I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was
that one had to explain nothing.
Katherine Mansfield
Tweet of the Day
The TRUMP (White) House is going to be HUGE! Lots of big deals! Lots of money to be made! Obama made bad deals; I wrote the art of the deal.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) August 15, 2015
Image of the Day |
| via Tyna Gallifrey |
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| via Ray Estrada |
Tradeoffs: Would You Save a Child From Drowning?
Bad Judge of the Year Nominee: Colorado Appeals Court Rules Against Economy Liberty For Wedding Cake Bakers: Thumbs DOWN
I think Reason posted on this topic, and I had browser issues before posting a comment. I am not a trained lawyer, but I know enough of the background for other laymen. During England's history, there was a time when travel between cities could be dangerous, with limited accommodations between cities. Say at the end of your day at travel, there was only one inn in the area. If the inn had available rooms, but the owner arbitrarily refused to provide a room, it put the traveller's life at risk. So the State basically tied a business license to a mandate that an innkeeper couldn't discriminate if he opened up his doors for the general public. (What if the traveler couldn't pay his bill or was a criminal or what if the action had the effect of inns closing their doors to the general public? I would need to research the topic.)
Now if you go to the infamous Jim Crow laws, keep in mind local government is a monopoly. So when the government enacted discriminatory policies, say prohibiting equal protection among prospective customers, this was also a blatant infringement on businesses wanting to establish race-neutral policies. The problem with civil rights legislation is it went from government policies enforcing discriminatory practices to governments applying anti-discrimination mandates on business policies. The public accommodations argument, which hardly makes sense in an American economy with a thriving, highly competitive environment for restaurants and hotels, is an unnecessary intervention in a market where publicity of discriminatory practices might ruin an establishment's reputation and adversely affect sales.
Applying public accommodations standards to wedding cakes (and customized ones) is morally outrageous and absurd. In the past, I've used the fact that I'm left-handed, like about 10% of the population, to illustrate the point. I can't find left-handed items in many office supply stores. But I'm not agitating for the government to list being a southpaw as a government-protected/favored class. There is a niche in the market for southpaws; there are Internet websites specializing in those items. If I choose to open a big and tall men's shop, I don't have to carry women's or children's items. If I want to specialize in the area of traditional vs. gay weddings, that's my prerogative. I don't have to explain why. Government intervention on wedding services is a type of slavery; it's morally offensive and unjustifiable. In every one of these gay fascist incidents, the gays have been able to make alternative arrangements. This is about the illegitimate extension of positive rights and violation of negative rights. I expect these laws will eventually get appealed to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS will back the bakers/photographers, whatever.
Facebook Corner
(Rand Paul 2016). Ira Stoll from Reason weighs in on their [Trump and Sander's] similar policy.
[This troll, a socialist Sanders cultist, dislikes the description of economic nationalism and the reference to national socialism. I'll discuss Sanders' politics in a future post, but the familiar reader knows I've already dismissed much of the propaganda below, e.g., the myth of the Scandinavian socialists. For those who can't wait, go to mises.org and use their search engine. I'll also reference this discussion in a future post. The brunt of my reply below is the first paragraph, setting the record straight on the old false leftist claim that the Nazis were right-wing, not left-wing.]
Nazis weren't socialist. They masqueraded as socialist but implemented very few socialist principles. They were fascist capitalists. Our government is more socialist than the Nazis were.
I'm just going to copy and paste this here. Don't use the word "socialism" in ignorance.
"Democratic Socialism is a system of government and economics that at its base believes that capitalism is a tool to be used for the good of the people. An unfettered capitalistic system spins out of controls and ends up with a small handful of rich elite who either buy out the government for their own bidding (an oligarchy), or assume complete control of the government and people (case in point: Nazi Germany). Democratic Socialism seeks to remedy this probably by offering all the benefits of capitalism with some regulation to prevent injustice and government corruption. It is a system that is by the people, for the people. Many countries in the past have masqueraded as socialist when in reality they were authoritarian communist. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries are models of modern socialism. Denmark is one of the easiest countries to start a business in the world, attesting to the fact that socialism is not at odds with business and capitalism.
