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Happy Easter 2014
If you work on your mind with your mind,
how can you avoid immense confusion?
Seng-Ts'an
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
Let's be clear--I do not believe in or endorse using recreational drugs, and I rarely drink alcoholic beverages (I think the last glass of beer or wine I had was 5 years ago). But artificially restricting supplies does little more than drive consumers to the black market and motivate organized crime eager to exploit the fat margins provided by government intervention. Addicts may engage in illegal activities to satiate their compulsive need.
Chart of the Day
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| Via the Independent Institute |
Facebook Corner
(IPI). Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has backed off a proposal that would have hobbled or destroyed ridesharing services such as uberX and Lyft in Chicago – for now, at least. And when the taxi lobby turned to the Illinois General Assembly for help, they proposed a ridesharing bill full of provisions that would harm consumers and ridesharing drivers for no reason except to protect cab companies from competition. The team at Illinois Policy Action shared our analysis with state representatives and, as a result, all of the anticompetitive provisions we identified were stripped from the bill, which the House then passed. So where do things stand now?
Defending economic liberty is like playing a game of Whac-a-Mole against cronies at multiple levels of government.
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| Via LFC |
The difference being G.W. rebelled against taxation without representation, lawmakers in England were imposing taxes without regard to how the people in America felt. The colonists were also not getting anything for their money. It was all going to pay for European wars. A whiskey tax was voted for by American citizens and helped pay to build America's developing infrastructure.
More complicated than that. The colonists had willingly paid to self-govern, but Britain wanted colonists to pay for British imperial overhead trumping local governance.
In the case of the whiskey tax, this particularly hurt smaller distillers in the West, whom did not have the scale to afford the alternative flat whiskey tax. Because of limited logistics of transporting surplus grain east, farmers would distill their surplus grain, and whiskey become a type of currency. The tax basically worked to the advantage of the anti-competitive crony Big Distillers. The burden seemed to fall disproportionately on the West vs. the politically connected Northeast. And why whiskey vs. a broader-based consumption tax? Hamilton had decided to tax domestic products because he felt tariffs were already as high as the market could bear, and he needed the money to retire old state debts, which some perceived as bailouts of moneyed interests. But in effect, the whiskey tax became a type of income tax with a heavy burden on Western states.
(Drudge Report). MILLIONS FLOCK TO ROME FOR CANONIZATION.
The Pope who stood silent while the pedophile priests ran rampant. I am a Catholic and do not talk to me about ex-communication. I know what I saw and I do not fear speaking out or speaking the truth; like I was taught at Catechism by the Nuns
Less than a handful of priests were involved in the scandal; there are nearly 40,000 US Roman Catholic priests. Some bishops believed claims by psychologists that the rogue priests were cured--a tragic error. But you are one of those people easily manipulated by one-sided sensationalized media coverage and are ignorant of even the most basic statistics. For example, you are at least 70 times more likely to die in a car vs. airline accident, but I bet you never give a second thought about driving a car or riding a taxi--vs. the absurdity of TSA. For your information, there are over 400K convicted pedophiles in US prisons--10 pedophiles for every priest (never mind the fact that these are the ones whom get caught and convicted). You want to tar and feather the Pope because the hierarchy has some incompetent or ineffectual bureaucrats? Do you think our government's bureaucracy has any less inertia?
(Reason). When it comes to education policy, Senator Ted Cruz is adamantly pro-choice.
Yeah that's what we need, tax money going to private religious schools. Wow.
Let's be clear: Money is stolen by government to operate its own monopoly; parents who want educational choice generally have to pay twice, which is not feasible for many lower-income families. You have no moral authority whatsoever to arbitrarily impose your educational preferences on other people.
For example, the best, most cost-competitive schools in urban areas are often operated by Catholic parishes; I have a retired Catholic pastor uncle whom pointed out that operating schools is a drain on parish finances; yet the figures I've seen is that Catholic schools operate at a fraction of the costs (up to 40% less) of public schools, while test scores (on secular education skills and knowledge!) and graduation rates are typically significantly better, although drawing kids from the same neighborhoods, especially in urban areas.
Jefferson believed the state should provide free education, from primary through college, because it benefits society.
The slave-owning Jefferson is hardly the model of libertarian consistency. The above comment is unambiguously misleading. It is true that Jefferson did suggest three years (not 12 years) of universal education in reading, writing and arithmetic; it is true he did suggest a meritocracy for additional public-sponsored middle school and another filter for sponsored college education: "By this means twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually."
Well of course you're going to see increased grades. When kids end up in charter schools teaching creationism etc. It's pretty f**king easy to get everything right. "What causes a sunset?", "God! "," What are fossils? "," An illusion from Satan to trick us into learning! ".
This is an absurd comment. I got my bachelor's from a Catholic university and never heard a professor mention 'creationism'. The science classes I attended were first-rate. NAEP recently reported over 75% of private school eighth graders scored at or above the basic level, and nearly half at a proficient level in science, more than 10 points better than public schools. Private high schools generally required and/or offered more advanced science courses. I suggest that the commenter stop plagiarizing stereotypical talking points from public school monopoly propagandists and start researching the topic.
(IPI). llinois’ 2011 state income tax hike is temporary – and rates are scheduled to roll back starting in 2015. But there’s talk of a “gradual reduction” of the 2011 state income tax increases. Taxpayers have sacrificed for four years so that government could get its act together. Each year, the income tax hike has been taking away an extra week’s pay from Illinois families. We’ve paid our fair share. Now the politicians need to live up to their end of the bargain. They don’t deserve to be bailed out again with yet another tax hike.
It's the same old same old. We've heard this song and dance. The Dems will never admit they have a spending problem. They will do their predictable populist apocalyptic warnings about having to lay off your kids' teachers, take police out of crime-ridden areas, Grandma's pension will be cut and she'll end up having to eat cat food. They will argue that withdrawing their temporary tax hikes will lead to a further downgrade of the state's already poorly rated debt, for which they'll hold fiscal conservatives accountable.
Guess what, spendthrifts? The 6-month warning has already sounded. You've had 4 years to get your fiscal house in order, and you can't blame the other party because you've controlled everything. Asking for a last-minute extension of any combination of tax hikes will be seen as an unambiguous breach of promise. These tax hikes have hurt Illinois' competitive position to attract and retain business. Stealing even more from taxpayers hurts the economy and is not a sustainable business model. The bell is about to ring, and you will soon get your report card.
The Importance of Family
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Steve Breen via Townhall |
Josh Groban, "You Raise Me Up"
