The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions:
- the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile,
- a kind look,
- a heart-felt compliment,
- and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today
Also in my Political Cartoon below. I have a different political perspective than all the slain leaders in this song, but these were tragedies, lives done too soon. As a young Catholic boy, I didn't know much of JFK, but as the first and only Catholic President, JFK's tenure was tremendously symbolic; anti-Catholic discrimination was described by Schlesinger as ""the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people":
Proscriptions against Catholics were included in colonial charters and laws...In 1834, lurid tales of sexual slavery and infanticide in convents prompted the burning of an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Mass., setting off nearly two decades of violence against Catholics. The resulting anti-Catholic riots (which included the burning of churches), were largely centered in the major urban centers of the country and led to the creation of the nativist Know-Nothing Party in 1854, whose platform included a straightforward condemnation of the Catholic Church....By 1850 Catholics had become the country’s largest single religious denomination. And between 1860 and 1890 the population of Catholics in the United States tripled through immigration... The American Protective Association, for example, formed in Iowa in 1887, sponsored popular countrywide tours of supposed ex-priests and "escaped" nuns, who concocted horrific tales of mistreatment and abuse. By the beginning of the 20th century fully one-sixth of the population of the United States was Catholic. Nevertheless, the powerful influence of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other nativist organizations were typical of still-potent anti-Catholic sentiments. In 1928 the presidential candidacy of Al Smith was greeted with a fresh wave of anti-Catholic hysteria that contributed to his defeat. (It was widely rumored at the time that with the election of Mr. Smith the pope would take up residence in the White House and Protestants would find themselves stripped of their citizenship.)...(Many Protestant leaders, such as Norman Vincent Peale, publicly opposed the candidacy because of Kennedy’s religion.) And after the election, survey research by political scientists found that Kennedy had indeed lost votes because of his religion.My own French-Canadian ancestors were part of that immigration boom in the latter half of the nineteenth century, The KKK confronted Franco-Americans (two for one: anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic):
According to the Washington Post, from the second Klan’s formation until 1925, the KKK admitted 150,141 members in Maine, 130,780 in Massachusetts, 80,301 in Vermont, 75,000 in New Hampshire, 65,590 in Connecticut, and 21,321 in Rhode Island. During the 1920s, French-Canadian immigrants and their offspring made up a substantial proportion of the population of New England’s industrial centers, and the KKK took notice...Monographs published in recent decades, however, have downplayed the Protestant Klan’s expressions of hostility to minority groups to focus instead on the organization’s normative behavior. The Ku Klux Klan’s confrontations with French-Canadian and other Catholics in New England do not support this revision in our historical understanding of the 1920s Klan. In New England, nativism, religious prejudice, and class differences account for the Klan’s astounding growth much more convincingly than do its functions as a social, fraternal, or civic organization.
One factor that made the Klan of the 1920s unique, however, was its intensified hostility toward immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. The Klan's anti-Catholicism stemmed from the belief that Catholics could not be good Americans if they maintained allegiance to the pope. Furthermore, they believed Catholics sought exclusion from mainstream America by maintaining their own schools. In the Klan's view, priests threatened intact families by exerting greater influence over women and children than the male head of household. Klan propaganda hysterically portrayed Catholics as potentially winnowing their way into government (à la Al Smith) and turning America over to Rome.
The KKK considers the pope a Roman dictator, placing itself before God. As well, Catholicism is notorious for its multi-culturalism, another mark against it. Socially, many of the immigrants coming to America were Catholics, whom the Klan felt were taking jobs away from Americans and hence were undesirables.
I Think This Is the Video Sowell Wrote About Here
President Flip-Flop
Facebook Corner
(LFC). John F. Kennedy was murdered on this day 50 years ago. Was he 'laissez faire', or just another yes man in a long line of interventionist, war escalating, "go to the moon" public works, leviathan growing presidents that pandered to the political class? At least he tried legalizing government declared 'legal' tender.
Make no mistake: he believed in the State, and no one would confuse his vision of the New Frontier with a small government footprint. Even if you cite his most famous quote: "ask what you can do for your country" is a validation of the State.
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| Via LFC |
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| Via LFC |
LFC on taxes. I actually support a flat tax as long as the rate is 0%
Well, if you're going to be a legal plunderer, at least be an efficient one, i.e., flat tax.
(Bastiat Institute). John F. Kennedy, who was murdered on this day 50 years said , "Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future."
Let us not forget this is the same guy whom picked his little brother to be Attorney General. Talk is cheap; almost every politician talks unification, bringing people together. Remember the Empty Suit spoke of a post-partisan America before he shoved an unpopular healthcare bill down the nation's throat?
