Quote of the Day
It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong,and an even bigger one to keep his mouth shut when he's right.
Jim Fiebig
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
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| Via Libertarian Republic |
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Image of the Day: US Foreign Policy
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
In my June 14 post, I urged readers to sign a petition urging freeing Meriam Ibrahim, an imprisoned then pregnant woman whom was sentenced to flogging and execution by Sudan for refusing to recant her Christian faith. She was raised by her Ethopian mother in her Christian faith after her Sudanese Muslim father abandoned the family in her early youth. She is married to a South Sudanese Christian and had a nearly 2-year-old first-born son before she recently gave birth while in chains. Charges of adultery were filed under Sharia law because Meriam is considered a Muslim by birth and marriage to a non-Christian is considered adultery. There is encouraging word out of Sudan today that an appeals court has reversed the prior court, which hopefully means Meriam will soon be reversed. (The Sudanese constitution guarantees freedom of religion.)
End the Fed: The Call Is Now International
I don't necessarily agree with the details of the protest; they appear to believe that the Fed is essentially monetizing Obama's foreign interventionist warmaking, which they oppose. I certainly agree that in appearance that the Fed has purchased enough Treasury securities to offset recent deficits, but money is fungible and DoD reflect just over a fifth of the obscene federal budget. The US has funded (although I concede wrongly) interventionist policy, regardless of the deficit. I am mostly opposed to the Fed's activist vs. sound money policy, which has exacerbated asset bubbles and resulted in misallocation of capital and undermined savings activity, including pensioners and others whom have depended on income investments; I'm worried about policies that consume rather than grow wealth. I also want to remind European protesters that they have their own corrupt central bankers trying to emulate feckless Fed policy, i.e., the ECB
SCOTUS Decision Day
SCOTUS declined a challenge to "the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 1992. Thumbs DOWN! The law was unusual in that it prevented 46 states from licensing sports betting while allowing three states to keep very limited sports betting and Nevada to keep its extensive wagering offerings." For obvious reasons, I believe this policy is anti-competitive and a violation of state sovereignty. I would prefer deregulation, and it looks as though New Jersey is considering a relevant workaround.
From PCL:
Today the United States Supreme Court decided a very important case with implications for the nation’s economy and for the rule of law. In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, the Court held that EPA violated the Clean Air Act by asserting authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from millions of apartment houses, office buildings, malls, hotels, and other commercial structures, but complied with the Act as to limiting greenhouse gas emissions from most existing power plants and manufacturing businesses.It should be noted that mainstream sources are reporting the overall decision as a victory for the EPA and crony environmentalists, but I prefer to see the glass as half-full in terms of putting the lawless Obama Administration in check, as PCL points out, EPA asserted authority beyond that provided by the Clean Air Act. Overall, I see this Administration's environmental policies dubious in terms of offsets by countries like China and India and flunking any legitimate cost-benefit analysis. Doubling down on environmental regulation is anti-competitive in terms of the global economy and hurts economic growth in a listless economy.
Facebook Corner
(The "progressive" troll decided to pick up where he left off in the exchange excerpted in yesterday's post.)
"resolution of property issues does NOT require State intervention" - This is naive. People appeal to the courts, lawyers and law enforcement officials to resolve property issues. The question here is whether same-sex couples should not be treated equally under the law. Judges are finding that there is no justification for inequality in that domain.
Also, you might want to refrain from calling everyone who disagrees with you a "fascist." Sounds a little unhinged and uneducated. Look up the definition before using a word.
Your "Progressive" troll lack of analytical skills and intelligence in general is stunning, but not surprising given your pathetic brainwashed mediocre "Progressive" groupthink education, unwilling and unable to think for yourself. Your constant whining about my allegedly "being naive", that government is "necessary" because, gosh darn, people are just too stupid to cope with their own problems without the all-knowing, all-wise State there to direct them through life is like a tiresome warped record repeating; it's all presumptuous crap. There are private sector alternative dispute resolution alternatives to State-dominated "justice", but you are, as usual, too close-minded in your slavish devotion to worshipping the State.
No, individuals, not couples, should be treated equally under the law. And it is NOT a matter of law (not withstanding judges ruling by fiat and making law which is intrinsically unconstitutional) that equal protection has any status beyond government actions. People in real life discriminate all the time; guys might prefer girls with certain physical characteristics, may not give certain nice or smart girls a chance. Some car buyers may prefer German or Japanese makes. As a consumer or a business you don't have to be "fair". If I want to create a club that only includes male PhD's like me, that's my choice, and it's none of the State's business whom I invite into my club. Communities can have preferences. Gay bars can have preferences. It's none of your business. It doesn't bother me if, as a straight man, I won't be allowed to enter a gay bar. This is different in the case of government policy, because the State is supposed to treat each citizen under the law. But don't give me any Statist-invented crap like "public access" to justify State empirebuilding over private decision making. If a vendor discriminates, competitors are more than willing to meet customer wants and needs and market their all-inclusive policies. In a similar fashion, if certain states want to attract gays with favorable public policy, they are free to do so; but gays imposing their values on all states is unconscionable.
