A minimalist approach to essential, transparent, accountable, flat, adaptable, responsive, solution-based government, rooted in virtuous individual autonomy, traditional values and free markets, with a bias towards reduction of government functionality, cost and scope
Rumor has it that the Obamas' memoirs will fetch over $60M. You couldn't pay me to review the $10 Trillion man's indulgent crap.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) March 1, 2017
It turns out the disease of economically illiterate anti-immigrant, pro-Big Government Trumpism is spreading, e.g., Marine Le Pen in France.
You Don't Build a Business By Killing Your Customers
School Choice
Probably the Best Clip Ever on the Second Amendment
Facebook Corner
(National Review thread on "The New Nationalism continued) Trump isn't a conservative. Good. I don't want ideologues holding office ever. Apparently the American people don't want that either. And as for conservatism, as a Republican I rarely agree. We should be finding ways to reach new heights not chain ourselves to the past.
[Troll], At least you're honest enough to admit you are an unprincipled bastard. No, Trump never won a majority in the primaries until it was down to 3 remaining, and he did it in the heavily "liberal/moderate" Northeast; the conservatives basically split the vote. Trump used $2B of free press coverage and essentially bought the GOP nomination. He also got the lowest percentage of the popular vote as a GOP nominee since 1996 when Perot won 8%. The nation got a Trump v Clinton choice that almost everyone agreed sucked as a choice between 2 evils--the two most unfavorable candidates since they started polling.
As for your uneducated assessment of conservatism, you have a more European notion. America has a classically liberal heritage; we believe in more freedom, less government, and we are on a fiscally unsustainable course.
(Pro-Life Libertarians thread on healthcare continued)
[A progressive troll argues that by opposing government healthcare, I want people to die in the streets.]
[Troll], you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. There are CHARITY HOSPITALS (e.g., St. Judes, etc.), which operate precisely as I described. In a more general way, most, if not all hospital do provide some limited "charitable" support. What happened after ObamaCare under the arrangement you're describing, many, if not most, hospitals actually cut such programs, figuring they would recapture those costs under the individual mandates. If you go back before the federal government started prostituting with health care intervention, you'll find that people weren't "dying in the streets"; healthcare was more affordable because you didn't have various mandates, etc. Healthcare is like any other market; markets evolve to serve customers. Just like capitalism has done more to eradicate poverty than any other factor, it can and will do the same--and you need to free charitable institutions in the private sector from government meddling. The difference between us is you believe in the Fascist State which has NEVER delivered, and I believe in the free market, which functions by actually delivering what people need and want.
(Reason). See Image of the Day. Oh, that lower left square is never going to get filled in. Meryl Streep wouldn't say it even if it was in the script.
via Pro-Life Libertarians
What is wrong with this Statist? We have a number of charitable hospitals where patient costs are covered, regardless of ability to pay. American hospitals, furthermore, cannot deny emergency care on ability to pay--long before ObamaCare. Apparently she has no scruples deciding the government has the "right" to steal your property, however inefficiently they may spend it, if it fits her definition of being a "decent fucking human being".
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Tom Petty, "You Don't Know How It Feels". This was Petty's last Top 40 single and marks the end of my retrospective. Next up: Sheena Easton.
Quote of the Day I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research. Albert Einstein
Tweet of the Day
I wouldn't say when I go to a trending hashtag, I'm looking for a fight. I know that quite often I'll find a number of Trump-bashing leftists and/or alt-right cultists cluttering the thread. Quite often the tweets are repetitive. When or why will I respond? Sometimes the tweet goes over the top, others I've finally become exasperated with after reading too many similar ones and biting my tongue; still others are crying out for an obvious reply. For example, Iceland's President got into trouble recently for jokingly suggesting pineapple should be banned as a pizza topping. This is a classic example of my libertarian viewpoint; the whole concept of putting pineapple on a pizza is nauseating. But I saw it listed on someone's compilation of top 10 selling toppings. Whatever rocks your world. Personally, I have never bought, nor will I ever buy, pineapple pizza. But I would never ban it. So on the latest hashtag game "I could never respect someone who", some lady responded, "doesn't approve of pineapple on pizza". I responded that I could never be with someone who defiles pizza or meat by putting pineapple on it.
