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Source: AntiWar.Com Author: Justin Raimondo Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “As we celebrate our own Independence Day, we would be wise to realize the concept doesn’t only apply to us: every nation on earth makes a very big deal out of one day in the year, set aside for touting the virtues of their particular land, its history, its heroes, and its subtle beauties. Each time Washington announces this or that nation has violated ‘international norms,’ and threatens to exercise its imperial prerogatives, the world’s hackles rise. Every presumption of our own superior ability to decide what is best for the world at large — no matter how ‘enlightened’ and representative of ‘modernity’ — is deeply resented by the targets of our self-righteousness. That’s why every declaration of support for the Iranian protesters has a boomerang effect, one amplified skillfully by the hard-line regime in order to generate enough support to stay in power — in spite of their brutality and incompetence.” (07/03/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/nfgzqs Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Strike the Root Author: Alex R. Knight III Posted on 07.02.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “It doesn’t matter whether you think [the Founders’] action was a good, bad, or indifferent thing — they had no business doing it for anyone other than themselves. It was entirely outside the realm of legitimacy for them to make such a decision on everyone’s behalf.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.strike-the-root.com/92/knight/knight1.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Tom Mullen Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “Life, liberty, and property were the central, inalienable rights that formed the foundation of the great experiment in self government called the United States of America. The founders of our country never broke apart this sacred triumvirate, because each one of these rights is inextricably bound to the other. No one of these three can exist without the other. Moreover, when all three are secured, it is almost impossible for injustice to exist. Wherever one does find injustice, one invariably finds a violation of one of these three basic rights at its root.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=127 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: Sheldon Richman Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “What a difference a year can make. On July 6, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. It had been drafted by a radical in Congress, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, but revised — ‘toned down,’ it is said, — by the leading conservative and advocate of reconciliation with the Crown, John Dickinson, the Philadelphia merchant. The timing of the Declaration is significant. The Battles of Lexington and Concord had taken place in April 1775, Bunker Hill in June 1775.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/l2ywou Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: Jeffrey A. Tucker Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “Bernie Madoff stole billions from the customers of his phony investment funds, running a racket rather than a financial service. People who aren’t even his victims are furious, and nearly everyone enjoyed a 10-minute sense of vengeance when the judge threw him behind bars for 150 years. Let me weigh in with a contrary view. Free Bernie Madoff, I say.” (07/02/09) Link: http://mises.org/story/3546 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: LewRockwell.Com Author: William L. Anderson Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Some years ago, I wrote a piece in praise of the Amish view of fighting in wars and how they conduct their affairs, mostly apart from the State. They don’t work for the government, and try to live their lives as far removed from the tangle of the state as one can do in this modern world. Now, this alone hardly makes them virtuous. I don’t believe that having electricity or an automobile makes me a lesser person or less virtuous than someone who uses kerosene lanterns and rides in horse-drawn buggies. Nonetheless, I do think there is something compelling about the Old-Order Amish, and I will say that they are not the people who are encouraging rapacious behavior abroad by U.S. armed forces. Nonetheless, it was not electricity or cars that corrupted the Amish; it was the easy-credit regime produced by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, who are quite removed from the horse-and-buggy world of that corner of the mountains of Pennsylvania.” (07/03/09) Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson253.html Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Birmingham Libertarian Examiner Author: Stephen Gordon Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Generally, the Communist Party spends a lot of time criticizing Democrats running for and holding public office for not being socialistic enough. This appears to have changed since President Obama was elected. ‘In this legislative session, we can envision winning a Medicare-like public option and then going further in the years ahead,’ writes Sam Webb, Chair of the Communist Party USA. … ‘The new conditions of struggle are possible only – and I want to emphasize only – because we elected President Obama and a Congress with pronounced progressive and center currents,’ adds Webb.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/m6p2rs Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Dana Goldstein Posted on 07.02.09 by Steve Trinward “A year ago, the idea of setting national education standards was a lot like the idea of legalizing marijuana: Despite all common sense, it just wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t matter that No Child Left Behind proved that when states are allowed to define their own standards, most dumb them down. … Yet on June 1, the National Governors’ Association announced that 49 states and territories have signed on to an agreement, called the Common Core Standards Initiative, to develop national standards in math and English. For education reformers across the political spectrum who have long urged that the United States join its developed world peers in articulating national standards, the news is a major victory.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=testing_testing Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Ellen Goodman Posted on 07.02.09 by Steve Trinward “This is probably not the best week to air any reservations about the American passion for independence. After all, we don’t have fireworks for Dependence Day. We don’t hold parades to celebrate Interdependence Day. Our allegiance to independence as a nation is Yankee doodle dandy. But I’m wondering whether our ode to independence as a people is a bit over the top. We foster an unrealistic view of the way we live, not just in the designated years of caring for our children but in the undesignated years when we care for our elders. Maybe independence is too crisply defined as ‘exemption from reliance on, or control by, others; direction of one’s own affairs without interference.’” (07/03/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/n7zr3g Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Octavio Sanchez Posted on 07.02.09 by Steve Trinward “Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d’etat. That is nonsense. In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law. To understand recent events, you have to know a bit about Honduras’s constitutional history. … It has endured because it responds and adapts to changing political conditions: Of its original 379 articles, seven have been completely or partially repealed, 18 have been interpreted, and 121 have been reformed.