Quote of the Day
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.Cornelius Tacitus
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
Image of the Day
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| Via National Review |
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| Via the Independent Institute |
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| Via Bastiat Institute |
Survey Says Obama is the Shittiest President Since End of World War II
Quinniapic finds that one-third of Americans rate Barack Obama as the worst president since 1945. Forty-five percent of respondents said the country would have been better off if Mitt Romney had been elected in 2012. Another 28 percent say George W. Bush was the pits and a relatively tiny fraction call out Richard Nixon for the dubious honors. Who did people say was the best president? Ronald Reagan pulled 35 percent, Bill Clinton a solid 18 percent, and John Kennedy took home the bronze with 15 percent.Oh my God. Carter did not even place to show among the losers....
Chart of the Day
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| Courtesy of Cato Institute Expect the first two agencies to explode up in the years ahead |
I am pro-immigration and have a great tolerance and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity. My own parents were raised bilingual (French and English); familiar readers know my first language was French; I also took high school Spanish and picked up some Brazilian Portuguese in 1995 (the client was a Citibank subsidiary that required English in the workplace; a lot of Portuguese was spoken, of course. They thought that I, as a dumb American, couldn't understand them, which was somewhat amusing. What I particularly didn't like was when Brazilians tried to charge me a higher, "American" price for things, and I often walked away in response.) I had to pick up Portuguese; most restaurants did not have bilingual menus or waiters, and I had to take taxis with non-English cabbies to and from the client location. I also had a Brazilian girlfriend whom spoke very limited English. But the point is, I did not expect natives to speak English or to accommodate me.
I am tolerant of certain religious sensibilities; for example, when I was the contractor operations and project DBA at a Chicago city agency back in 2002, one of the project DBA's working under my lead was a turban-wearing Sikh. The turban didn't bother me or any city personnel as far as I could tell. Generally, though, I think businesses have the right to set policies on language, uniform/dress codes, etc. When I was a business school professor wearing a suit was standard; as an IT professional though, I've often been told to ditch the suit; it didn't fit their culture. I'm also fairly tolerant of Muslims wearing hijab and burqa or chador. I think in general it's a good idea for employers to be flexible about these things, but the employer has a right to know. (Ultimately, an employer has a right to hire whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants. Any employer who discriminates provides the competition an advantage and a way of marketing a more inclusive policy to a more cosmopolitan consumer base. I do not like government legal thugs engaging in politically correct policy.
Judicial Watch has some telling discussion:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency tasked with enforcing workplace discrimination laws, is suing a private American business for firing a group of Hispanic and Asian employees over their inability to speak English at work, claiming that the English-language requirement in a U.S. business constitutes “discrimination.”
Under President Obama the EEOC has taken a number of unprecedented actions to protect foreigners in the workplace, including illegal immigrants. In 2009 the agency issued a controversial order making a workplace English rule illegal. The directive came after the EEOC bullied a national healthcare firm to pay nearly half a million dollars to settle a discrimination lawsuit in which the government alleged that Hispanic workers were punished for speaking Spanish.
The agency has been on a roll ever since, taking legal action against businesses across the country accusing them of everything from discriminating against minorities for running criminal background and credit checks to discriminating against Muslims for not allowing hijabs on the job. The criminal background and credit checks disproportionately exclude blacks from hire, according to EEOC lawsuits against several companies. Businesses that forbid Muslim women from wearing a hijab at work violate religious rights guaranteed under the nation’s civil rights laws even when all head coverings are banned for all employees, the EEOC assertsAbsolutely not. No company, for instance, should be required to provide translators on the chance of hiring people wanting to converse in a different language. It is not up to the government to decide whether or not a job requires speaking English. If I see a worker violating policy, I need to be able to communicate directly with him; I can't afford to hire translators to communicate in every or any dialects under the sun, and I don't hire bilingual workers to translate other worker communications--he's got his own job to do. I don't have a problem with say a German restaurant that wants to do everything in German, including charging prices in euros; if they can draw enough customers, all the power to them. Personally, I think it's hard enough to make a go at a restaurant without filtering labor or customers, but maybe they know what they're doing.
