When you want to test the depths of a stream,
don't use both feet.
Chinese Proverb
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
Big Nanny Police
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
- The Romeikes: This is the German family that wanted to home-school their children, something acceptable throughout the US (in fact, I believe one of my nieces is homeschooling her children). Germany doesn't accept homeschooling, and apparently the Romeikes were threatened over custody of their children (and jailtime) and fled to the US in 2008, filing for political asylum. This was granted by the immigration judge in 2010. ICE, not thinking German bans on homeschool was worthy of political asylum, appealed the decision and won the right to deport the Romeikes. The Justice Department fought the matter before the US circuit board of appeals in 2013, arguing "teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen of Germany.” [Expletive deleted; if there is 'intolerance' in this story, it has to do with intolerance of parental sovereignty, hypocritical State intervention against the traditional institution of family.] Last month SCOTUS refused the appeal. Whereupon, and I didn't see this at the time I commented on the story, DHS decided to drop deportation the day after SCOTUS confirmed their right to deport the family. What I wrote was true: the family did exhaust its appeals to stay in the country, but the fact that DHS backed off deportation was a vindication of sorts. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad ICE/DHS did the right thing in the end, whatever the motive, but it would have been better for the Romeikes not to have spent 4 years in legal limbo as the government fought them in 3 more courts unwilling to accept the decision to grant asylum. I'm not sure why the Administration backed off. Maybe they thought it wasn't in their best interests pending immigration reform efforts in the House. Perhaps they were more interested in validating their authority to deport. But this endorsement of Statist tactics to strip custody of children from their parents over education choice is morally unacceptable. The issue, of course, is what happens to the next family seeking asylum under similar circumstances. We cannot depend on this lawless Administration, given their repeated abuse of the concept of discretion. We need the Congress to reaffirm the right of families facing asylum for similar pro-liberty reasons, like religious freedom and education choice.
I love this story....
Facebook Corner
(Reason). "I was in shock that someone who was a nonviolent person, who didn't hurt people, who was real peaceful and honest...could get life without the possibility of parole. Murderers get 20 years...You could rob a bank and get 10 years...You could kidnap someone and get 10, 12 years..."
We need comprehensive prison sentencing reform; there is no moral justification for the "land of the free" having one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and the highest among developed economies. We also need to look at the "effectiveness" of the war on victimless crimes: the high cost of prisons for nonviolent offenders, unjust, inflexible, disproportionate sentencing, etc.
(Reason). Allow anyone who wants to keep a catastrophic plan, force insurers to compete across state lines, and most of all, GROW THE SUPPLY OF MEDICAL CARE BY ELIMINATING IDIOTIC BARRIERS TO ENTRY...
I've argued much the same, although I have some nuanced differences. For example, I don't want ObamaCare goldplating benefit mandates for interstate markets. I do like the idea of groups (say, small business, faith-based cooperatives, etc.) able to insure or self-insure across any combination of states not unlike major corporations operating across states, federal reform of the interstate market to curb state mercantilistic/crony practices, enable nationally certified major medical/catastrophic healthcare vendors ability to competeacross state lines; I want to see an end or at least a cap and equal protection for tax-advantaged healthcare benefits, with tax advantages not covering ordinary health expenses; as a transitional step, I would like to see a Medicaid-like cost sharing arrangement of state/regional high risk pools and the principle of Subsidiarity applied to federal healthcare programs, with more regional/state/local control over administration. We also need occupational licensing reforms and transferability of credentials, streamlined reform of pharmaceuticals and device approvals. We also need to look at supporting "no fault" types of healthcare delivery, i.e., lessening paperwork to physicians with support for innovative business models like concierge medicine.
Eventually the end game would to be restore the healthcare sector to more of a free market.
(IPI) State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago) filed legislation today to make the temporary tax hike permanent. Call (800) 788-8495 right now and tell your state representative to say "NO" to another tax hike.
For years and years politicians have run on the low hanging fruit of "cut taxes." Where has it got us. You want crumbling roads, bad schools, Indiana or Arkansas's poverty rate, then strangle the government.
"Progressive" trolls are blind to the fact that everything government touches turns to crap. Government is the problem, not the solution to the problems of government roads, government schools and government pensions. What Illinois needs is a return to the free market; PRIVATIZE it ALL!
Come on, Chris [Christie]; as if Bridge-gate wasn't enough, give me another reason not to support you in 2016. What about over $1T spent and over 4000 Americans dead from meddling in 2 Gulf regional countries of dubious strategic interest don't you get? We'll probably be over $20T in debt by the time Barry "Nobel Peace Prize alumnus whom approves kill lists" Obama, and that's not counting another $80T in unfunded senior liabilities.
What would impress me is not how hawkish you can sound next to Hillary Clinton whom, like Barry, has been careful not to concede the middle ground on defense to the GOP. Romney was so anxious to stay to the right of Barry on defense he was one "Daisy" ad away from being blown out of the water. As bad as Barry was/is on foreign policy and defense, Romney seemed almost anxious to pull the trigger on the likes of Iran or North Korea.
Tough rhetoric may be populist red meat, but it comes across as irresponsible and impulsive. What I want to hear the GOP say is this meddling--whether we are talking Clinton, Bush, or Obama--has unintended consequences. Nation building is not our strong suit. We need to realize we don't have the resources to outspend the next 10 militaries put together, we are not the world's policeman, there are often dozens of conflicts going on in the world which are none of our business, and we can't keep playing Presidential Whac a Mole. There's a lot to be said about knowing how to choose one's battles. Chris, I want to you say is that you have learned the bitter lessons over the past 20 years and need to focus on the core task of cutting debt and taxes, restoring constitutional liberties, relieving the chokehold of regulation holding down business growth, and downsizing the federal government. We do not need to engage in morally hazardous foreign policy.
