A lifetime of happiness!
No man alive could bear it,
it would be hell on earth.
George Bernard Shaw
Insult of the Day
From another's Facebook post: "Know how to brainwash a liberal? Give them an enema!"
The Oxymoronic Affordable Care Act
From the Independent Institute:
Senior Fellow John Graham: "Premiums are going through the roof. Those who are profiting from Obamacare are loathe to criticize it too openly. And yet, WellPoint, a large insurer, has just announced that it expects to demand 'double-digit plus' rate increases in the Obamacare exchanges in 2015."
Illinois v. Economic Growth
In Education,
Facebook Corner
(IPI). Earlier this month, 28 attorneys general, including Illinois’ Lisa Madigan, sent a letter to major convenience retailers including Rite Aid, Walmart and Walgreens, urging them to stop selling tobacco products in their stores. This came shortly after CVS voluntarily announced that it would completely phase out sales of tobacco products by October 2014.
But since when is it an attorney general’s job to badger companies into selling or not selling legal products? Isn’t Lisa Madigan supposed to enforce the laws that are actually on the books, not make businesses conform to her personal preferences?
Typical crony relationship. CVS is nervous that smoker-tolerant competitors may pick up market share at their expense. I've never smoked anything, and a sister-in-law's mother paid a stiff price for her habit. But prohibition may actually exacerbate the problem, and the people generally dislike Big Nanny. Leave this decision to the individual, his doctor, and his family. My Dad had picked up the habit in the military, but gave up the habit for the sake of his young, growing family by the time I was in primary school.
I have NEVER smoked or drank alcohol BUT I think it is time for the government to butt out of people's business!! Before long the government will be telling us when we can go poop!
Don't give them ideas. Remember, singer Sheryl Crow's campaign against global warming included limiting oneself to one square of toilet paper per use....
(Catholic Libertarians.) Many Catholic libertarians have criticized and lamented the Catholic social teaching of distributism as if it is not compatible with true capitalism, but I think there are a couple misunderstandings taking place. Firstly, distributism must in no way be confused with "redistribution", which is socialism. Secondly, when distributists describe it as being in opposition to both socialism and capitalism, it doesn't take long to realize the "modern capitalism" they are referring to is actually corporatism, not true free-market capitalism―a frequent and unfortunately understandable mistake. As I understand it, I believe that the Church's teachings of distributism and subsidiarity are both the desired and the natural outcomes that would eventually and only result from pure voluntaryism. Catholic anarchists Dorothy Day and J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as libertarian theologian and apologist G.K. Chesterton were all distributists.
"According to distributists, property ownership is a fundamental right and the means of production should be distributed [not to be confused with "redistributed"] as widely as possible rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism), a few individuals (plutocracy), or corporations (corporatocracy). Distributism therefore *advocates* [without the use or threat of force] a society marked by widespread property ownership and...maintains that such a system is key to bringing about a just social order." Distributists advocate guild systems, families as social units, artisan culture, cooperatives and subsidiarity, and they stand against state control, corporate control, unions, social security and banks.
Please correct my understanding if I'm mistaken, but that sounds a lot like libertarianism to me. ~Mark
Let's not put lipstick on a pig. The pope's rhetoric in the exhortation is basically a copy-and-paste from pedestrian social democrat talking points; he caricatured capitalism of a type that doesn't exist in any advanced economy and embraces the urban legend of social darwinism. It is clear to anyone that the pope is clearly sympathetic to redistributional policies and he goes out of his way to praise politics as a profession. He believes in government intervention in the free markets, and the pontiff, who infamously asked who he was to judge gays, has no problems judging the rich.
I am so sick and tired of left-wing nutjobs spouting conspiracy theories of the wealthy elite. Corruption is related to the magnitude and breadth of the State. Anyone who remotely calls himself a libertarian doesn't put the cart before the horse: under corporatism or economic fascism, the super-regulatory State essentially runs the economy, with any private role at most nominal in nature. I don't care if the number of phenomenally wealthy is large or small; what I care about is the free market which makes the average consumer better off,
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| Via National Review |
Fellow libertarians are particularly hypocritical about this. I don't have a problem with gay activists disagreeing with those of us whom support the traditional definition of marriage. But this was not about a prohibition of a gay person's lifestyle or relationship (or calling their commitments "gay marriage"); it was a disagreement over government co-opting the traditional institution of marriage. This was a form of economic aggression against someone simply for expressing his unalienable right of free speech, and no libertarian should tolerate that.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Beyonce (ft. Jay Z), "Crazy in Love"