Yet another LFC thread on the minimum wage. I respond to the following progressive troll: if company's that underpay workers it forces tax payers to make up the difference in social welfare programs.
"Underpay workers"? Are you suggesting that the employer is paying below the agreed-on rate? The rate is established by productivity of the workers and supply and demand--an arbitrary legislated wage has nothing to do with the real market, costs, prices, supply and demand. The potential employee has other alternatives: other employers or working for himself; any employer that "exploits" workers would risk his competitors or other employers poaching his "underpaid" employees. Only a small percentage of jobs (many of them low-skilled, entry-level) pay minimum wage: without government mandating higher wages for other jobs. Part of what you get in an entry-level job is experience--which makes you more productive and valuable for this or other employers. When you have a surplus of workers, it is indicative the cost of labor is too high, and government wage and benefit mandate policies are counterproductive. I wish every morally self-superior market interventionist would put his capital where his mouth is and see how far he gets paying above-market wages... The problem with these hypocrites is they want to prohibit people from accepting work at a lower wage--a morally repugnant, elitist attitude, especially if the worker has limited prospects. It's okay to volunteer your time at a soup kitchen, but not to accept $5/hour at a restaurant: why?
A young relative linked to an image I hadn't seen before but heartily recommend:
In another LFC "taxation is theft" thread:
Every corrupt politician sees himself as the reincarnation of Robin Hood and judges his victims thieves. A tyranny of politicians bribe the many with their plunder of the few. I got a response that Robin Hood is a libertarian, not a socialist: a valid point (see here for instance) I did not intend to say a politician is Robin Hood but has plundered the legend.
I disagree that all government is illegitimate, I think the rule of law is important.
Have you heard how the government killed 5% of population of Iraq? Do not sit there and tell me that government is "civil" or government is "rule of law".
"Rule of law" means that you are not above the law, like, say, some megalomaniac demagogue whom decides to create an executive order when the Congress doesn't rubber-stamp his edicts.
(The Milton Friedman group.) "The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp." --Milton Friedman
That is good but not so accurate! Throughout history governments have not been perfect representatives of their societies. Women, Negroes, poor people, followers of different religions and ethnicity etc, have all, more often been eliminated or barely represented. Accordingly, the threat from governments to our freedom does not emanate from concentration of power alone but also from the biased formation of the government. At the end of the day power turns to be monopolized by a narrow slice of any society which tends to gradually deprive the rest from their very freedom.
Nonsense. The idea that more diverse thieves achieve a more noble legal plunder is absurd. The issue is not diversity but the corruption of power, which is intrinsic to political ambition. Laws are intrinsically unjust; they unduly suppress the market and create criminals of others. That the "land of the free" has among the highest incarceration rates in the world is indicative of lawmaking run amok.
The Libertarian Republic has a piece on an overrated "progressive" actor proclaiming his confidence in a strong redistribution central government.
Why is that we take seriously an actor whose only creativity is reading the lines written for him or a demagogue reading a prepared speech from a teleprompter?
Cato Institute. "It’s disappointing that immigration reform is delayed until at least 2014. But delay does not mean defeat. Immigration reforms have been passed in election years before, and if political ideology and political self-interest play any role, it can happen again."
I guess I'm one of the few pro-immigrant discussants here. Restrictive immigration laws are anti-liberty at their core, anti-growth... It amazes me that the same "conservatives" preaching small government and low taxes want to throw money at Big Defense, Big Prisons and an obtrusive federal government when it comes to immigration. I want a more open economy, I like competition for goods and services, lower prices and more variety. I want the government out of the way of domestic companies getting the resources they need to sustain and grow their businesses. Nobody from a free market perspective favors morally hazardous social welfare policies--but quite frankly the "anti-amnesty" crowd repulses me: they are hostile, and, in my opinion, a large percentage of them are xenophobic. What part of Romney loosing significantly among immigrant groups (especially Asian) don't they understand? The lack of viable GOP statewide candidates in the People's Republic of California since Gov. Wilson? (The Governator doesn't count.) The only thing the federal government is good at doing is filling prisons--more than almost every other Western democracy...
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Steve Breen and Townhall |
Musical Interlude: My Ipod Shuffle Series
Looking Glass, "Brandi, You're a Fine Girl". A man torn between his love of the sea and his lady, from her faithful perspective. At the time, the performance and the arrangement was different than anything else on the radio. I remember reading that one of my favorite Manilow tunes, "Mandy", was originally titled "Brandy", but was rewritten to avoid having a similar name. I think Manilow said that on occasion he had to catch himself from singing the original given name.
