Murphy's Seventh Law: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Image of the Day
 |
| FOREST... via Dollar Vigilante |
 |
| KRUGMAN, via Steve Joshua |
 |
| Cherokee Lizzie Warren, Via LFC |
 |
| Via Jody Brown |
 |
| The original MA flip-flopper SOS John Kerry |
Have We Learned 100 Years After WWI?
New Nominees for JOTY: Cuomo the Lesser and "All I Really Need To Know I Learned Serving under Blago" Quinn: Executive Lawlessness in the Age of Obama
 |
| Courtesy Getty Images via NR |
Chocolate Brings the World Together
HT Lawrence Reed
Facebook Corner
(Lawrence Reed). The entitlement mentality in the extreme: American taxpayers are forced to pay billions to house, clothe, feed, and provide medical care, education, and transportation to anybody who crosses the border and to this state-worshiping moron, that just isn't enough. Yet another testimonial to the moral and economic disaster that is the welfare state. Note that this woman has never held a full-time, value-creating job outside of government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rep._Barbara_Lee.
I will say that America's dysfunctional War on Drugs has unintended consequences, and The (Lawless) One has exacerbated the current problem. But repeating Milton Friedman's morally unacceptable justification of the welfare state to restrict immigration is a heresy to free market principles.
(Independent Institute). Senior Fellow Robert Higgs: "The question I asked more than six years ago is, if anything, even more pertinent today: Do the lines that government officials draw on maps sever the heart of humanity?"
Splendid little essay. I went to a high school in south Texas, and my first college degree is from a university in the middle of a Latino barrio in San Antonio. I also hold 3 graduate degrees from two other Texas universities. Some of my best college friends were Latino, I've asked out/dated multiple Latinas. I knew dormmates whom were first-generation college students, some whose parents had toiled as migrant farmworkers. The God-fearing majority of these people shared my hard work ethic, scrupulously honest: the salt of the earth. During my road warrior days, I met many friendly, cheerful older Latinas working as maids at various hotels. I find it infuriating that many anti-immigrants, some of whom comment below, are trying to hide behind a century of anti-immigrant laws, are using Milton Friedman's morally contemptible excuse of the social welfare state to justify economically-illiterate anti-growth policies, etc. If anyone should be deported, it's the anti-immigrant know nothings.
If you are for other people paying more in taxes than you do, you're a self-serving maggot.
(Bastiat Institute). "His first trial, before a judge ended in a guilty verdict...The second trial ended in a mistrial. THE THIRD TRIAL TOOK PLACE BEFORE A JURY, which found Brandon Watson not guilty."
Why should it take three trials to see a jury? Isn't there supposed to be a right to a jury trial in the US? The system did everything it could to screw this guy just for having the nerve to defend his family against unidentified home invaders.
It never seems to amaze me when the cops make a mistake, the victims are charged. How many break-ins by law enforcement are based on flimsy leads, lack of due professional care by the police, and occur at times when the victims, in a sleepy state, may be confused and don't know what's going on? In a split second, people's lives are ruined.
(IPI). Illinois adopted it's cigarette tax in 1941. Since then, cigarette taxes in Illinois have climbed to $1.98 per pack, the 17th highest rate in the nation. Read more: http://illin.is/1tE22pT
This is another morally corrupt "tax the other guy" concept. Consumption taxes should be simple, low, and across-the-board. When tax rates are punitive, it results in tax avoidance or a black market.
(IPI). The state of Pennsylvania isn’t afraid to shame their convicted politicians, and Illinois shouldn’t be either.
Recently, Pennsylvania started shaming the lawmakers who have been convicted of a crime by adding a detailed plaque under their portraits hanging in the state Capitol building in Harrisburg.
Illinois prisons should feature the Political Inmate of the Month...
(IPI). Chicago’s North Shore is synonymous with million-dollar homes and top-notch schools.
But tucked away within those wealthy villages is a city with schools on the other end of the spectrum.