As for doing criminal, drug and credit checks, I would urge employers to giving people whom have paid their debt to society a fresh start. Obviously there are certain positions, say, access to company assets or national security or access to children (given a predator past), where the employer has a right to know because he will be held responsible for their actions. I don't like the EOCC coming into the picture every time a disgruntled ex-employee has an ax to grind. I think the free market is a far better judge than government fascists.
Anniversary of a Terrible Battle Dividing the American People
Reason's Nanny of the Month July 2014
Apparently this clueless blond bureaucrat believes that a legal product called sunscreen cannot be used by children under their parents' direction.
It reminds me of an unrelated story when I went to visit a younger brother in Beaumont one weekend while I was a UH doctoral student. I don't think I had gone to the beach since I was a kid; we went with some friends to a Gulf Coast beach. My brother and friends didn't do much but girl-watch on the beach, and on this overcast day, there weren't many ladies around. I made a rookie mistake of not realizing you could get sunburned without the sun out. My legs got burned badly; I didn't even realize at first, until my brother's Asian-American friend said, "Your legs are f*-ed up." (Now it's funnier than it sounds, because this guy had an unexpectedly deep Southern accent/drawl like any Southern white man.) I went through hell the next couple of weeks at the mere brushing of clothing on my legs...
The Cochran Runoff Scandal Is Disgusting
From Libertarian Republican:
WJTV is reporting that Chris McDaniel has now identified 3,300 irregular votes, about 40 percent of the margin by which Thad Cochran won the June 24th runoff primary. It is not clear whether these are only from Hinds County, or if other counties are now allowing McDaniel's people to inspect their books. In the meanwhile, the Cochran is claiming that the the $15 per voter payments made to a black pastor were only for paying drivers...This self-same journalist is now claiming that a credible source within the Cochran campaign says that the Senator is planning on resigning if a new election is called.Reportedly a number of black voters recruited for voting in the runoff had earlier voted in the Democratic primary, making them ineligible under state law.
Facebook Corner
I think "traditional" is a poor choice of words. Take, for instance, adolescent rebellion against authority, sexual norms, etc. I think that's actually part of a predictable pattern. One needs to examine unconventionality within context, say, for instance, the dominant paradigm and culture in an academic discipline, challenging assumptions. And I don't think it's formulaic in concept, e.g., being different for the sake of being different. I think it starts with a problematic anomalous observation which defies conventional explanation.
(FEE). If you had one wish to make the world a better place, what would you wish for?
Universal enforcement of negative rights/liberties
(Lawrence Reed). On this date in 1890, Congress passed the incredibly vague Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It was partially reined in a few years later by the Fuller Court, named for the best chief justice in American history, Melville Fuller.
The last time a competent Democrat President nominated a worthy justice to SCOTUS. If we had 5 Fuller's on SCOTUS, we could restore the lost promise of American liberty.
(Jeffrey Tucker). The Hobby Lobby decision is a reminder: what seems like a great culture war of our time is actually a wide and growing set of conflicts that are rooted in government intervention. If government had never pushed business to get into the health care business in the first place -- this all happened because of WW2 wage controls -- we wouldn't even be talking about "religious accommodation" in these mandates. So long as there is a central plan, there will be wicked arguments about whose values should prevail in the implementation of that plan. Get rid of all mandates and we would finally, at last, see peace dawn.
Jeffrey, government, to the best of my knowledge, didn't exactly "push business to get into the health care business in the first place."
Companies competing to hire workers at government controlled wages found "Health Insurance Benefits" to be quite popular, and employers *adopted the habit* of not reporting the value of benefits to the IRS as wages. In October of 1943 the IRS issued a ruling confirming that health benefits paid by employers were tax exempt. This formalized a system of third party payment. This is entirely unlike how we purchase most of our goods and services, directly from the producer. This third party system distorts the free market and is deeply unfair. People working for large corporations receive health insurance that their employers purchase with pre tax dollars; while those of us who work for ourselves must pay for it with our own after tax dollars. This policy punishes entrepreneurs, the self-employed and everyone else who doesn't work for a company that provides health insurance.
This unfair tax rule was merely the beginning of a massive government intrusion into the health care marketplace.