Other times an annoying tweet motivates a creative twist. Let me give a classic recent tweet. There was a theme about the topic "what women want". One predictable tweet came from one of those pretentious academics (e.g., they include "Dr." in their handle) who began a trite wishlist of "progressive" goals: universal healthcare, living wage, blah, blah, blah. It was a pro-government rant. Is that true? I, a lifelong bachelor (not by conviction but limited opportunities), am hardly an expert on "what women want", despite a mom, 4 little sisters and 9 nieces. But one thing I do know from my relationships with women is almost all dislike being told what to do (not that I was ever stupid enough to try; e.g., when I've taken women out to eat, I've never ordered for them). And what does the government do? It tells people what to do. So that's how I went from initially intending to snipe back at a clueless progressive's tweet to fashioning my own: "Women don't like being told what to do. In other words, they want less government", which earned a decent number of impressions and, I seem to recall, a few likes from women.
@MacBethSpeaks The true political illiterate is someone who believes, after centuries of failed States, in political activism.
The War on Drugs is Simply Bad, Inefficient Public Policy
I don't advocate abusing your body through drug use. But I'm not your nanny.
Millennials and Politics
Facebook Corner
(National Review). If what they say regularly in class receives attention, they risk being exposed for their ignorance. No, as a former IT professor, I didn't like the idea of others recording my intellectual property without my knowledge or consent. I think the practice also has a chilling effect on academic freedom; who wants to be quoted out of context by doctored clips? Now personally I never discussed politics in class, but I generally don't want political whores intervening in the classroom for the same reasons I don't want the government in my doctor's office. It depends on the nature of surveillance. I don't have an issue with some forms of public transparency. For example, I once had a coed student who had a complete meltdown in class, a full-blown temper tantrum. (I had reminded students of the academic honesty policy in my syllabus; she had inferred she was one of the unnamed students I had caught cheating.) Video evidence would have been much easier to document her behavior for disciplinary review, and I suspect the student might have been deterred if she knew her actions were being recorded. If it is a public institution, there should be no right not to be recorded. Taxpayers and the public have a right to know what they are teaching! WRONG! You can argue that the education system should be privatized, but I don't trust special interests and their political whores intervening on academic freedom.
(Pro-Life Libertarian), Stupid.Trump administration signals a possible crackdown on states over marijuana This is an odd one. It's against federal law and that has never changed. So this is simply going back to enforcing the law. Much the same as the immigration moves Trump has made just say enforce what we already have on the books. What really needs to happen is get the congress to remove the federal restrictions and allow the states to decide. The only legitimate role the feds have would be in regulating interstate commerce associated with it, but nothing more. But I don't see Congress changing the law anytime soon. Okay, does anyone understand the concept of federalism here? There is no constitutional basis for federal law preempting traditional state regulation over internal commerce. This goes back to Depression era madness of the Filburn decision, where SCOTUS ruled that a wheat farmer's consumption of his own wheat constituted interstate commerce and thus subject to the nationally-imposed production quotas, etc. You really have to pervert logic to construe private consumption as a matter of interstate commerce. The point is that there is no constitutional basis for federal regulation of a consumer product, particularly one that doesn't cross state borders. And I would further argue that interstate commerce authority is only constitutional in terms of ensuring a free market among the states, not in imposing anti-competitive majority preferences, re: Carolene Products. (If you are not aware of this famous case, Congress in the '20s, motivated by Big Dairy, prohibited sales of canned filled milk across state lines.) So when the OP cites federal law, every legitimate libertarian should be calling "bullshit" from the get-go. We believe that federal law should only cover a few enumerated things (national defense, enforcement of natural rights and contracts, etc.), and that the state, by the 10th Amendment, deals with regulation of safety, health and other localized concerns. PS. Yes, the OP does pay lip service to the concept of federalism but is willing to impose unconstitutional laws, like immigration restrictions, unless Congress repeals them. The issue has more to do with a court system which has routinely surrendered economic liberty protection since Carolene Products. I don't buy the OP's eagerness to enforce unjust laws and hope one day the majority will rediscover minority rights.