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Our Future Author: Monica Sanchez Posted on 07.02.09 by Steve Trinward “Prescription drug manufacturers, represented by their trade and lobbying group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), have one of the most powerful and successful lobbies in Congress. Seeing them willing to give away $80 billion over the next ten years shows just how strong the push for health care reform is now and how much more savings could be had from prescription drug costs. Otherwise, PhRMA would just keep up its pressure on Congress to forestall any legislation that affected its members’ bottom line, as it has in the past. One of the drug lobby’s most significant victories came when the 2003 Medicare law, which added a long-awaited drug benefit to the program (Part D), was passed.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/l58qld Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Robert Dreyfuss Posted on 07.02.09 by Steve Trinward “Just before midnight on a Friday evening a week before Iran’s much-disputed June 12 election, the initial tremors of the earthquake that has shaken the country to its core were palpable deep in south Tehran, a gritty, working-class section of the city with a reputation for being a stronghold of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Past shuttered shops and empty, debris-strewn sidewalks, a late-night stream of cars, trucks and motorcycles, engines revving, horns honking, roared along the wide boulevard.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090720/dreyfuss Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Megan Tady Posted on 07.02.09 by Steve Trinward “Apple’s iPhone looks good enough to eat. I’ve yet to take a bite of this ’smart’ phone, but know that once I do, there will be no going back; I’ll be reaching for it before I get out of bed and updating my Facebook status from yoga class. … The temptation to join the growing legions of iPhone admirers is strong. So what’s stopping me from signing up? Purchasing an iPhone means I have to become an AT&T subscriber. The company has an exclusive deal with Apple to provide wireless service to iPhoners — I’m backed into a corner. If I don’t like AT&T, or it’s not available in my area, I’m facing a digital impasse: no service, no phone.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ox55ok Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Christopher Shea Posted on 07.02.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “Last year in Ideas, Joanna Weiss wrote that the George Mason economist Peter T. Leeson was at work on a book that would demonstrate that ‘the democratic tenets we hold so dear were used to great effect on pirate ships. Checks and balances. Social insurance. Freedom of expression.’ Leeson’s book is finally here, ‘The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates.’ And, true enough, the economist gives democratic aspects of pirate life their due. (Pirates elected their captains, for example, and could depose them by a vote.) But what most stands out is just how eager Leeson is to rescue pirates from the clutches of left-wing historians and social theorists, and to claim them as avatars of right-wing economic theory. Pirates, Leeson suggests, were avid Hayekians a full two centuries before the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek was born.” (0630/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/lsejfd Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Christian Christensen Posted on 07.02.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “On 13 June the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner of Iran’s presidential election, with a reported 64% of the national vote. His nearest rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, won (according to official figures) just under 34%. Mousavi and his followers immediately disputed the results; and widespread protests mushroomed throughout Iran, of a size and nature not seen since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. As the protests grew in strength, the Iranian authorities cracked down on foreign media reporting in the country, disrupted cell phone use and text-messaging, and restricted internet access, making it hard to get information out of Iran. Enter Twitter and Facebook, which rapidly became vital tools to relay news and information on anti-government protests to people inside and outside Iran. Although the authorities had banned access to Facebook during the run-up to the elections, users found ways around the restrictions and, during the demonstrations, Mousavi himself used Facebook to contact supporters and the outside world.” (07/02/09) Link: http://counterpunch.org/christensen07022009.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Last Free Voice Author: Alex Peak Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The Wall Street Journal explains Wal-Mart’s motivation in benign-sounding terms: ‘Wal-Mart — which provides insurance to employees’ — ‘wants to level the playing field with companies that don’t.’ This is a sugary way of saying that Wal-Mart wishes to use the aggressive controls of the state to force firms smaller than it to provide what they may or may not have the resources to provide. Those firms that are unable to continue operating under the state’s new regulations will, of course, be forced to go out of business (unless they’re able to procure bailouts — this is also problematic), thus leaving less firms with whom Wal-Mart will need to compete. This is bad not only for workers but also for consumers. We shouldn’t really be surprised by Wal-Mart’s recent move. As Mr. Lew Rockwell reported in 2005, Wal-Mart called for an increase to the minimum wage so as to impose a higher cost on smaller competitors.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/le9x2x Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: QandO Author: Dale Franks Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “First of all, let’s compare the current situation with employment with what the Obama Administration told us would happen if we didn’t pass the stimulus package. As has been obvious for some time now the stimulus is not — as we repeatedly predicted — substantially impacting the employment situation. Instead, employment has risen by more than 3%.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.qando.net/?p=3372 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Adam Smith Institute Author: Nigel Hawkins Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The horrific public borrowing forecast for this year of £175 billion — and the consequential £220 billion of projected gilts issuance — are certainly concentrating minds, especially those of credit rating agencies. The reality is that, irrespective of whichever party wins the next General Election, major public expenditure cuts will be obligatory; various percentages are currently being bandied about. The key figure is the projected £671 billion of Total Managed Expenditure (TME) for 2009/10 — prior to interest payments. Future public finance policies should be based on implementing real cuts to that number.