You've GOT to be kidding. There was the whole wage-and-price control thing. Businesses, deprived of workers in a wartime economy, faced a shortage of workers. Of course, money is fungible, and this was a workaround to wage controls and the labor supply/demand curve, which as you point out FDR looked the other way, pretending benefits aren't wages... You are correct that the policy is a violation of equal protection and it was a disastrous foothold into government meddling in the sector. But make no mistake--government policy was responsible, and they created a popular monster almost impossible to kill once the genie left the bottle because too many people were vested.
(Libertarianism.org) Why do people get so mad at #WallStreet? What exactly is Wall Street—and how badly does it need to be regulated? #liberty #libertarian
Because the Statist politician is the whore: no bank can force deposits at the point of a gun. Without government meddling and perverse morally hazardous guarantees, the banks would be forced to act prudently or face bankruptcy.
(Cato Institute). "In a time when health care policy at the state level so often seems to be gridlocked, there are still channels to improve the access to care without increasing costs or reducing quality."
Excellent ideas, particularly about improving cross-state portability of credentials and reforming state occupational cartels. Ron Paul, an obstetrician, did not mind competition from midwives. We could also look at liberalized immigration, usability reform in regulatory overhead, tort reform, and decentralization of government, pushing authority and disbursements at the local levels in accordance with the principle of Subsidiarity.
(Libertarianism.org) See above Spencer quote.
says mr. survival of the fittest himself. no thanks
Troll! Mischaracterization of Spencer's views is a historic smear.
(Reason). Do you support OTC birth control?
Of course, birth control should be over the counter (you can get condoms OTC in places like Walmart); however, some social conservatives probably worry about female minors getting access. As for the "Progressives", it doesn't fit into the rhetoric of victimization and paternalism of the State and politically correct government-mandated/subsidized gender-related expenses.
BC pills are drugs that change a woman's body, and can cause serious side effects in some women. That is certainly cause enough to make them through a physician only.
Troll! Didn't I just say "doesn't fit into the rhetoric of paternalism of the State"? This is something, of course, a female should discuss with her physician (and not just birth control but all sorts of supplements, etc.)--but what's next? Require a doctor's excuse before you can buy peanut butter on the chance you may be allergic?
(in a different thread)
why wouldn't you? it's the individual's choice to take it. it is NOT societies obligation to buy it for you. get over yourself.
poor little man. you have no idea how health insurance works
It's not just the condescending troll's lack of civility. She has no idea of the concept of insurance itself; common reproductive-related expenses are ordinary in nature, not following risk-based pools for uncommon, high-cost expenses, like drivers' showing coverage for bodily injury/property damage. Tax policies allowed people to transfer ordinary health expenses to a privileged status, which has contributed to sector inflation...
(Independent Institute). "One doubts that any IRS boss supports tax simplification, but taxpayers should take Koskinen at his word that a flat tax would make targeting campaigns much more difficult. Koskinen has been completely obstructionist about the targeting campaign now under investigation, complaining that an agency with a IT budget of $1.8 billion is underfunded. Likewise, Rep. Sandy Levin of the Ways and Means Committee is on record as having said that the two years of lost emails confirm that the IRS needs more funding for a more modern system."
It's more like an 18.5 minute gap in the IRS' backup tapes. (If you don't understand the joke, Google Watergate.)
(National Review). Is the Left aware of what the Supreme Court actually does? Probably not.
As I wrote in another forum, do those of us without active sex lives also have to buy the couples dinner and drinks? Business owners don't decide what women do with their take-home pay. These economically illiterates don't understand the slightest thing about insurance and real risk-taking. What's the point in going through an insurance company markup for a predictable, reasonably inexpensive expense you can get filled at any number of local drugstores. Apparently the fiction is to make your boss subsidize your private life--but money is fungible and benefits are part of your expense to the company. If insurance costs less without birth control, the money comes back to you in higher take-home pay and if you want to spend the extra money on birth control, vibrators, or whatever, it's up to you. No one is taking anything away from you. You just pay for it differently.
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| Via Drudge Report |
More Marriage Proposals
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Bob Gorrell via Townhall |
Dan Fogelberg, "The Language of Love"