Despite spending nearly $12,000 per child and receiving over 60% of its funding from state and federal sources, Waukegan schools have consistently underperformed and are alarmingly inferior to those in surrounding villages.
We need to privatize the education market. Since public schools are a monopoly, there is effectively no school choice, particularly for lower-income households. Central planning notoriously fails; administrators often don't have the authority to manage due to the meddling of state and federal red tape associated with funding and their ability to manage teaching resources is often mired in costly collective bargaining agreements with the corrupt, self-interested teacher unions, whom oppose market-based compensation, objective benchmarks for teaching performance, and more flexibility in resource deployment and teacher retention based on performance and efficiency.
Wow. I personally know very talented teachers that chose that district to teach in because they know the kids need good teachers. Poverty is the problem. The majority of the students in that district eat one time a day- at school. They come from single parent house holds, where that parent works 2 minimum wage jobs. The standards that they are held to (i.e. taking standardized tests on computers) are not even attainable because the district doesn't have the money to supply the students with computers (or "iPad carts"). How can a child with no computer literacy be compared with a student that is fluent with computers and technology. Not even touching on the language barrier- many students in this district are English Language Learners. Blaming the teachers will get you no where fast.
I figured the crony unionists would show up here. It's a load of self-serving crap.
(IPI). From the Chicago Tribune: "Just how dumb does the Chicago City Council believe its constituents to be? Really, really dumb."
How is it possible they created a shell inspector general position in the first place? No investigator staffers? And now stripping him of the independent authority to launch investigations, a clear violation of internal controls in the ethics board? If I was the IG, I would resign in protest. This action by the City Council is corrupt and a violation of professional ethics; O'Connor should have recused himself.
It's amazing that people continue to argue about this. Matthew comes closest: we are a democratic republic. It is absolutely clear that de Tocqueville used the terms synonymously, which nobody else in this thread picked up on. Here are chapter headings in vol. I: "Principal Causes which Serve to Maintain the Democratic Republic in The United States." "Government of the Democracy in The United States."
Now there are some hotly debated differences, but I would probably say that the concept of a republic involves some concept of intrinsic rights vested in the individual and authority must be exercised under some framework of law involving recognition of innate rights, equivalence of rights and due process under that framework. A democracy, on the other hand, would involve some element of suffrage in directly or indirectly (through representatives) establishing leadership in the State. Under these distinctions, you could establish leadership in a republic, say by some property-holding aristocracy, meritocracy or lottery, but where exercised authority is subordinate to the law; similarly, you could have a democracy that rejects recognition of individual rights.
(Cato Institute). "Germany is currently grappling with the ramifications of imposing a national minimum wage, and the lessons we can learn from their experience should deter calls for raising the minimum wage here."
You have to relate policy in terms economically illiterate people understand. Say, you have bought a house for $150K. But your neighbors later lobby for an ordinance setting the minimum sales price for houses in the future to $400K. You just got a promotion requiring you to move to another state. How do you find a buyer?
(a followup on yesterday's comment on Libertarian Catholic thread on the plight of Iraqi Christians, where I called for opening the doors of immigration in response):
Interesting. Does that apply to the refugees from Central America too?
I'm pretty much an open borders guy; in the context of the "youth invasion", I think in part this is an unintended consequence of the dysfunctional War on Drugs and in many cases, we are talking family reunification. I don't like how the politics of this are playing out. I do think Obama has exacerbated the problem, but I don't like the image of a crackdown on kids. I think the anti-immigrants are playing with fire.
(Libertarian Catholic). Government Needs to Quit This War on Religion. #libertarian #Catholic
Wheras I agree government policy discriminates againt faith-based agencies and there should be a moral conscience exception, which I think is a straightforward application of RFRA, I think from a long-term perspective, we should aim at privatizing family law.
More Proposals
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Steve Breen and Townhall |
Billy Joel, "Don't Ask Me Why"