(Reason). So far the debate over Net Neutrality mandates has been between FCC bureaucrats who want to increase their control of the Internet a lot and progressives who want the FCC to regulate ISPs completely. That's the wrong argument to have.
Fascists often coin a misleading term like "net neutrality" to spin their stealth, pushing-on-a-string megalomanic agenda to command and control an industry. The Internet has flourished and innovated precisely because, like for the most part the rest of the high tech industry has been largely unregulated. Imagine if FDR was still alive today, trying to prevent cellphone prices from deflating by assigning quotas for market participants, the same nonsense he did for agriculture and still persists to this very day... The fact is that the FCC tried to prevent carriers from offering premium services to content providers; it lost multiple lawsuits under this lawless Administration's unconstitutional power grab by fiat. So now it's repackaged its regulatory power grab by trying to regulate premium services; what about the 2 GOP regulators out of 5 voting against premium-service regulations don't you get?
Of course they would focus on freedom for corporations...I mean, Reason magazine has to make their investors like the Koch Bros happy, right?
Infantile conspiracy crackpots. Unable to believe any libertarian would work for any think tank where he would compromise his views. "Progressive" trolls, no doubt sponsored by George Soros (how do you like it?), always resort to Koch-bashing... Listen, airhead, I have opposed "net neutrality" from the get-go as a fascist power grab, and I have absolutely no vested interest in the ISP space or any special-interest group. I simply know that everything the government touches, turns to crap, like healthcare and education. The Internet has been open from the get-go; the free market works; if an ISP unduly censors websites, it loses customers to more open vendors.
(National Review). Why don’t pundits take Rick Santorum seriously as a presidential contender?
This is a guy whom got blown out for reelection in a purple state by a Democrat with all the personality as a plate of grits. He's not a free market advocate, in fact was supportive of steel industry protectionist and is not sympathetic with the stand against forced unionism. He was part of the US Senate leadership which lost its way in the mid-2000's, yielding large deficits, an unpaid for Medicare benefit expansion. He is an interventionist in international affairs, which cost us 6000 American dead and over $1T added to the deficit in dubious foreign entitlements. He's a political opportunist whom endorsed Romney in 2008 just to turn on Romney in 2012. He has almost no chance of winning a general election in 2016.
The GOP has doubtful prospects in 2016 of capturing the White House unless it provides a vision which goes beyond 'Democratic Party Lite'. We need to see a firmly pro-liberty approach, rejecting the angry anti-immigrant rhetoric, more of a revamped Old Right/Robert Taft fusion libertarian-conservatism: pro-market, non-interventionist foreign policy.
(Reason). Oddly, Marco Rubio does not seem to worry about the message his shiftiness sends to the youth of America.
Well, of course President Zipper famously admitted to once trying marijuana but he didn't inhale. Yeah, right. What's next: asking Rubio if he got laid before getting married?
I'm not interested in what Rubio was doing in his salad years. Granted, it seems every politician starting with Baby Boomer Bill Clinton has been asked about past recreational drug use (for obvious reasons).
It is legitimate to ask where Rubio stands on the War on Drugs. But let's respect the privacy of candidates' families and stop engaging in gotcha journalism.
And now for some troll stomping: off a Libertarianism.com post:
But what if virtually insatiable global corporations are making most if not all important legislation through their 'working group' members? Camus' above sentiment gets a bit dicey when we add global corporations into the mix.
This is crackpot conspiracy nonsense. Corporations cannot force people to buy goods and services; only the State has the force to legally plunder. Statists use their power and stolen riches to manipulate the economy.
[In a US Sen. Mike Lee thread on HHS Nominee Burwell]:
[Burwell] didn't shut down anything. The Tea Party shut every thing down. Quit watching FOX News.
"Progressive" trolls are in a state of denial. We have a spendthrift political whore in the White House and more in the Senate. Under Dem control of one or more chambers of Congress and/or the White House, the federal budget has gone up over $1T, and the national debt has doubled. The spendaholics have resisted any and all efforts to cut bloated spending, and when it came to implementing very modest sequester cuts, literally a penny or two on the dollar, it wasn't the Congress whom engaged in PR gimmicks like cutting operating hours at tourist attractions, early-releasing immigrant prisoners, etc., all transparent attempts to manipulate gullible citizens into believing the way to cut the budget is not in things like consolidating redundant facilities, laying off unproductive paper-pushing bureaucrats, freezing hiring and putting projects on hold, trimming training and travel budgets, etc. No, the thing this lawless Administration did was to choose to cut not the fat in the budget, but spending which would attract negative press coverage. No, the reason we oppose the morally outrageous spendthrifts is not due to Fox News; you are simple in a state of denial about the incestuous nature between the corrupt mainstream media and the White House Propaganda Office. PS Even the Daily Beast, hardly a shill for the Tea Party, made reference to Burwell's role in the monument shutdown as a potential issue in her nomination battle.
More Creative Proposals
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Series
Neil Diamond, "Holly Holy". If I've ever fantasized about performing a Neil Diamond song, it's this one. Diamond is such a prolific, talented songwriter of so many classic tunes, it's difficult to single any single out, but I particularly remember trying to find a copy of this one at a used book/record shop in Austin. The lyrics, the arrangement, the performance--just outstanding.
