July 2010
Econ Lessons from the Devil →
But perhaps the biggest lesson from Goethe’s Faust is that self-deception is intrinsic to all foolish acts. Whenever governments choose comforting economic illusions over difficult economic truths, then, like Mephistopheles, they will employ dubious means such as state-engineered inflation or public-sector indebtedness to make ill-conceived economic policies seem less burdensome to those...
Kagan: That Was Them, This Is Me →
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Police Blackout →
June 2010
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California: Forever in search of ways to not cut... →
Spend, Baby, Spend! →
Simple Government begets Efficient Order →
It’s interesting to instead think of how brief, yet sweeping, some alternatives [to thousand-plus-page legislation] might be.
Take financial regulation: … “You are free to fail; proceed at your own risk”.
Or health care: “A true insurance policy, provided by the private sector, can cover you for catastrophic-but-unlikely events. You can cover all other expenses, just like any other...
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A Doctor's Take On ObamaCare →
Reaping the Whirlwind of Progressivism →
To modern Progressives the only thing separating us from this hell on earth is the list of federal agencies, so anyone who wishes to abolish these agencies either is utterly ignorant of history or wants everyone but the “rich” to live in misery.
Where Best To Be Poor →
What has historically been defined as poverty, nationally or internationally, no longer exists in the U.S.
C + I + G = Baloney →
The key fallacy embedded in Keynesian economics is the idea that government spending adds to an economy’s health. In reality, the opposite is true. Wrongheaded governmental interventions are preventing the world’s largest economies from recovering from massive malinvestment.
Kagan the Fair-Weather Originalist →
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Why Liberals Think U.S. Health Care is Inferior →
In case anyone doesn’t already know the answer…
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Gun Control Laws →
People who think we shouldn’t be allowed to make our own medical decisions, or decisions about which schools our children attend, certainly are not likely to be happy with the idea that we can make our own decisions about how to defend ourselves.
Our Afghan War Is Crazy →
Gov't Schools = Less Freedom →
More and more on CLS v Martinez:
Dissenting today in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, Justice Samuel Alito put his finger on the majority’s underlying principle: there shall be “no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.” That pretty much says it all.
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The Court Restores a Fundamental Right →
Today is a big victory for gun rights and a bigger one for liberty. The Supreme Court has correctly decided that state actions violating the right to keep and bear arms are no more valid than those taken by the federal government. …
Justice Thomas grapples with the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, surveying the rich history of the terms “privileges” and “immunities” to find...
Senator Byrd off to tax Osiris →
Robert Byrd, the president pro tempore of the Senate (and former Ku Klux Klan chapter leader), finally managed to die this morning at the age of 92. Byrd, arguably the greatest advocate of government spending in Washington, served in the Senate for 51 years. To put that in perspective, the total federal spending during Byrd’s tenure was just over $77.2 trillion — and no, I didn’t adjust that...
Is the U.S. a Fascist Police-State? →
An argument can be made…
Taxing the rich to get into middle-class pants →
Smart statists understand that there are very strong Laffer Curve effects at the top of the income scale since investors and entrepreneurs have considerable ability to control the timing, level, and composition of their income. So if higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers don’t collect much revenue, why is the left so insistent on class-warfare taxation? The answer, I think, is that...
Huff Post employs a Cuban Agent →
Literally:
So in running her articles, the Huffington Post is essentially transcribing (and translating) a Stalinist regime’s propaganda for the benefit of English readers. For proof simply compare Margarita Alarcon’s [Cuban government run]-press archive to her Huffington post archive (different order and titles, same articles).
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George Will has questions for Elena Kagan →
— In Federalist 45, James Madison said: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite.” What did the Father of the Constitution not understand about the Constitution? Are you a Madisonian? Does the doctrine of enumerated powers impose any limits on...