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mrbx2g Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The American Spectator Author: Jeanne Marie Hoffman Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The House passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act Friday was billed as a narrow victory for President Obama and the green lobby. But was it a victory for real environmentalism? Sadly, no. The legislation’s many loopholes that had to be added to secure its passage will make it far less effective — to be charitable. The “cap and trade” regime that the bill would create promises to ratchet down carbon emissions over time but creates a dangerous precedent for the environment. Cap and trade essentially creates a property right out of polluting.” (07/02/09) Link: http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/02/cap-and-pollute Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Salon Author: Joe Conason Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “It wasn’t surprising when, after seven months of legal wrangling, the Minnesota Supreme Court declared that Al Franken had won the 2008 Senate race against incumbent Norm Coleman. Still less surprising (although vastly more entertaining) was the simultaneous breakdown of nearly all of Franken’s adversaries on the right, whose regurgitated insults, whining complaints and exploding noggins revealed nothing about him or his victory — and everything about them.” (07/03/09) Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/07/03/al_franken/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Partial Observer Author: James Leroy Wilson Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “It is true that genuine scarcity can exist in some regions afflicted by drought or other natural disaster. Scarcity can affect individuals through random crime, disease, or accident. For the most part, however, scarcity is created by governments. That is true of the United States government. Government policy created and prolonged the Great Depression. It caused stagflation in the 1970’s. It is behind the current depression. Nevertheless, I feel fortunate to be an American. For it is the American experience which proves that scarcity need not exist.” (07/02/09) Link: http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3276 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: TCS Daily Author: Adam Paul Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Late last year, Joel Kotkin a fellow at Chapman University, warned about a political and economic sundown in California. With a failed vote on the state’s budget, sunset seems to be quickly approaching. The state passed a budget in February but has been battered by the economic crisis and has lost about 20 percent of expected tax revenue since, in large part because much of the state’s employment was in the real estate sector. Today, California will begin issuing IOUs to creditors. California is both the largest state economy, accounting for almost 13 percent of US GDP, and one of the most financially mismanaged.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=070209A Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Let A Thousand Nations Bloom Author: Will Chamberlain Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Many people view federalism as the great triumph of the American system — as one of the foundations for the economic growth, freedom and prosperity that citizens of the United States enjoy. And, this might well have been true — between 1776 and 1861. But after the Civil War, federalism has lived on in name only, because the Civil War functionally abolished the right of secession. And in the absence of secession, the relationship between state governments and the federal government is no different than the relationship between city governments and state governments — not a symbiotic relationship, but a subservient one.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/m9ynpu Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: National Review Author: Stephen Spruiell & Kevin Williamson Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully. Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. … Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/kvh73w Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Slate Author: Richard Thompson Ford Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “This Monday, in the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court held that it’s unlawful race discrimination for an employer to refuse to act on the results of a promotion exam because the test eliminated a disproportionate number of minority candidates (in the New Haven case, all the black firefighters up for promotion). I’ve written before that this argument threatens to burn down civil rights law. Now that the fuse has been lit, I’m writing to explain just how far the fire could spread.” [editor’s note: What’s “disproportionate?” Is there never any case in which a particular group of members of “race A” might perform better or worse than a particular group of members of “race B” at some particular task for some reason OTHER than the “races” involved? - TLK] (07/02/09) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2222092/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: KN@PPSTER Author: Thomas L. Knapp Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “At the very least, if an employee brings one of these ‘Governator Owes You’ notes to work, the employer should cease state income tax withholding for that employee, cut a full paycheck until the amount is covered, and send Sacramento the IOU in lieu of withholding receipts. Another option would be for those owed tax refunds to get together, pool their IOUs, and sell them for a portion of face value to, say, Peter Milano or Frank ‘Skinny’ Velotta. A few broken legs (’I fell down the stairs — really, I did!’) in the Senate and an unexplained disappearance or two in the Assembly would probably clear the matter right up.” (07/02/09) Link: http://knappster.blogspot.com/2009/07/whats-good-for-goose.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Reason Author: Brian Doherty Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Last week was the first anniversary of the District of Columbia v. Heller, where the Supreme Court for the first time declared that the Second Amendment indeed protects an individual right to own guns in the home for self-defense. It was a great victory for individual rights, but by no means a final one. The lawyer who successfully argued that case, Alan Gura, has remained a dedicated opponent of all sorts of gun regulations that still stand post-Heller. Senior Editor Brian Doherty talked to Gura by phone earlier this week about the various legal challenges Gura is fighting against state and local gun laws.” (07/02/09) Link: http://reason.com/news/show/134542.html Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Independent Institute Author: Alvaro Vargas Llosa Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Anytime a bunch of soldiers break into a presidential palace, pick up the president and put him on a flight to exile, as happened in Honduras last Sunday, you have a ‘coup.’ But, unlike most coups in Latin America’s tortuous republican history, Honduras’ deposed President Manuel Zelaya bears the biggest responsibility for his overthrow.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2537 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The Weekly Standard Author: Jaime Daremblum Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “To say that people in Latin America are sensitive about military coups would be an understatement. Due to the often tumultuous and bloody histories of their respective countries, they have a strong aversion to anything that looks like military interference in civilian politics. Recent events in Honduras have struck many Latin Americans as a return to the bad old days when power-hungry generals routinely dislodged elected officials and stomped on democracy. Yet upon closer examination, the removal of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya bears very little resemblance to traditional Latin American military coups. Indeed, it was not really a ‘coup.’ Rather, it was a response to a leader who had trampled the law and attempted to hold an illegal referendum on constitutional reform. Zelaya’s ouster was approved by Honduras’s Congress, Supreme Court, Electoral Tribunal, attorney general, and national prosecutor. Zelaya started this whole imbroglio when he ignored a Supreme Court ruling and tried to use thuggish mob tactics to impose his will on the Honduran political system.