Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance,
bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity,
if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity
all the substantial blessings of life,
the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.
Justice Joseph Story
Chart of the Day: Now If Only They Read Something Worthwhile...
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| Things That Obama Will Never Point Out |
"We must remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government." ~ Aristotle (HT Jeffrey Tucker)
“Sometimes the citizens are deceived into a change of government, and afterwards they are held in subjection against their will.” ~ AristotleImage of the Day
Sen. Paul Once Again Steps Up to Defend the Bill of Rights
Facebook Corner
(Reason). Trains were cutting-edge technology. In 1825.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/24/self-driving-cars-amtrak
Freight trains are still vastly more fuel efficient for moving cargo across the earth. http://motherboard.vice.com/.../proof-that-trains-are...
Let's ignore for the time being that freight ships are up to three times more efficient that freight train. On average, passenger trains are roughly a third as efficient as freight train. But fuel efficiency isn't the only criterion. You also have point-to-point flexibility, load factors, passenger convenience, etc. As Cato Institute points out, nearly all high-speed rail in Europe and Japan is money-losing, and rail traffic has been losing market share to autos for decades in Japan. The issue is that rail traffic buildout is inherently very expensive, inflexible, and inconvenient. What this piece points out is that there is technology in development .which would make our investments in roads and relevant modes much more efficient. We also might to rethink things from a perspective of economies of scale, e.g., in a paradigm of personalized medicines.
(Rand Paul 2016). "One senator came up to me and said, ‘If you defeat the Patriot Act, what will happen? How could we possibly survive?’" Paul recalled. “And I said maybe, just maybe, we could rely on the Constitution for a few hours."
Why should we doubt that the fearmongering neo-cons as usual, willing to sell out our civil liberties even for absurdly expensive and ineffectual abuses of blanket information gathering over citizens without probable cause or due process, would have issues with Rand Paul?
What's really jeopardizing national security? Trigger-happy neo-cons willing to sacrifice thousands of American lives and trillions in money we don't have to intervene in the regional affairs of others and don't understand the concept of blowback. We have $18T in debt and another $90-plus T in unfunded liabilies; we can no longer afford to be the world's unloved policeman.
(Independent Institute). "Government also has a role to play in mucking up medical prices, through its Soviet-style price fixing of physicians’ fees in Medicare. High prescription drug prices? Blame the FDA’s regulatory burden."
Don't forget other anti-competitive practices like licensure, school accreditation laws, drug controls, patents, etc. There's too many to name them all.
Patents are a bad choice, as Spooner and Rand would surely point out. You do have a right, say, to create an alternative medicine for hepatitis, but you don't have a right to someone else's intellectual labor/wealth/property. The way you get to reform in the drug sector is by privatizing approval mechanisms, i.e., lowering barriers to entries, not redistribution or plunder of intellectual property.
(FEE). Los Angeles' newly-passed $15 minimum wage isn't going to help poor and low-skilled workers — in fact, it will hurt them more than any other group.
FEE's first arguments out of the box here are strawmen. Because arguments not made are the easier for FEE to counter? "Why phased in? Why not do it now? Why not $30 or $150?" New science indicates incrementally raising the minimum wage has not caused less employment.
"New science" is bullshit, you morally corrupt fascist tool. There's an intrinsic problem of counterfactuals, e.g., how many more people would be employed, how many more businesses would have survived or begun except for authoritarian "progressives" like you getting in the way of voluntary contracts at a clearing wage level, which is none of your damn business--you aren't the one paying a business's bills; you aren't someone with limited experience and skills who can't find work at the existing, never mind higher minimum wage. The "hard to find" evidence that the law of supply and demand applies to labor prices? Give me a break, you economically illiterate jerk. The impact might be slight because literally less than 5% of jobs are minimum-wage, there are ways to reduce hours, substitute technology, transfer funds from benefits to wages, raise hiring standards and job responsibilities, etc. Never mind the racist roots behind initial minimum wage laws.
(Reason). What Magna Carta has to do with libertarian strategy
Richmond is basically pointing is first of all that searching in the past will not yield the discovery of a pure form of libertarian roots; to give a minor example, even universal suffrage took decades to flesh out in American history; second, purists will never be satisfied with, say, Rand Paul's form of pragmatic libertarianism, while others, including myself, applaud the bipartisan coalitions he's building, whether we are talking audit the Fed, end Ex-Im, rein in government trampling on the Fourth Amendment, and criminal justice reform. The road to a more libertarian society starts with innumerable trust-building steps..
(Drudge Report). REALITY SHOW LETS FAMILY EXPERIENCE NAZI OCCUPATION...
Why not a no-expenses-paid trip to North Korea?
Political Humor
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Lisa Benson via Patriot Post |
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| Courtesy of Eric Allie via IPI |
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| Courtesy of the original artist via Robert Lee |
Cat Stevens, "Father and Son". This song is when his pop phase in the US was about to break out. In fact, I first came across on his first greatest hits compilation. Great, unforgettable, unique circle of life song; unusual vocal, in part because he sings the father dialogue in his baritone and the son's part in his tenor. (I'm a natural tenor like Stevens, but I recall in high school choir shifting into my baritone depending on the performance.) As an amateur songwriter, I've been sorely tempted to rewrite the song and/or write variations, not because I have an issue with Stevens' song or performance, but more of a difference of perspective; for example, my own father and I did not have a difficult relationship, but we had differing personalities and perspectives, not necessarily political in nature.