The Pernicious Nature of Victimless-Crime Laws →
Laws creating victimless crimes are particularly pernicious laws. Their associated evils are essential rather than accidental; that is, their destructive properties stem from their very nature as victimless. …
[They] invite graft and corruption of all sorts and the suspension of civil liberties, because these are the only effective ways of combating this species of “crime.”
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Illiterate Cop Wrongfully, Cruelly Arrests Nursing... →
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Governments with the highest sovereign debt... →
Greece (68.67%)
Venezuela (58.35%)
Argentina (48.39%)
Pakistan (38.85%)
Ukraine (35.54%)
Dubai/Emirate of (29.07%)
Iraq (28.91%)
California/State of (25.13%)
Portugal (25.03%)
Illinois/State of (24.63%)
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Guns Save Lives →
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The union-only protection racket →
To put it in Hollywood terms, unions tell government officials: “Nice construction project ya got here. Be a shame if somethin’ was to… happen to it.”
Vote for Fatty →
Is corpulence really a disqualification for the presidency in the land of supersized fries? If so, that’s a shame. America might do better with a fat president. After all, some of our best have been big fellows, and lately the trim and ambitious types haven’t served us so well.
Oh, To Be a Government Worker... →
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Health Care Rights and Wrongs →
Worth repeating:
[H]ealth care is not and cannot be a “right” — because rights are things that inhere in human beings by virtue of their being human. As the Declaration of Independence says, we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” These “natural” rights are things we enjoy without burdening the rights of others: freedom of speech and belief, the right to earn an honest...
Flavored Cigarettes Are Gone, but Teenagers Still... →
About that widening poverty gap... →
Of those taxpayer households in the lowest quintile of income in 1999, 57.5% had moved up at least one quintile by 2007 and over 30% jumped two quintiles or more.
Of those taxpayer households in the highest quintile in 1999, 37.7% fell at least one quintile, with 14.4% falling two quintiles or more.
Of those in the top 1% in 1999, only 44.6% were still there in 2007.
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Penn Jillette defines Vegas →
And gives another interview:
Teller and I have been brutal to Christians, and their response shows that they’re good fucking Americans who believe in freedom of speech.
Free Sholom Rubashkin! →
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‘Don’t Taze My Granny!’ →
What Do Mortgage Lenders Want? →
What people cannot seem to get their minds around about the subprime crisis is that the biggest losers were the big companies that took the credit risk on the loans, not the borrowers….
[I]t is not in the interest of private sector lenders to deliberately make loans that have a high probability of default.
Why less government spending would mean less... →
Pauper Princes →
On the Democrat’s oft-repeated (and for them, extremely useful) claim that the poor are forever “falling behind”:
The wealth of nations, according to Adam Smith, the founding father of the market economy, is not measured in GDP or cash reserves. Rather, it “consists in the cheapness of provision and all other necessaries and conveniences of life.”
By that ...
Filling the Stevens Seat →
The End is Near →
The FTC is out of control, literally.
If You Love Newspapers, Let Them Go →
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Cop vs. Dog →
But Now That I'M in Power... →
“The law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers,” Obama declared in 2007, condemning “unchecked presidential power” and promising that in his administration there would be “no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.”
PSYCH!
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New Report: DC Voucher Program Still a Success →
Even a tiny, restricted program that’s only been around for six years increases graduation rates, has a positive impact on at least some groups of students, harms no groups of students, and does this for less than a third of what the DC Public Schools spend.
But of course, it takes money away from unions, and thus it must end.
There's No Such Thing As A Good Commie →
[T]he idea that good people can be devoted Communists is grotesque. The two categories are mutually exclusive. There was a time, perhaps, when dedication to Communism could be absolved as misplaced idealism or naiveté, but that day is long past. …
Communism is not, as its champions like to claim, an appealing doctrine that has been perverted by monstrous regimes. It is a monstrous...
The Temptations of Executive Power →
I know the question at the end of the piece is rhetorical, but the answer is: “Actually, no. The difference is that the people in power changed from ‘them’ to ‘us.’”
But you know that. We all do.