Like I said before, gays entering into whatever relationship can draw up a legally-binding contract regarding their property and other rights--or agree to have any and all disputes settled by the Council of Elder Gays or whatever group they prefer. If they are so inclined, they can say "we will abide by California's community property standards for straight married couples". But the idea that gosh darn, gays are too stupid to decide such things before their commitment ceremonies, and so we have to overturn state marriage law by judicial fiat so the State can intervene in their relationships, too, is fairly unintelligent and presumptuous. Many libertarians have made this point: just because the State intervenes in the lives of straight couples/families, why extend that incompetence into the lives of gay couples? Until now, gay couples have been free to handle their own problems and not have Straight Big Brother watch over their shoulders.
As to the current mess in the courts, we have a stunning incompetent, incoherent, unconscionable decision by Justice Kennedy whom did not, contrary to your inadequate analysis, find a constitutional right of gays to marry; he did pay lip service to state autonomy on the issue (SCOTUS was concerned about setting another divisive Roe v Wade precedent), but look what he did: the Governator and then AG Jerry Brown refused to defend California Prop 8, a dereliction of duty and a violation of professional ethics; no one was allowed standing to defend Prop 8. So Justice Kennedy throws out an indisputably legal California proposition on the technical objection of standing while paying lip service to traditional state regulation. Not only that, but he all but wrote political correctness into his opinion. I call this "wink and a nod" justice--look at what I did, not what I didn't say (i.e., a gay right to "marry"). Since he blatantly disregarded an election because state officeholders refused to defend it, he was sending a signal to activist judges they could similarly disregard the will of the people in the other 30 or so states.
Finally, I wouldn't expect an uneducated person as yourself to understand what is meant by "fascism". There are essays on economic fascism (DiLorenzo has a good one on Rockwell's website). At the risk of oversimplification, fascism is an authoritarian system, much like socialism, except the State need not own production or businesses so long as they control them. So businesses and such may retain ownership in nominal terms, but they lack the ability to do what they want because of State control. (Think, for instance, of economically illiterate rent control policies.) I would argue we are operating to a large extent in an economically fascist State given the nature and extent of regulation.
Of course, any intelligent person knows where I'm going with this: a person, such as yourself, who lacks understanding of spontaneous order and sees the State as essential, is never quite comfortable with what other people do or say. So they want to crack down on politically incorrect thought and actions. For these fascists, you can have your freedom only insofar as we set the boundaries for it. That is, you can have the nominal freedom we decide you are allowed. This isn't "freedom"; it's censorship and slavery.
I've now had my say; you are just repeating yourself. This thread is done.
Wow. You went full Palpatine on me there with the hateful retching. Please get your blood-pressure checked asap.
Speaking of presumptuous, I never attended public school, and I do think for myself. I do not want to force private businesses to cater to gay weddings, nor is that the topic. The topic is whether the state can dictate the gender of who you can marry. I say no. You say yes, based on "societal norms." What were you saying about Statism? Fascism? Lol.
Idiot. How many times have I said in this thread gays are free to associate in their own communities, develop personal relationships, call their commitments anything they like. But you're like a broken record player "whether the state can dictate the gender of who you can marry". The issue, which you can't seem to grasp, is that the greater community or state can establish norms or preferences, e.g., clothed vs. naked in public. Marriage is not a legal creation; it's a social construct; you have the horse following the cart. Community laws reflect those norms. This is recognized in the tenth amendment's delegation of police power over safety, health and morals to the state. The states did not invent marriage ex post facto as a discriminatory mechanism; it's a traditional heterosexual construct thousands of years old across cultures that some gays want to co-opt out of some pathological need for greater community acceptance and to impose on others.
Not one of the 30-odd "gay marriage bans" outlawed gay communities or gay relationships; DOMA did not ban states from individually recognizing nontraditional relationships as "marriage". You keep arguing I want to give the state power over marriage, right after I specifically said I don't want the State intervening in the social context, including marriage; I just got through saying I thought it was stupid to allow Straight Big Brother into up to now private relationships--what about this is unclear to you?
If you followed my earlier discussions, I favor negative rights/liberties. For example, I would oppose bans on gay relationships, communities, sodomy laws, etc., by any level of government. I'm not quite an ancap, but I would largely privatize almost everything done in government today. I would prefer the state to stay out of marriage, but to the extent such laws are reflective of community values/standards, they are less evil. To the extent special interest groups subvert the relationship between private sector norms by crony corrupt judges, it's an abomination. Most libertarians recognize the value of persuasion, not violating negative rights/liberties, in the greater community.
Go away, troll. I've had my say, and I don't see the need to repeat myself.
(Cato Institute). Just one of the many reasons NOT to raise the minimum wage... http://bit.ly/1rq04p8
The minimum was and is still used to get higher wages for unions because if the minimum wage is increased then they too will ask for higher wages. It is just what they want. They really do not care if people make more, but do care about their union members making more.
No. It's actually a lot simpler that that. Protectionist labor wants to manipulate the supply of labor, creating an artificial scarcity through government. Raising the wage floor does exactly that (in addition to other means like restricting immigration).
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Dan Fogelberg (with Tim Weisberg), "The Power of Gold"
