The dogmatist within is always worse than
the enemy without.
S.J. Gould
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| Via Drudge Report American citizens had a 1 in 30 chance to be born in the USA |
I haven't done one of these in a while, but in the context of the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, Politico has an interesting post/retrospective about Obama's humor. Here are some relevant excerpts:
[Obama] is also very funny (and the first to laugh at his own jokes)...When it comes to the sine qua non of political humor — devastating self-deprecation — Obama is less skilled...(he stepped on a joke about [bowling] with Jay Leno in 2009 by adding an ill-considered ad lib about his Special Olympics-level skill, for which he was forced to apologize)...And as is often the case with other rhetorical aspects of his presidency, Obama sometimes seems to deliver his jokes — however effective they may be — with the disembodied distance of someone observing his own performance... Yet when asked for examples of Obama’s best self-deprecating lines, Favreau struggled a bit for an answer, eventually citing jokes about big ears and bad poll numbers.The classic self-deprecating joke mentioned was JFK's 1958 when JFK quipped that his wealthy father didn't want to have to pay for a landslide.... To be fair, the author points out that President Zipper also was more interested in aiming zingers at his critics than himself. I personally think the inability to laugh at oneself is a serious personality defect.
(Just in case my critics wonder about me, I've poked fun at myself several times in past posts, e.g., when one of my nieces complains about insomnia, I suggest reading my dissertation or one of my articles or book chapters; one of my best friends characterizes our friendship as "an acquired taste"; I sometimes refer to my third sister as God's way for making it up to my folks for having me; and my dissertation chairman once quipped that it takes me 20 minutes just to introduce myself...)
Unequal Contribution Limits = Unequal Protection Under the Law: Can You Say 'Unconstitutional'?
Facebook Corner
(IPI). Our hybrid retirement plan immediately cuts Chicago's $29 billion in unfunded pension liabilities in half.
All govt employees should be moved to 401k plans like the private sector.
Oh, you want the governments that employ police and fire, etc to contribute 6.2% towards social security for us too, since we don't get that? If they did that towards our pension instead, plus our 9.4% we contribute from our salaries towards our pension, our pensions would be funded. Heck, maybe they should also do a little bit of matching like the private sector does, we'd have even more money for our pensions then. Instead, they haven't even contributed 6.2% towards our pensions all along, resulting in the mess you see now. If it goes to 401k, like you say, then I want the defined pension plan of social security as well, just like the private sector. That'll cost the taxpayers even more than what is in place now. People keep throwing out this 401k suggestion-not realizing that it'll be more expensive...
Leave it to the self-serving parasite to play the victim card. Blame your union leadership if they let the Tax-and-Spendocrats get away with spending your pension contribution on other special interests. I have no problems with new/younger employees paying into social security and/or 401/403, just like the private sector. But I believe that you have to contribute 10 years to be eligible for social security benefits. (Of course, social security itself is a Ponzi scheme.)
(This is a follow-up to an essay in the Libertarian Republic; I commented in yesterday's post.)
So, you're for freedom as long as everyone thinks the way you do? What does it matter what two consenting adults do? So long as a same sex couple isn't infringing on your rights, what do you care? As the meme says, I want Gay couples to be able to defend their marijuana plants with their guns.
It might help if you identify who you are referring to: the original author or me. I don't think either of us discussed "gay marriage". Most pro-liberty conservatives want the State out of marriage, period. I definitely support the traditional social context, but what I wrote is that I am skeptical of State intervention and have a "live-and-let-live" tolerance of human activities. On a more practical level, for example, I believe in the voluntary association of those whom support traditional values and the right of those whom don't share those values to congregate as they choose; I don't believe in the State intervening in the private affairs of consenting adults, regardless of my moral preferences. But I think it's hypocritical for libertarians to go beyond negative liberties to intervene in the social context imposing their own moral preferences: for example, there's a difference between tolerating non-traditional relationships and using the State to confer special status in traditional communities.