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/nryp8q Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Mother Jones Author: Kevin Drum Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Over the past couple of weeks there’s been a lot of blogospheric chatter surrounding a cost-benefit analysis of Waxman-Markey done by Jim Manzi. I’m not going to link to the dozens of posts going back and forth about it, but suffice it to say that Manzi concludes that W-M isn’t a good deal. Over the next century, it’s going to cost us more in lost economic growth than it will benefit us in reduced global warming. I didn’t get involved in this conversation for a simple reason: I’ve been on both the producing and receiving end of too many cost benefit analyses to trust them. If you’re being relatively honest and if you’re dealing with fairly concrete, short-term issues, they’re useful tools, but even then it’s still the case that you can manufacture strikingly divergent conclusions by manipulating your assumptions and inputs by surprisingly small amounts.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/waxman-markey-worth-it Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Dallas Libertarian Examner Author: Garry Reed Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “How many times have you stood outside a house you’ve never entered and proceeded to describe its interior? Yeah, you can predictably get the basics right about rooms and walls and floors and bathroom fixtures. But you can’t possibly know the details. You can’t really describe what you’ve never seen. But for some unaccountable reason, that doesn’t stop non-libertarians from telling libertarians what they think libertarians think.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/l8naqm Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Nolan Chart Author: George Dance Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “At the core of proper government theory is the principle of the Rule of Law: that everyone is subject to the same law, that everyone can know that law, and that therefore everyone can always act knowing whether his actions are legal or not. Without the Rule of Law, there is no possibility of a law that it would be rational to consent to: it is not rational to consent to anyone else’s use of force against one, without knowing when or where that force will be used against one. At first blush, the anarchist vision looks like an extension, or even a fulfillment, of the Rule of Law principle. However, some thought shows that it is not only no such thing, but that it in fact jettisons that principle completely.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.nolanchart.com/article6583.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Cato Institute Author: Richard W. Rahn Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “In sum, serious people understand the [Waxman-Markey “cap and trade”] legislation will hurt the U.S. economy, reduce the standard of living and yet not accomplish its claimed intent; therefore, why were so many members of Congress willing to vote for it? Are they idiots, or do they have another agenda? Yes, a few are not that bright, but many more see this as an opportunity to extract wealth from one group of Americans, give it to other groups of Americans they favor, and to their political cronies who will reward them in campaign contributions and in other ways — both seen and unseen. They are willing to engage in more tax oppression in exchange for more political power to themselves.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10327 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Brian Schwartz Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “President Obama is either misinformed or lying about health care. He said the ‘free market has not worked perfectly.’ There’s a market, but it’s not free. It’s infested with harmful political meddling. One example is government’s favoring employer-provided insurance, a poison to affordable medical care and insurance. But unions and Congressional Democrats want to intensify the dose with a ‘pay or play’ employer mandate. This would penalize employers for not buying medical insurance for their employees.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=2792 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Conservative Author: Andrew Brown Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Who would have thought that Dick Cheney was a follower of French fashion? When he defends the routine use of torture as a means of warfare, however, theirs is the most recent example. The French, in the Algerian War, were the last Western army to systematize the use of torture on detainees. Alistair Horne describes the methods and consequences wonderfully well in his history A Savage War of Peace. They don’t encourage imitation. In fact, the lesson of the Algerian War, and of the Bush government’s experiment with the same sort of policies, is one that should be obvious and gratifying to any conservative: the traditional absolute ban on judicial torture is wiser than we can know. Of course, in the hubris of the Bush and Cheney years, the U.S. was free of all the bonds of history.” (for publication 08/01/09) Link: http://amconmag.com/article/2009/aug/01/00012/ Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: AlterNet Author: Marie Cocco Posted on 07.02.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “It hardly seems worth mentioning that the search for role models of sexual rectitude has gone pretty badly lately. That famous poster of Farrah Fawcett — her golden locks tumbling around her shoulders and her gleaming smile offering a girl-next-door counterpoint to the suggestiveness of her red swimsuit — sure makes it look as though, by comparison, the 1970s were an era of wholesomeness. They weren’t. It was about then that social conservatives — fed up with sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, divorce, Roe v. Wade, women surging into the work force and who knows what else — began organizing politically to stamp out all this threatening change. They failed. But eventually they did succeed in imposing their prescription — abstinence-only sex education that studies have repeatedly shown doesn’t work — on the one group of sexually active people most in need of hard information and least likely to respond to harangues: teenagers.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/m3bdk9 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Hawaii Reporter Author: Christopher G. Adamo Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “With so much coverage of the current debate on Barack Obama’s attempt to impose nationalized healthcare on America, it may seem that little else can be said on the subject. Yet it needs to be discussed, and its manifold dangers explained to the American people. It is impossible to overstate the significance of this battle. If successful in establishing this pinnacle of his socialist agenda, Obama will unleash a ‘change’ on the country from which it may never recover. Clearly, he is aware of the governmental power he has the potential to accrue with the passage of this single atrocious new entitlement. His lust for that power is evident in the ferocity with which he is striving to ramrod his plan through the congress and onto America.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/krrboy Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “One of the aspects of the Iraq War that has fascinated me the most is how CIA agents and U.S. soldiers could actually bring themselves to kill, torture, and sexually abuse Iraqis. After all, don’t forget that neither the Iraqi people nor their government participated in the 9/11 attacks. The worst ‘crime’ that any Iraqi committed against any American was resisting an unlawful invasion of his country. Nonetheless, even though the Iraqi people were innocent of any attacks on the United States, many CIA agents and most U.S. soldiers have been able to bring themselves to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in an invasion and occupation of a country that never attacked the United States, and murder, torture, and sexually abuse dozens of Iraqis detainees and prisoners.