You are not thinking. You are merely being logical.
Neils Bohr to Albert Einstein
Image of the Day
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| Via LFC |
John Kerry: Another "I Actually Did Vote for the $87 Billion, Before I voted Against It", "It depends on what the meaning of the word “IS” is" Moment
For engaging in predictable tiresome evasive sophistic nuanced gibberish, John Kerry wins a tongue-in-cheek JOTY nomination.
The Fascist File
I'm starting a couple of new feature tags with this post, military intervention and the fascist file. The latter category will include, but not be restricted to, particularly egregious incidents of intolerant political correctness, government run amok, hypocritical intolerance, etc.
- Joseph Salazar (state representative, D-CO) has proposed banning state education funding to any school with a Native-American/Indian mascot which usage has been vetoed as offensive by any relevant tribal group. This form of extortion is immoral, unconstitutional on its face, and irrational. Mascots are not chosen on the basis of being a pejorative--if anything they are honorific; we don't see teams going by names like the Jerks or Nazis. The idea of putting a child's education at risk over the arbitrary preference of self-appointed mascot name censors and/or special interest groups is repugnant on its face.
- Ventura (CA) High School Principal Val Wyatt has vetoed a football booster club donation of 200 sandwiches from Chick-Fil-A because Wyatt disapproves of the chain ownership's Christian support of traditional marriage. This form of discrimination is morally repugnant and hypocritically intolerant. It leads me to wonder how they would treat, say, In-N-Out burgers. I hadn't heard of the chain at the time I was working for a client in Los Angeles. One day the work group decided to go there for lunch. The first thing I noted was that this store was the most crowded one I've ever been to. But something caught my attention as I unwrapped my burger and finished my soft drink (I read everything: cereal boxes, whatever--including a curvy UT coed's top, which said 'If you can read this, you're a pig': easier said than done--maybe she should have written it on her forehead...): there were tiny font Bible verses. Could you imagine the kerfuffle raised by the ACLU over the separation of church and state if In-N-Out made a public school donation?
On the Illegal, Unconstitutional ISIS War
Facebook Corner
(IPI). Your stylist has to get government permission to cut your hair. That's true no matter what state you live in. In fact, as of 2007, 20% of all U.S. workers need a permission slip from the government to work.
Pardon me, whether it is an EMT or Cosmetologist, I refuse to not seek someone who has been properly licensed. Cosmetology licenses ensure that the person providing services knows more than just cutting hair or shaping a beautiful nail. That person is also licensed in the ways of keeping a clean and safe atmosphere for their patrons. Remove licensing and how am I guaranteed that the hair stylist I am about to see, whether for an $8 cut or $50 cut, has the same ability not to spread parasites or disease because they know how to disinfect products. You are pushing the market towards the $50 haircut sector through the removal of this license. Why? Because a person who charges that much would claim they went through proper training and should be allowed to charge that much. A person who only charges $8 would never again be trusted. Please tell me who can afford this on a regular basis? It is the regulation that ensures my safety as a patron when I visit the $8 hair stylist.
What is next? Allow for the deregulation of medical technicians, DSP's, QIDP's, perhaps soon ENT's... Hey I know CPR and first aid! I can do those jobs too... Right? Sign me up for training!
What I read was a lot of self-serving anti-competitive garbage. It's presumptuous as hell about people whom just haven't gotten a license. I remember a while back some decades-long barber had failed to renew his license promptly and was forced requalify from scratch, including exams over services he had never offered. He had decades of satisfied customers. You won't win or retain customers if you provide substandard goods or services. But filtering suppliers of a service is not in a customer's best interest; state-enforced cartels simply promote an artificial shortage and lowers the consumer's standard of living. Let the customer decide whether he or she wants to pay more for the certificate on your wall. Prohibiting a voluntary transaction between a skilled barber and a customer--none of your business, not to mention an immoral intervention by the State. The last few barbers I chose had nothing to do with a certificate on the wall; it had a lot to do with how busy they were and my perceptions of the results for prior customers. Cutting hair is not rocket science.
(Being Classically Liberal). Bastiat won the majority vote [on group profile picture selection].
YES! May there be no broken windows or crony candle makers during his reign.
(Bastiat Institute). The federal government is so great at building websites, of course they should run the Internet.
"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is going further than most of them today and asking that the Federal Communications Commission reclassify broadband as a utility using Title II of the Communications Act — exactly what net neutrality advocates have been pushing for."
What is amazing is how so many people have been duped by the net neutrality zealots with socialist-like mantras of "let's make all Internet traffic equally slow", they don't understand the Title II nonsense is a classic crony capitalist setup that makes for regulatory capture, suppresses smaller competitors and will substitute relentless price-dropping market competition with market-freezing bureaucratic and judicial inertia. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
(Being Classically Liberal). In your opinion, should the U.S cease or continue with Airstrikes against the Islamic State?
Cease airstrikes; it is dysfunctional and morally hazardous to do otherwise. It's time for Iraq's neighbors to shoulder the burden of regional stability. As George Will observed, "[ISIS] is perhaps 20,000 fighters possessing some artillery and armor but no air force. It is an island of tenuously occupied territory in a sea of hostile regimes -- those of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Iraq's Kurdish region, which has its own regime. These command approximately 2 million troops who, with ample air power, can pulverize the Islamic State whenever the regimes summon the will to do so."
Iraq wanted us to end our unwelcome occupation, and it shoulders the responsibility of unstable, incompetent leadership. It's an unacceptable precedent to bail out irresponsible behavior. With over a $17.5T debt, we have no fiscally responsible or moral cause or international mandate for meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
(IPI). More than 5,000 Michigan teachers have decided to leave their union, taking more than $3 million in state, local and national dues with them.
This comes after a year-long campaign to inform Michigan’s teachers of their right to opt-out.
Amazing what rational people do when they discover only a small portion of their dues go to bargaining vs. supporting a cushy lifestyle for union "leadership" and subsidizing economic illiteracy and a political ideology only 1 in 5 Americans support.
Meaning 5,000 teachers care about students more than power
Exactly how is what they will get in their pension speak for how they care for students.
"Progressive" parasites think they are "more equal" because they made a corrupt bargain with political whores
(George Will). This week, extremism stained the Senate. Forty-eight members of the Democratic caucus attempted to do something never previously done: Amend the Bill of Rights. They tried to radically shrink First Amendment protection of political speech. They evidently think extremism in defense of the political class’s convenience is no vice.
Why am I not surprised to see fascist censors opposing George Will's spot-on diagnosis in this thread? How many disingenuous arguments are we going to see that some groups like newspapers which endorse candidates are "more equal"? Since when did I cede my rights through a group, like a corporation, to represent my point of view? Since when is some popularity poll citing support for censorship supposed to be a pretext for tyranny of the majority?
Proposals
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Barry Manilow, "Beautiful Music"