(relative's post). Economists at the Fed anticipate that Trump's protectionist tax plans would more than likely not do anything to help US manufacturing, the lasting impact being higher overall costs paid by American consumers for both imports and domestically-produced goods. Yeah, but the border adjustment tax really doesn't have anything to do with Trump's illegal tariff threats. This has to do with the GOP House's plan to create a variation of a VAT-llke mechanism. For those who don't know, the VAT is a layered consumption tax through production to market that is like a national sales tax to the end user (in addition to whatever income tax they pay).; in Europe this typically amounts to around 20%, plus or minus point.. This tax is basically rolled back for exported goods. The House's version is similar in effect but it differs in how it handles deductibility of business expenses. In essence, the House would not allow you to claim a deduction for imported cost of goods sold, while domestic companies could deduct labor costs, etc. This scheme would not pass muster with the WTO, which has approved the VAT (since both domestic and foreign produced goods are subjected to the same sales tax). That is, the WTO would not approve a discriminatory tax scheme against cost of good sold. The GOP scheme would do away with certain tax avoidance schemes by shifting assets to more business-friendly locations (e.g., tax inversions where you shift headquarters to a low corporate tax country which, unlike the US, does not tax income globally). We are one of the few countries.that taxes business income globally vs. by territory. In a global system, if you tax corporate income say in Ireland, say at 12%, but the US has a nearly 40% rate (including a state income tax), the US government thinks it has a "right" to tax Irish-based income for the difference, even though it provides no services for Irish operations. It's a bit complex to explain, but in essence companies don't have to pay this surcharge until they bring the revenue home. What this kerfuffle is really all about is we have the highest corporate tax rates in the world (except for a few small countries). The question is how do you pay for a corporate tax cut., and the GOP plan is an attempt to address this. We do need to slash corporate tax rates and simplify the current schemes of special interest deductions, etc. But we also need a territorial tax system. There are good economic reasons to shift to a more consumption tax (vs. income tax) system. but most of us who are pro-liberty see a VAT as a permanent funding mechanism for big government and the corporate tax mechanism as a double dip tax scheme. We argue it's far better to cut government spending to fund tax cuts.
Love and Marriage
Okay, proposing in front of screaming kids is not what I call romantic, but whatever rocks your boat...
Quote of the Day The job of supposed intellectuals is to combat over simplification or reductionism and to say, well actually, it's more complicated than that. At least that is part of the job. However, you must have noticed how often certain complexities are introduced as a means of obfuscation. Here it becomes necessary to ply with glee the celebrated razor of old Occam, dispose of unnecessary assumptions, and proclaim that actually, things are less complicated than they appear. Christopher Hitchens
Tweet of the Day
Democrats continue pushing a popular vote electoral vote pledge coalition. That is, until Trump wins a plurality of the vote in 2020.
Quote of the Day I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up. Tom Lehrer
Tweet of the Day
Okay, I was looking for a fight because I have utter contempt for most Presidents/nominees . As much as I despise Trump, I am equally repelled by Obama, Clinton, and others. I was in no mood for badly flawed POTUS being hyped beyond recognition.
@Jolly_Esquire Yeah, the womanizer responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, who brought us to the brink of nuclear war over Cuba, Vietnam.
Trade Deals: Who Are They Good For? Absolutely Everyone
Whatever Happened to American History?
Facebook Corner
[responding to my point about Trump's state of denial in the campaign about and initial reluctance to disavow former KKK leader and supporter David Duke, which the alt-right troll labeled "pragmatic".] It's political opportunism and a lack of personal integrity. Trump has always spoken his mind, and he specifically criticized Duke twice on the record during the 90's/2000 campaign. Then 16 years later, he has politically convenient amnesia. Look how long it took for him to speak out against his supporters in Boston pissing on a sleeping Latino homeless man. It's called integrity, and Trump has none of that. Recall that Duke won the LA GOP nomination during Bush 41's Presidency, and Bush and the GOP refused to support him. That wasn't "pragmatism". That was principle.
via Liberty.me
I hate to point out the fact that the offer to make Washington king is a myth, was promoted by a colonel (Nicola) who was expressing a private opinion with no popular mandate. https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gbi/docs/kingmyth.html