Authoritarian Communism is a system in which the state completely controls the economy. Citizens have no private property, and the get their pay directly from the government in most cases. Freedoms of religion and speech are usually infringed upon. It is not a true democratic society, there is usually only one party, or possibly two mock parties. Democracy is dead in these governments, and you have no rights as an individual. You forced to be merely a cell that works for the governing authority.
What Bernie stands for is Democratic Socialism, or libertarian socialism, which preserves the rights of all people, but does not treat businesses as individuals protected by the Constitution. He works for the interest of the American people, not those who would seek to purchase the governing officials for their own benefit. If you read this, then you know what these terms now mean, and I would hope that you would no longer use them ignorantly. Communism and Socialism are not the same, and our government is already largely Socialist, excepting that our politicians can be legally bought by the highest bidder, resulting in the oligarchy we now live in. Republican candidates are pushing toward a system that is nothing less than fascism. Bernie hopes to return control of the government to the people."
[Troll] doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, Naziism is a variation of fascism, that may allow some facade of private ownership but under the regulation of the State. If you study the rise of Hitler, you know he targeted Jewish capitalists in a classic class warfare argument.:
"Using a farrago of previously unpublished statistics, Aly describes in detail a social system larded with benefits —open only to Aryan comrades, naturally. To “achieve a truly socialist division of personal assets,” he writes, Hitler implemented a variety of interventionist economic policies, including price and rent controls, exorbitant corporate taxes, frequent “polemics against landlords,” subsidies to German farmers as protection “against the vagaries of weather and the world market,” and harsh taxes on capital gains, which Hitler himself had denounced as “effortless income.”
"Aly demonstrates convincingly that Nazi “domestic policies were remarkably friendly toward the German lower classes, soaking the wealthy and redistributing the burdens of wartime.” And with fresh memories of Weimer inflation, “transferring the tax burden to corporations earned the leadership in Berlin considerable political capital, as the government keenly registered.”
(Rand Paul 2016). "You want to go where the need is greatest," Paul said. "In our country, when you have cataracts, they're relatively easy to fix. The people we will treat in Haiti -- many of them will be completely blind."
I'm getting ticked off by a lot of trolls trying to politicize Rand Paul doing charitable work in Latin America, just like he's been doing for uninsured people in Kentucky and elsewhere. Some politicians (including Trump) make hundreds of thousands in speeches, and nobody says a word, but give someone the gift of sight, and jerks try to criticize you for it. How twisted is this country's politics?
Why don't you help at the VA? They have a back log. Our Veterans have a higher priority than those in Haiti Dude. Help some brothers in arms out. The VA is killing us. Medicine is a science...and an art. VA doctors do good to draw a stick man. They manipulate science and distort the art to make the opine fit the desires of a corrupt and racketeering VA. You would probably get a bump in the polls by focusing on AMERICANS FIRST.
For shame, jerk. He's talking about helping desperately poor Haiti people who are facing blindness, and somehow you're going to gripe about government-run healthcare? Are the VA patients dying from botched cataract surgeries?
Waste of time... Been there... Even their own people don't care... Help our own first quit trying to get headlines.
Don't be a jerk! If he was looking to get headlines, he would be a pompous ass like Trump.
Haiti is an abcess on the world one big ghetto, thug society that would rob and kill you on your way back to your plane if they got the chance. Have you been up in Appalachia? pretty much several thousand square miles of poverty, no jobs no public transportation, people on welfare who actually need the help, and yet no crime. And obviously not important enough to stay here and help this country, you say here it is easy, you just proved you have NO clue.And I have supported you and your dad for years.
Don't be an asshole! Really--the man is helping people going blind regain their sight. He's a Christian (unlike you), living his faith.
There are probably tons of people right here who could use it! What about the poor of Appalachia? Why Haiti? I call BS!
The man believes in the free market and provides a great example of charity, and the OP is trying to politicize his generosity. By the way, jerk, do you remember this story about his free surgeries in Kentucky?
"During a trip to Paducah last week I teamed with two local doctors to perform free eye surgeries for the uninsured. "
Don't you owe Dr. Paul an apology? I"m waiting....
(The Mackinac Center for Public Policy). A Michigan teacher is receiving national media attention for going public with her resignation, claiming that “Gov. Rick Snyder and his Republican goons took over Michigan and declared war on teachers.”