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-07-02.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: FreedomWorks Author: josh.eboch Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “President Obama has stepped up his rhetoric against the health care system, but fiscal deficiencies in his plan for a government take over have become increasingly apparent in recent weeks. Now, some on Capitol Hill are toying with the idea of taxing employee health benefits to subsidize the cost of government-provided care. But, as Americans learned during the collapse of GM, many union labor agreements provide extremely generous benefit packages to workers who are unlikely to support any proposal that might put their compensation at risk. To voice their growing concern, 30 different groups, from the Air Line Pilots Association to the United Transportation Union, have signed an open letter urging Congress to consider alternative sources of funding.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/n7z5af Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Freedom Politics Author: Tom Lucente Posted on 07.02.09 by R. Lee Wrights “The sole reason for the census is to determine the correct distribution of representation to the federal Congress. Nothing more. However, if you have ever filled out a census form, you understand the source of my consternation. There is some good news, sort of, this time. When the census rolls around April 1, there only will be 10 questions. Of course, the government never gives you good news without corresponding bad news.” (07/02/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/llt7am Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: THE MORATORIUM Author: L. Neil Smith Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The vast majority of the existing body of law, and of new law passed every year is, of course, thoroughly unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution lists those functions of government that are legally permissible. Anything the government does that is not on that list (probably 95 percent of its current activities) is a clear and open violation of the law. The individuals who perform those functions for the government — politicians, bureaucrats, and cops of various kinds — are criminals. … the indispensable first step toward restoring our freedom in this country, as well as preventing any future threats to it — and this should be the principal goal of any organization that claims to advocate freedom — ought to be a constitutional amendment forbidding any new legislation for at least that hundred years. Let’s just call it ‘THE MORATORIUM.’” (07/01/09) Link: http://elneil.rationalreview.com/2009/07/01/had-enough-yet/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Washington Times Author: US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Neoconservatives who have come to power in both the Democratic and Republican parties argue that the U.S. must ether confront every evil in every corner of the globe or risk danger at home. We need to ‘fight them over there’ they say, so we don’t have to ‘fight them over here.’ This argument presents a false choice. We do not have to pick between interventionism and vulnerability. The complexity of our world is exactly why the lessons of our past should ring true and demand a return to a traditional, pro-American foreign policy: one of nonintervention.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/kwou6u Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Reason Author: Jacob Sullum Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “It turns out that strip-searching a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school is unreasonable. Who’d have thought? Well, almost everyone except Kerry Wilson, the assistant principal who ordered the search. But until last week it was not clear the U.S. Supreme Court would agree. Its 8-to-1 decision finding that Wilson violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches is an encouraging signal that there are still limits on what government agents can do to our children, even in the name of protecting them from drugs.” (07/01/09) Link: http://reason.com/news/show/134465.html Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Glenn Jacobs Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 will result in a totalitarian centralization of the American economy in the administrative agencies of the federal government, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This 1,300 page horror is a prime example of congressional modus operandi — no one in Congress actually had the opportunity to read the bill which was, incidentally, being amended as it was debated on the floor. As H.R. 2454 shows, this axiom still holds true: the more benign the title of a congressional bill, the more draconian its contents. After all, who could be against clean energy or security? The real goal of H.R. 2454 has nothing to do with either of these; it is a power grab, pure and simple.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=126 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “Amidst all the health care debate, there is one underlying assumption that hardly anyone challenges: the notion that people have a right to health care. The truth is that it’s a nonsensical notion. People no more have a right to health care than they have a right to education, food, or clothing. After all, what does a right to health care mean? If I have a right to something, then doesn’t that mean that you have a correlative duty to provide it?” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-07-01.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: LewRockwell.Com Author: Bill Bonner Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Poor Bernie. The man has been ordered to spend 150 years in the hoosegow. What for? Who did he kill? A century and a half seems a little excessive for a financial crime. You could hold up three liquor stores and rape a whole convent and still not get 150 years. With a little bit of good lawyer-ing, a history of child abuse in the family, and good behavior in the big house, you’d be back on the street in 18 months. But all the papers seem delighted. ‘Locked up for Life!’ says one of today’s headlines. The judge ‘threw the book at him,’ says another. His victims wanted him to get no mercy. The judge gave him none, imposing the maximum sentence. He is ‘extraordinarily evil,’ said the man on the bench. Justice has been done. Right? Here in the building with the gold balls on the roof, we’re not so sure. We stand up for lost causes … die hards … and scalawags. Besides, we’re not convinced that Bernie is extraordinarily evil at all. He seems much more like an ordinary evil to us.” (07/02/09) Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner392.html Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Adam Smith Institute Author: Steve Bettison Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “We should celebrate but unfortunately the government has already wasted our money on investigating whether a national ID card would be viable and there’s nothing left in our pockets to contribute to the party. The national ID card scheme has been downgraded from potentially compulsory to voluntary. Still it was a tidy earner for the goverment and a few high tech industries closely associated with the project. For example over the past 5 years the government had spent £20m on one segment of the project, the Critical Workers Identity Card and of course it is behind schedule and being badly run. As with anything IT related that the government’s hands fall upon. But (and there’s always a but when a government announcement is made) the voluntary roll out is to be speeded up and the over-75s will become the guinea pig group that is handed the cards for free. They will hold them alongside the thousands of foreign nationals in the UK who will still be forced to carry one. The government will get you sooner rather than later.