Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it.
George Eliot
The Cult of Personality
I have never bought into the birther nonsense, the Bill Ayers' scandal, the socialist, etc. What I don't like is his deliberate manipulation of his image, his getting a little too full of himself, and his engaging in nonstop soundbites, redefining terms like "balanced", "fair", etc. (over and beyond his economic illiteracy, abysmal seat-of-the-pants activist foreign policy, etc.) Yes, other Presidents have done their share of carefully crafted images (e.g., in today's world, FDR's vain refusal to allow public view of his disability would rightly be condemned from ignoring the empowerment of what is possible despite a disability), but these usually didn't unduly restrict the press or cheapen the office of the Presidency by making appearances on questionable television programs.
Putin's Counter-Sanctions
My Native State vs. The People's Republic of California: Job Growth Since the Start of the Great Recession
HT: Carpe Diem
Facebook Corner
(Reason). The Texas Third Court of Appeals has upheld a punitive $5 tax levied on anyone who patronizes a strip club in Texas. Because Texas strip clubs stopped collecting the fee while it faced legal challenges (and some never started), they now face millions of dollars in retroactive payments owed to the state.
No, the Tenth Amendment generally allows state policing functions: health, safety, morals, etc. Nothing is preventing you from moving to communities receptive to businesses combining drinking and strip clubs or simply paying the state tax, hiring exotic dancers to your private residence, accessing Internet porn, etc. Now personally I don't believe in majoritarian abuse of the taxing authority (including large taxes on cigarettes, beer, etc.), and I think the enforcement mechanisms aren't that cost-effective, but this isn't a blanket ban on strip clubs...
(Cato Institute). "It strangles growth and innovation for companies to have to prove ahead of time, to the satisfaction of discretionary regulators and politicians, that their products are good."
First of all, the free market does not protect a vendor whom has harmed customers through defective products, negligent services, etc. Second, a vendor is only as viable as its reputation. Third, just as CPA's independently attest to fair financial statements (look at what happened to Arthur Andersen in the wake of Enron), industries could maintain independent certification plus an arbitration service, not unlike BBB. What's laughable is how all the Statists in this thread have totally ignored notoriously failed government regulators and had better hope that if and when they or a loved one is dying from a disease which has a cure bottlenecked by FDA bureaucrats, the cure will arrive before it's too little, too late.
(Cato Institute). "It's hard to escape the conclusion that Michael Sam paid a price for being openly gay, but we're on the road to a more open society for all."
[Editorial comment: Cato Institute, as I've mentioned in past posts, is hyping the unconventional concept of "marriage equality". Most of us have had a "live-and-let-live" attitude, which I believe is the legitimate libertarian, not cheering for State intervention into community norms. I've mentioned in past posts when I first moved to Houston, I quickly learned of the Montrose community being a gay hub in the city. Even though my personal belief system rejects the gay lifestyle, I never had any interest trying to impose my values on the Montrose community. And this was well before the common culture starting pushing the gay agenda through media politically correct propaganda.]
What we do behind closed doors is private behavior. Kissing his boyfriend was very public. Of course, all this was PR for a marginal football player whom may very well sue the Rams for inevitably cutting him.
(Cato Institute). "As we all know, two years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts changed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate into a tax and thus rescued President Obama’s signature legislation. What you may not know is that with this slight of hand—or flick of the wrist—he actually sent Obamacare flying from the constitutional frying pan into the constitutional fire."
Do you expect Chief Justice Roberts to say, "Whoops! My bad!"? I have not reviewed the ObamaCare arguments, but I know the government was pushing the tax authority argument as their insurance policy... Shouldn't the opposition have brought up the origination argument during the original SCOTUS hearing?
(IPI). A historic measure to cut taxes in Missouri passed last week, and it should be a reminder to Gov. Pat Quinn that his own plans to increase income taxes will have real consequences for Illinois’ future economic competitiveness.
Quinn saw The One pile up ungodly amounts of debt, resist any meaningful cuts, and impose class warfare tax hikes and figures he can do so in The One's home base...