But under the Republican governor and legislature, her district receives $5.3 million more despite losing 1,300 students. The teacher also says her pay has been "frozen or decreased" and that she can "barely scrap by" on her $63,000 salary – but CapCon confirmed that she received a pay raise last year and has increased her salary around $24,500 since 2006.
Beth the union attack dog thugs will show up. They always talk about how great their Union is and they never talk about the kids that they should be teaching.
"they're", Beth, "they're" - not "their" - this is what happens when you continually bash teachers, Beth - you end up with those that aren't qualified to teach - as obviously the one that taught you wasn't. But by all means - keep bashing them. Hey Brent - how many teachers are you acquainted with? How many have you ever actually conversed with to have such knowledge that you can make the determination that they never talk about the kids they teach? What is YOUR expertise in this area? Just right wing hate?
The teacher union parasites, like the troll in this thread, are just unhappy they aren't getting coddled anymore, everyone, including the politicians, kissing the asses of "underpaid, overworked" self-interested jerks who have seen trillions of dollars thrown at the problem of monopoly public education failures, with barely any change in achievement scores over decades. The real problem is the State and the crony unionists. It's time to get rid of the public school systems.
(The Hill). "I know the media likes to play this little game where they pit us, or certain views, against each other," Ron Paul said, referring to his son Rand Paul. "Don't fall for it. They're trying to manufacture story lines at liberty's expense. You've spent years seeing how the media treated me. They aren't my friends and they aren't yours."
Rand sold out. He picked Romney over Ron Paul last election.
The fact is that Rand Paul did not endorse Romney until he had mathematically clinched the nomination. This was no different than the GOP loyalty oath at the beginning of the last debate. No one can believe that Rand Paul preferred the views of Romney, who is a neo-con.
(Mises Institute). Ryan McMaken: "These sorts of rulings essentially rewrite the very nature of commerce and our whole concept of contracts. A business agreement (i.e., a contract) is based on two parties agreeing to a voluntary relationship. This is the foundation not only of business relationships, but of the relationship between citizens and states themselves. This is why "social contract" theory is so popular among theorists. Everyone recognizes that coerced relationships are inherently unjust, which is why defenders of the modern state system claim that states derive their legitimacy from a "social contract" in which both parties agree to the relationship.
Without this contract into which both parties have presumably entered voluntarily, the relationship is unjust and a violation of basic human rights. But that all just goes out the window, apparently, when we're talking about discrimination. " https://mises.org/blog/court-bakery-owners-you-have-no-property-rights
What private property do they have? They sell a product to the public and is not established as a religious bakery. If they were a religious bakery then they have the right to refuse service. But since they sell a product to the masses they can't pick and choose their customers. Just like grocery stores can't pick and choose who they sell their product to.
Fascist OP--what idiotic self-serving bullshit! No, they don't have to serve all comers--do you even understand what you read? No, if I open up a nightclub, I don't have to take in everyone who wants to come in. If I decide I wamt to carry big & tall men's clothing, I don't have to sell ladies' or children's clothes. If I decide to specialize in traditional weddings, I have the right to do that. No Colorado justicial whore has the right to tell me who I do or cannot do business with. The right to transact is fundamental. The State has no moral authority whatever to dictate business policy--if and when it does so, it makes the supplier a kind of slave, de facto baking cakes for the State.
(On an IPI thread about the Chicago Public Schools, which pays 5 of the 7% teacher pension contribution (not just the employer share), putting forth the idea that the teachers pay the full 7%. I sarcastically dared the teacher union to strike over having to pay for their half of pension contributions.)
OK, so I'll mark you down as one vote against. lol
All kidding aside, of course, the teachers should pay their half of pension contributions. What's as predictable as rain is they're going to demand a quid pro quo--which CPS can't afford. They may very well strike over this--which I think is politically suicidal. Once the Chicago base turns against them, they are done. They need to pick their battles very carefully--and with plummeting bond ratings and operational deficits, this is the time the smart people back away and live to fight another day. I really, really think they're misjudging the tolerance for higher property and other taxes.
Political Cartoon
The TRUMP House is going to be HUUUUUGGGGGGEEEE! Lots of GREAT DEALS, lots of money to be made......
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall |
Kenny Rogers, "I Prefer the Moonlight"