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/lh8tbo Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Freedom's Phoenix Author: Larken Rose Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The Declaration of Independence basically amounted to a bunch of guys telling their king, ‘You’re not the boss of us anymore.’ The Declaration was an act of treason, written by a bunch of tax cheats and lawbreakers. It wasn’t merely some people whining or petitioning the government to do something different. In fact, the Declaration describes how they had already tried that, and it hadn’t worked. So they resorted to open disobedience. And it wasn’t just one protest or demonstration, to make a point or try to convince their masters to change; it was a declaration that they were completely and permanently denying the right of the standing regime to rule them at all, ever again. And that’s a pretty darn radical thing to do.” (06/30/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/kks8zg Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner Author: Kurt Hoffman Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “Last night, the Northwest Baptist Church, in Toledo, OH, held a rally celebrating the right to keep and bear arms, and spreading the message that the exercise of that right is in no way incompatible with Christian values. … As one might have guessed, there were some with whom this rally did not sit well. The [OCAGV] was particularly apoplectic. … What struck me about that press release was not the over-the-top emotionalism of the rhetoric … No, what floored me was the arrogance inherent to telling people that they’re worshipping ‘wrongly,’ and that their church service is ‘immoral.’ It seems that along with the right to keep and bear arms, even freedom of religion offends OCAGV.” (06/30/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/neslyn Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Spiked Author: Jessica Mudditt Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “Protestors at the week-long No Borders Camp wanted to highlight the plight of around 1,000 migrants who had hoped to cross the English Channel to claim asylum in Britain, but remain stuck in a stretch of wasteland nicknamed ‘the jungle’ by Calais’ main port. These migrants are sans papiers — paperless undocumented migrants. Jessica Mudditt reports on a protest for open borders at the wasteland migrant shanties in France.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7108/ Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Information Clearinghouse Author: Paul Craig Roberts Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “On June 30, the government of Israel committed an act of piracy when the Israeli Navy in international waters illegally boarded the ‘Spirit of Humanity,’ kidnapped its 21-person crew from 11 countries, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead MaGuire, and confiscated the cargo of medical supplies, olive trees, reconstruction materials, and children’s toys that were on the way to the Mediterranean coast of Gaza. The ‘Spirit of Humanity,’ along with the kidnapped 21 persons, is being towed to Israel as I write.” (07/01/09) Link: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22964.htm Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Creators Syndicate Author: Jim Hightower Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “Are you an agitator? You know, one of those people who won’t leave well enough alone, who’s always questioning authority and trying to stir things up.If so, the Powers That Be detest you — you … you … ‘agitator!’ They spit the term out as a pejorative to brand anyone who dares to challenge the established order. … Were it not for agitators, we wouldn’t even have an America. The Fourth of July would be just another hot day, we’d be singing ‘God Save the Queen,’ and our government officials would be wearing white-powdered wigs.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/l5g6zc Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Common Dreams Author: Ann Wright Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “When our governments refuse to act to stop the 22 month illegal and inhumane siege, blockade, quarantine of Gaza, citizens have stepped in to challenge the blockade. … President Obama has taken no action to alleviate the incredible humanitarian crisis for the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. However, ordinary citizens from around the world are not willing to sit by and do nothing. In groups, as individuals, or with organizations, six months after the 22 day attack on Gaza by the Israeli military, citizens are bringing into Gaza supplies forbidden by the Israeli government and the international community.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/01-0 Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Duane Rejman Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “When I talk with Vietnam Veterans, over and over I hear the same thing — they maybe had already arrived in Vietnam when — ‘then it hit me — I could get killed.’ Somehow — this message does not come across as real to many people until it’s too late. The soldier often believes he or she is special. They are smarter and/or stronger than everybody else. Their training is good. God will protect them. ‘Don’t worry ma, everything will be ok.’ I learned these are all lies. I learned that death and injury in a war zone is a lottery. First prize may be a college education. But second place is getting physically or emotionally wounded for life. Third place is death.” (07/01/09) Link: http://counterpunch.org/rejman07012009.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Libertarian Enterprise Author: Justin Thyme Posted on 07.01.09 by Mary Lou Seymour “A new and dangerous form of swine flu has erupted like a plague. Though its been growing for decades like a cancer it is even worse. It is more dangerous in that it disguises itself as a cure making it the most dangerous disease we face. It has now become a virulent epidemic resembling elephantiasis. Though elephants have been blamed for the outbreak of the disease there are other sources such as donkeys and pigs. This form comes from both elephants and donkeys but is called swinish flu for the buy-partisan reason that both elephants and donkeys can get pork from it. They sty-me attempts to pen it. Now everyone seems to be succumbing to it. What I’m talking about is seen in the press release from our National Libertarian Party Headquarters. It calls for strong government measures on the swine flu. This is scary.” (06/29/09) Link: http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle525-20090628-08.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Jeff Jacoby Posted on 07.01.09 by Steve Trinward “The justification for inflicting this financial misery, of course, is the onrushing catastrophe of human-induced global warming — a catastrophe that can be prevented only if we abandon the carbon-based fuels on which most of the prosperity and productivity of modern life depend. But what if that looming catastrophe isn’t real? What if climate change has little or nothing to do with human activity? What if enacting cap-and-trade means incurring excruciating costs in exchange for infinitesimal benefits? Hush, says Obama. Don’t ask such questions. ‘There is no longer a debate about whether carbon pollution is placing our planet in jeopardy,’ he declared Saturday. ‘It’s happening.’ No debate? The debate over global warming is more robust than it has been in years, and not only in America.