[a follow-up exchange on a Libertarian Republic thread a few posts back on whether the Romney defeat was a good thing. I reprint my original response in italics.]
Well, for one thing, we would have been spared a 2016 Obama-Romney rematch. I've argued in a different forum that I thought Romney missed a golden opportunity to resurrect the free-market, non-interventionist Old Right, that he should have thrown Bush under the bus, to run against 12 miserable years of mediocre economic growth and massive deficits. He also come across as unprincipled, a flip-flopper on various issues (abortion, immigration, etc.) He also came across as wonkish vs. populist; Hermain Cain's '9-9-9' was easily to grasp than Romney's 59-point economic plan. I thought that trying to play to the right of Obama on foreign policy was a strategic mistake; Obama had spent much effort in his first term trying to co-opt the right, by promoting Petraeus, out-droning Bush, etc. What Obama was not prepared for was Romney doing an about-face and saying, "You know, we can't afford to continue nation building in strategically questionable places half-way around the world." I think Romney was saying what he thought the people wanted to hear, like when he ran on "progressive" positions in Massachusetts. We have big challenges, like the Baby Boomer Retirement Tsunami, that we need to address directly, with imaginative solutions, not political rhetoric or policy tweaks.
Was Romney's loss a good thing? No; we've lost 4 years we'll never get back under undeniably one of the worst, most incompetent Presidents in American history. It was a wake-up call: the GOP's ground game in getting out its base and using high technology has been uncompetitive since the first Bush's reelection debacle of being unable to anticipate or adjust to Clinton's rapid response team. Romney did far worse among immigrants--even Asian immigrants--than George W. did, all because an alienating stance on immigration, trying to appease the anti-immigrant special interest group; this is not a surprise. Republicans have been uncompetitive in the People's Republic of California since Wilson's scorched-earth reelection as governor. Republicans need to stop rerunning Reagan's campaign from over 3 decades ago; they need to come up with a compelling, simpler, consistent pro-liberty message, sort of a revamped pro-markets, non-interventionist Old Right.
Romney's loss was a great thing. Obama's win was the problem. What would have been great would have been a Gary Johnson or Ron Paul win. Maybe then America would have headed toward liberty.
I was worried about Romney's neo-con rhetoric, but Romney is an excellent administrator and, unlike Bush, is ready to use the veto for fiscal discipline. He probably would have worked on the unfunded liability problem and we definitely would be seeing smaller deficits, more competitive business tax brackets. Romney's key problem is that he is a better tactician than strategist--he doesn't seem to have a fundamental ideological standpoint. He seems to think government can solve problems, like the TARP intervention. There were his notorious flip-flops on issues like abortion when he ran for office in Massachusetts. Yet there were some signs--like when the Dems were pushing for a string of bailout loans for the auto industry, and he was correctly seeing that they were perpetuating a failing business model and needed to go to bankruptcy. I don't think Johnson was a better governor than Romney and he had been out of elective politics for a decade. Ron Paul was closer to my political standpoint; I would like to have seen more administrative skills, and his rhetoric is a bit too strident. We definitely would have a better foreign policy and some epic battles with Congress. The problem with a Ron Paul Presidency is that he would need to have a like-minded Congress and shown more of an ability to compromise. I can count on one hand the number of federal legislators mirroring his libertarian-conservative views. That's why I'm disappointed with Romney--he does have the ability to work with a legislature, and I thought if he had gone more Tea Party in 2012, rejecting 12 years of Bush/Obama. But too much of a tactician--really, a 59-point economic plan? Why not just say, "I'm for free markets and for free trade"...
[follow-up that basically repeated support for Paul or Johnson]
You are confusing ideology with leadership. Reagan talked a good game, too, but came up short. I do think foreign policy would have been different under Ron Paul. No, RomneyCare was a tactical move; the "progressives" wanted to do single-payer, and the Bush Administration was threatening a Medicaid cutoff--which would have blown his state budget wide open.
The Proposal and Traditional Marriage
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Taylor Hicks, "Do I Make You Proud?"
