A person's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Chart of the Day
IRS Rips Off Dairy Farmer Because of His Daily Cash Deposits
The Seattle Recycle Police Shift Through Your Garbage Without Due Process
2012 LP Nominee Gary Johnson on Business and Politics
Johnson is now the CEO of a high-end consumer marijuana business--I personally haven't used marijuana and do not encourage people to use it; I also don't approve of licentious lifestyles, prostitution, gambling, etc., but I think the government hurts more than helps when it intervenes. The first half of the video mostly talks about stealth legalization by the states and (more interestingly) how Johnson is trying to position his publicly held company (according to this MBA).
The political discussion is more interesting. Johnson is quickly and predictively dismissive of Rand Paul as insufficiently libertarian. I have similar criticisms of Rand, but I'm nearly certain I will cast my vote for Rand Paul. As I imply in FB Corner below, in the unlikely event the GOP were to nominate someone like Donald Trump, I will not vote for the GOP ticket. There's even less chance I would vote for Clinton. I might vote LP or write in Rand Paul.
Facebook Corner
(Reason). WATCH: Gary Johnson says Donald J. Trump appeals to "racist" voters, electorate will write off GOP. See above interview.
I don't think it's racism but it's crass populism. Trump knows that the strident anti-immigrant right-wingers will appreciate his channeling and stoking absurd but longstanding nativist fears of porous borders and lawlessness, exploding related government cost burden and worries about labor competition in a sluggish economy.
Unfortunately, the economically illiterate anti-immigrants (who reject the title, insisting they are for "legal" immigrants) pick the wrong champion for their views; he has made polarizing comments against Mexicans that personally make my flesh crawl. I have personally lived in two Texas border cities, and I attended high school and college with a significant proportion of Latinos, even occasionally dated a Latina; I've also had Latino college students. What Trump said about Latinos is so contrary to what I know to be the truth, he's permanently lost my respect. Anyone who supports Trump after what he said about Mexicans does, in fact, invite Johnson's description of "racist". Trump's attack was premeditated, not an accident. If the GOP nominates Trump or another anti-immigrant to the ticket, it will lose at least a third of its own base; we could see a schism of sorts like we saw in the 2010 Alaska Senate race.
(Cato Institute). "The pruning knife of taxation is a very important instrument. With it the workers’ state will be able to clip the young plant of capitalism, lest it thrive too luxuriously.”
Yes taxes can be exploited to the point of tyranny, but taxes by themselves aren't a big deal. It's not tyranny to have taxes, it' not theft its not the end of the world
Yes, taxes ARE theft. they ARE a big deal. They are the price paid to the ruling class, typically at the disproportionate expense of the "other guy's" pocket. Whatever the government provides can be done faster, cheaper, and better by the private markets, but we are forced at the point of a gun to pay for the "privileges" of the counterproductive policies of incompetent, corrupt policies of a tyranny of political whores and parasitic, self-serving bureaucrats, I did not agree to pay for economic or international meddling, for policies protecting crony unionists and capitalists, for entitlement Ponzi schemes, for crackpot environmentalist alarmists, for morally hazardous socialist policies, etc. The OP and his fellow fascists can go straight to hell.
Marriage and Family
Choose Life: When Daddy Comes Home
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Lisa Benson via Townhall |
Kenny Rogers (with the First Edition), "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town"