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/m32nm6 Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Robert Dreyfuss Posted on 07.01.09 by Steve Trinward “It’s encouraging that General Jim Jones, the national security adviser, seems to have laid down the law to US generals in Afghanistan: no more troops. That’s not the same as less troops, but it’s a start. In a lengthy Washington Post report, Jones is quoted extensively telling the generals that economic development in Afghanistan will win the fight with the Taliban, not more soldiers. And he used rather colorful language to make his point. During the meeting with Jones, General Nicholson, the US commander, dropped hints that he’d like more forces.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mm3w7o Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Tim Fernholz Posted on 07.01.09 by Steve Trinward “When the Democrats started their campaign for a congressional majority in 2006, at the center of their platform was a simple promise: competence. The party of government was going to make government work again. Coming a year after Hurricane Katrina and amid U.S. attorney purges and military contractor scandals in Iraq, it was no small claim. Now the party of government is the Party Of Government. President Barack Obama is rolling out major policy programs in response to the financial crisis, the recession, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress is overhauling the healthcare system, putting together a landmark energy bill, and composing the most comprehensive financial regulatory reform since the Great Depression.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mkvmfx Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Elizabeth Pond Posted on 07.01.09 by Steve Trinward “How can it be that 70,000 protesters in Leipzig in 1989 tore down the Berlin Wall, while up to a million protesters in Tehran in 2009 managed only — so far — to trigger repression? Or, to phrase it differently, what’s the tipping point for revolution? Just when does civil society trump entrenched political power? Different observers would, of course, give different answers along the spectrum, running from a historian’s retrospective determinism to a journalist’s fixation on daily blips. But whatever the viewpoint, the similarities and the differences between Leipzig and Tehran are striking.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0701/p09s01-coop.html Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Slate Author: Eliot Spitzer Posted on 07.01.09 by Steve Trinward “The Federal Reserve Bank has managed through most of its history to reside in obscurity — little understood, rarely questioned, viewed as hovering above the political fray, the domain of technocrats and erudite economists. That should all change. The Fed’s power over all things economic is hard to overstate, and it now desires even more, seeking the title of ’systemic risk regulator.’ Some of us have argued that regulators — and the Fed in particular — have had virtually all the power they needed to avert the economic traumas we have been living through: They just failed to use it. Yet the proposed formalization of the Fed’s mega-regulator role requires that we lift the veil that has shielded it from scrutiny for too long.” (06/30/09) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2221898/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Our Future Author: Dean Baker Posted on 07.01.09 by Steve Trinward “Congress will be appointing a special commission to investigate the causes of the economic crisis and to determine who is to blame. This proposal originated among progressives who wanted to see a replay of the depression era Pecora Commission, which exposed the Wall Street corruption that laid the basis for the 1929 stock market crash and the depression that followed. At the very least, a similar exposure of the greedheads at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and the rest could provide an element of justice to this disaster and possibly lay the basis for criminal prosecutions of the worst offenders. Undoubtedly there are many multi-millionaires at these institutions who would make far more appropriate prisoners than some of the 2 million current guests of our criminal justice system. Unfortunately, there is a real possibility that the commission appointed by Congress may follow a different precedent. Instead of striving to uncover the truth, it may seek to conceal it.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/n6fjon Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Sandy Froman Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, has a narrow view of the Second Amendment that contradicts the Court’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. A heated debate has started in the U.S. Senate over her opposition to the right to keep and bear arms. This issue, which has decided the fate of presidential elections, could also decide her nomination. Gun owners, and especially the members of the National Rifle Association, must aggressively oppose Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.” (07/01/09) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=2788 Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: George F. Smith Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “If Ron Paul succeeds in getting the Fed audited, the consequences could be far-reaching. Assuming the audit isn’t rigged to protect the guilty, as a similar bill was in 1978, the Fed will need every obfuscating Keynesian to testify and write editorials on its behalf, to reassure the public that monetary matters really are best left to the gods who rule us, such as Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner. Monetarists, too, would likely join the ‘Save the Fed’ crusade, perhaps arguing that even a great free market economist like Milton Friedman considered the Fed useful for preventing and curing recessions.” (07/01/09) Link: http://mises.org/story/3533 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: LiberaLaw Author: Gary Chartier Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Consider the characteristic Hobbesian argument for the state: we need Leviathan to ensure, through the use or threat of force, that conflicts are resolved peacefully. (I do not say ‘justly’ — there is no structural way to ensure that the outcomes of any state-based judicial system [or any comparable system in a stateless society] will be procedurally or substantively just, though of course some structures will be more conducive to just procedures and outcomes than others.) I. It is important to note how little this argument even seeks, on its own terms, to demonstrate: if it succeeds, it shows the need, at most, for a night-guard state. II. It has limited implications for the size of the state.” [hat tip — Roderick T. Long] (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/np7qm7 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Freedom Politics Author: Lance Izumi Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “President Obama has talked a lot and taken some action on education reform. Careful examination, however, reveals that his sound and fury is virtually all anvil and no hammer, that is, there’s still no effective consequences for failing to reform. Take the administration’s efforts to expand charter schools, which are public schools less restricted by red tape. Charter schools have improved education by spurring innovation and by putting competitive pressure on traditional public school.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/n2czk3 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: William Anderson Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “The notion that the political classes ’should never waste a good crisis’ has extended not only to the de facto nationalization of domestic auto companies and the financial sector, but also to medical care. It is treated as inevitable that the government will demand to control all the money that comes into the medical sector, thus effectively nationalizing it. President Barack Obama recently expressed faux surprise that anyone would oppose his latest proposal, a government-run insurance company that will offer coverage in competition with private insurers.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/l7cpsh Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute Author: Fred L. Smith, Jr. Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights