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." ~ Thomas Jefferson
The idea of whether or not something "picks my pocket or breaks my leg" is the marker I, and hopefully most libertarians, use to determine where one person's rights end and theirs begin. If it does me no harm and it doesn't force me to contribute monetarily then what someone does is of little concern to me. It seems that both parties are constantly advocating policies that threaten me with one or the other. I am either forced to conform to their dictates under threat of force or, forced to monetarily support people and ideas which I disagree with. Government was only intended to deal with limited aspects of society that individuals acting in voluntary agreements could not solve by themselves. When boiled down they amount to the following. 1) To deal with those within society who would do harm to others, whether that harm is physical or financial and 2) To deal with the things that would benefit society as a whole. Not benefit one man or woman over another, not benefit one race over another, not benefit one sexual preference over another, not benefit one corporation over another and, not benefit one economic class over another but, benefit ALL of society as a whole. Conservatives and Liberals have strayed away from serving society as a whole and have instead turned to helping those groups, classes and individuals who can help them maintain their power and help them to achieve more.
I don't agree with your phrasing of the discussion. Conservatives don't look to intervene in the economy or the social milieu. The liberals or "progressives" constantly intervene through the State to impose their values and political preferences in divisive terms--the have's and have not's. The conservatives worry about the unintended consequences of liberal domestic programs and/or foreign meddling (don't forget the 4 major wars we intervened with in the twentieth century started under Democratic Administrations and the Old Right, e.g., Robert Taft, resisted intervention). There's a difference between resistance to interventionist policy and an alternative advocacy; you seem to be buying into "progressive" talking points.
Now, granted, conservatives are not monolithic: for example, paleos favor economic protectionist policies, and many military conservatives advocate activist/neo-con foreign policy. But don't confuse the political rhetoric of the GOP as the opposition party as synonymous with conservatism.
(Independent Institute). Senior Fellow John Graham: "Although in-kind benefits are more difficult to compare across countries than are cash incomes, they must not be ignored when making judgments about how different countries’ middle-class residents are faring."
Why are we surprised when the black hole of DC sucks resources out of the real economy into its vortex of corruption? "Progressives" continue to obfuscate the real economy with their vain, megalomaniac attempts to micromanage it. When will they ever come to know that the pursuit of economic growth is what lifts all boats and the Politics of Envy is intrinsically counterproductive?
(Independent Institute). Senior Fellow Benjamin Powell discusses sweatshops and the global economy on Fox Business's The Independents.
Good if you want to use such product to destroy the standards and standing of another country's labor force, industries, and revenue streams. There are no benefits from the lower prices, only stagnated wages, revenues, and tax burden exacerbated from increased dependency and lost revenues. Fair trade extends some of the protections that created the standards and standing we enjoy TO STABILIZE THE trade partner's citizens and economy. Granting untaxed intl entities right to trade dump and exploit ss lbr edges the system toward fascism, where citizens can not earn and can not control their capital.
This is the ideological core dump ranting of a clueless economic illiterate whom mistakes propaganda for informed opinion. It's paternalistic hubris, which presumes the standards of a developed economy with a higher standard of living and advocates for crony unionist vested interests in preventing liberalized markets and exchange. Sweatshops can pay 3 to 7 times the prevailing wage in a developing locale; no one denies that it can be hard work (my own French Canadian ancestors were attracted by textile mill jobs in New England), but for those workers, attracted by better wages and voluntarily accept the job and working conditions, it's the gateway to an improved standard of living, and earnings can help develop the struggling local economy. You want to use the State to deprive these people of an improved standard of living? With "friends" like you looking to prevent their right to work and thus perpetuate their poverty, who needs enemies?
First, even as a classical economic liberal, I would expect the chronically ill in general to be unable to work and probably qualify under Medicaid, and age of course correlates with mortality (Medicare). So relevant comparisons would have to control for these differences; it may well be the data modeled for these factors, but I need to see more of the underlying data model/statistics.
Second, I would like to see more of a theoretical explanation of why the uninsured would have a lower mortality. It could be, for instance, that that the uninsured may be healthier as a group, e.g., younger people whom cannot afford health insurance or households between jobs.
Finally, I realize that you want to focus on market-distorting, counterproductive government policies, which may seek to ration care, filter drugs, etc., which could have an adverse effect on healthcare outcomes. I am also convinced that liberalization of the sector from centralized government's megalomaniac, costly bureaucratic inertia and overhead is necessary since the status quo is unsustainable, but I would like to see some bridge solutions based on the principle of Subsidiarity, eliminating interstate barriers to insurance marketing, and reforming dysfunctional tax policies which obfuscate the differences between essential, more catastrophic care and ordinary health expenditures.
Public School Teacher Bullying
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Eric Allie and Townhall |
Céline Dion, "That's the Way It Is"
