their slaves. Moreover, by this method the State achieves a goal common to all totalitarian regimes: it sets us against each other, so that our energies are spent in the struggle between State-created classes, rather than in freeing all individuals from the State.And as for the canard that abortion is merely a religious value preference, the founder and guiding member of Libertarians for Life, Doris Gordon, is a Jewish atheist. LFL believes:
- Human offspring are human beings, persons from conception
- Abortion is homicide.
- One's right to control one's own body does not allow violating the obligation not to aggress. There is never a right to kill an innocent person. Prenatally, we are all innocent persons.
- A prenatal child has the right to be in the mother's body. Parents have no right to evict their children from the crib or from the womb and let them die. Instead both parents, the father as well as the mother, owe them support and protection from harm.
- No government, nor any individual, has a just power to legally "de-person" any one of us, born or preborn.
- The proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them
The Dream Of This Child
Music & Lyrics ©Cheri DeGruccio
She will be beautiful, long golden hair
a heart that finds hope through the darkest despair
She'll be a mother, gentle and wise
they will see love when they look in her eyes
That is the dream of this child
that she can believe for a while
But she'll never fall in love
She'll never see a sunrise
Look in her mothers eyes
From her her life has been torn
This day will be her last
She'll never get past
Being unborn
He will be handsome, tall dark and strong
Someone to turn to when life's going wrong
Hell be a father, stand proud and tall
Gentle protector, leader of all
That is the dream of this child
That he can believe for a while
But he'll never fall in love
He'll never see a sunrise
Look in his mothers eyes
From him his life has been torn
This day will be his last
He'll never get past
Being unborn
Unless we open up their eyes
And let them hear our voice
It's a child not a choice
They'll never fall in love
They'll never see a sunrise
Look in each other's eyes
From them their life has been torn
This day will be their last
Will this day be their last
Will they get past
Being unborn
This is an interesting video in part for who's delivering it--Mike Munger, a veteran of the Reagan Administration, is a former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina in 2008. I haven't seen an article on him discussing gun control (which may be an artifact of my search), but the Libertarian Party is quite clear on the issue (against). I think Munger is simply using the NRA as a teaching point because it's probably most well-known, powerful special-interest group. Still, it's a bit unnerving to hear him discuss the free rider problem of alleged benefits from gun control. One might argue that neighbors may benefit from the fact that a prospective home invader may encounter a gun owner willing to use lethal force to protect his home and family.
Munger has (or has had) a couple of issues that I find eclectic for a Libertarian particularly from today's perspective: collective bargaining for public school teachers and shifting the income tax burden more progressive. Yes, Libertarians recognize voluntary groups, but usually in the context of a competitive marketplace, which doesn't apply to the public school system. (This may have been a better discussion for Munger: how taxpayers are too diffuse to mobilize against teacher unions which gain at taxpayer expense, re: Wisconsin public sector collective bargaining reform.)
The second point is the progressive income tax, which manifestly is punitive and violates principles of uniformity and equal protection. I would normally expect a Libertarian to argue traditional low tariffs/excise taxes (I prefer a more uniform consumption/sales/VAT) revenues are sufficient enough to fund legitimate government and we need to starve the beast. I find it counterproductive to penalize workers and businesses for maximizing their productivity.
The arguments for progressive taxation boil down to "tax him: he won't feel it: he doesn't need it", said with all the moral certitude of the self-justifying common thief. It may well be I won't eat all the apples from my apple tree, but the apple tree and its fruit are not the yield of the thief's own efforts. It is to my discretion whether to market or donate my apples. If I do not market my apples, others may pay more for their fruit.
Folsom has a readable essay on the progressive income tax (my edits):
America’s founders rejected the income tax entirely, but when they spoke of taxes they recognized the need for uniformity and equal protection to all citizens. The principle behind the progressive income tax—the more you earn, the larger the percentage of tax you must pay—would have been appalling to the founders. They recognized that, in James Madison’s words, “the spirit of party and faction” would prevail if Congress could tax one group of citizens and confer the benefits on another group.
During the 1800s economic thinking in the United States usually conformed to the founders’ guiding principles of uniformity and equal protection. One exception was during the Civil War, when a progressive income tax was first enacted. Interestingly, the tax had a maximum rate of 10 percent, and it was repealed in 1872. As Representative Justin Morrill of Vermont observed, “in this country we neither create nor tolerate any distinction of rank, race, or color, and should not tolerate anything else than entire equality in our taxes.”
When Congress passed another income tax in 1894—one that only hit the top 2 percent of wealth holders—the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Stephen Field, a veteran of 30 years on the Court, was outraged that Congress would pass a bill to tax a small voting bloc and exempt the larger group of voters. At age 77, Field not only repudiated Congress’s actions, he also penned a prophecy. A small progressive tax, he predicted, “will be but the stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.”Stephen Field was a REAL judge, not today's morally bankrupt, sophistic progressive judges whom decide ex post facto how to rationalize imposing their political/cultural preferences on others. Tell me what is fundamentally different between what the Congress unlawfully did in 1894 and what Barack Obama and his Congressional cronies did last month in deciding outnumbered upper income earners whom already pay a disproportionately higher share of their income deserved a tax hike but the more numerous middle class voter didn't. It's fundamentally unconstitutional. Putting aside the fact that government has morphed into a grossly inefficient, ineffective, economic growth-crippling resource sinkhole which rewards enablers and punishes critics, the unpleasant task of levying general taxes should be done minimally and uniformly--either everybody shares the worthy burden, or nobody.
Everybody must have skin in the tax game. I don't care what Warren Buffett does with his fortune (except to note that I find it curious and philosophically inconsistent that he's not leaving his estate to Barack Obama to fritter away on things like bribing liberal California yuppies to buy electric cars), but if he lets his great-grandkids to play ball in his house, it doesn't give him the right to tell other rich people what to do with their property. Progressive politicians are little more than glorified common thieves.
Note that a low flat rate system still has people whom earn or consume more to pay more taxes: if you make ten times more income, you pay 10 times more taxes. Very simple system.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Cars, "Good Times Roll". I have a nagging suspicion that I covered the Cars earlier in the blog; I did a blog search earlier which came up empty. I do intend to reprise my earlier Beatles retrospective in a more comprehensive format like I've done over the recent past.