Link: http://tinyurl.com/nyu9js Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Acton Institute Author: Kevin E. Schmiesing Posted on 07.01.09 by R. Lee Wrights “There is a paradox at the heart of liberty, a tension between our desiring what is good and our willingness to sacrifice true happiness for fleeting satisfaction. ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,’ abolitionist Wendell Phillips said. Lord Acton echoed the idea, calling liberty, ‘the delicate fruit of a mature civilization.’ The delicacy of freedom cannot be explained without recourse to the realities of good and evil. Freedom is both universally sought and everywhere in jeopardy because of the imperfection of human nature. We are beings who seek what is good, but are tempted by what is evil. Freedom–the capacity to know and choose what is good–is the path to fulfillment, but reason is clouded and the will is compromised by our inclination to pursue what is base.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/m7ptrw Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Orange County Register Author: Tibor R. Machan Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Classical liberals and libertarians, especially those who admire the works of the famous legal theorists and economist F.A. Hayek, are fond of pointing out that a free society requires the rule of law. Others, critical of this [garbled characters] political tradition, note, however, that laws rule most societies, many of them quite tyrannical, so the rule of law has no bearing on a society’s being free. What might be the source of the close relationship alleged between free societies and the rule of law is that the only laws that can be applied uniformly and universally in society are the very few that aim to keep us free. Other so-called laws are really just edicts from rulers, not bona fide laws, since they apply selectively, not equally to all.” (06/30/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/krr85n Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Let A Thousand Nations Bloom Author: Will Chamberlain Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Your average politician will often rail against ‘political instability’ and advocate policies to keep things ’stable,’ such as subsidies, bailouts, quotas, and other forms of protectionism. But while stability certainly sounds like something positive for the economy, Joseph Schumpeter argued very persuasively that it was the ‘creative destruction’ of capitalism that facilitated innovation, and further down the line, economic growth. Simply reframe the ’stability vs. instability’ dilemma as ’scleroticism vs. dynamism,’ and Schumpeter’s logic becomes all the more easy to grasp. But what of government? While dynamism in the economy is something to be desired, dynamism in sovereignty has some obvious drawbacks. One is that transitions between sovereigns are rarely bloodless, and dead bodies littered all over the streets are hardly a boon to commerce. Another is that in the process of any conflict, capital is bound to be destroyed, so the economy will be handicapped massively. But on this last point, the data simply doesn’t work out the way you might think.” (07/01/09) Link: http://athousandnations.com/2009/07/01/bloodless-instability/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The Other McCain Author: Robert Stacy McCain Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “The problem with the MSM is not that it has no standards, but that it has two standards. Or perhaps — considering how the MSM savaged Hillary Clinton in the primaries last year — we can now say there are three standards: One for Republicans, one for Obama, and one for Democrats who get thrown under Obama’s bus. But back to the Vanity Fair article: If none of McCain’s aides had the foresight to anticipate his selection of Palin — which would explain the lack of ’serious vetting’ — whose fault is that? And if choosing an unvetted running mate was a blunder, whose blunder was it? This is what the Blame Sarah First crusade by McCain campaign staffers is about: Exculpating them for their own bad judgment, including their decisions to join the McCain campaign in the first place.” (07/01/09) Link: http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/07/palinpalooza.html Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Salon Author: Alex Koppelman Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, the original head of the unit dedicated to hunting down Osama bin Laden before 9/11 and the anonymous author of ‘Imperial Hubris,’ knows a whole lot about national security and counterterror strategy. That can’t really be debated. But he’s also a hothead, and he tends to embrace the extremist fringes of whatever issue he’s discussing. So combine him with Fox News host Glenn Beck, and there’s bound to be some fireworks. When Scheuer appeared on Beck’s show Tuesday afternoon, though, things got even weirder than you might normally expect.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mmprew Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Rebirth of Reason Author: Ted Keer Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “When dealing with politicians, criminals, and enemies in war, the necessity of personally passing relevant judgments is unavoidable. In so far as a person poses a credible threat to your rights, you must judge him and act accordingly for the circumstances. … But what about people who are not politicians, who are not criminals, who are not enemies at war, who are not acting politically to establish a policy of the forcible violation of rights? What duty do you have to pass judgment upon the the foolish, the mistaken, the rude, the annoying, the disgusting, the vain, the gossipy? And further, what right do you have to demand that others pass judgments upon such people?” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mo72vo Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Disloyal Opposition Author: JD Tuccille Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “Neither the conservatives nor progressives with whom I interact seem to know many members of the opposing tribe — by and large, the opposition are treated as aliens encountered only rarely, and then, hopefully, on neutral ground. This social division may be why they’re all so prone to delegitimizing each other’s world views. For conservatives, lefties are mendacious bastards who adopt any argument under the sun in order to further a hidden, totalitarian agenda. For progressives, righties are soulless scum who’ve sold out to whatever corporation is certainly sponsoring their advocacy, and who would undoubtedly spin a 180 in their opinions if directed to do so by their Wall Street masters. It seems that nobody could ever sincerely disagree. And, of course, the opposition is always plotting.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/kkalat Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: National Review Author: the editors Posted on 07.01.09 by Thomas L. Knapp “During his ABC infomercial last week, President Obama continued to insist that the type of reform he has in mind would reduce the cost of health care, improve its quality, and enable people to keep their current insurance policies and doctors. He is wrong on all counts.” (07/01/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mxhb5n Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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