Rational Review » RRND Commentary

How many more are innocent?

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:30:55 +0000

“Freddie Peacock of Rochester, New York, was convicted of rape in 1976. Last week he became the 250th person to be exonerated by DNA testing since 1989. According to a new report by the Innocence Project, those 250 prisoners served 3,160 years between them; 17 spent time on death row. Remarkably, 67 percent of them were convicted after 2000 — a decade after the onset of modern DNA testing. The glaring question here is, How many more are there?” (02/08/10)

The milk man cometh

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:29:34 +0000

“Whatever the merits of this particular grievance, it is rather amusing to hear complaints about the abuse of power from dairy farmers, who were pioneers in interest-group politics. They have been adept in using the power of government, as Adam Smith put it, to launch ‘conspiracies against the public’ and ‘contrivances to raise prices.’ And their efforts have had far-reaching constitutional implications.” (02/08/10)

The new wimpery: Begging to be taxed

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:28:28 +0000

“First it was the medical marijuana crowd in California who offered their state’s politicians an enticing arrangement: Legalize our pot and tax it. It will help close the state’s multibillion-dollar deficit. The ‘Manhattan Madam’ not only likes the idea but she wants to expand on it. Kristin Davis is the alleged madam who supplied Ashley Dupre and other high dollar call girls to former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for his personal amusement before the scandal broke in 2008 and drove him out of office. Now Davis wants to run for governor herself on the Libertarian Party ticket.” (02/08/10)

Repeating Pentagon lies on Gitmo recidivism

R. Lee Wrights — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:27:54 +0000

“What is to be done about the idiocy that has spread, like a poisonous but imperceptible gas, from the Pentagon to Congress, and is now wafting through the White House, deranging all it touches? As it travels, this dismal infection transforms statistical impossibilities into magic numbers, which appear, to the uninformed observer, to confirm the most shameless lies of former Vice President Dick Cheney: that Guantánamo was teeming with hardcore terrorists, who couldn’t wait to ‘return to the battlefield.’” (02/08/10)

Root says we need “more” government?

R. Lee Wrights — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:26:54 +0000

“Earlier today Libertarian Party national chair candidate, and future presidential hopeful, Wayne Allyn Root posted an article on his own blog Root for America entitled, ‘Lessons Obama Should Have Learned From Watching the Super Bowl.’ While the article is light-hearted and even entertaining for some I suppose, I came away from it asking myself, ‘When is Mr. Root going to learn his lesson about Libertarianism?’” (02/08/10)

Imprisoning kids

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:25:53 +0000

“Obama’s newest ‘deficit-conscious’ budget calls for a 9% increase in federal education spending. Instead of dumping the money on our flailing public K-12 system, he should try something that actually works. Today’s Wall Street Journal suggests that he look at the voucher program in Milwaukee. … It’s unlikely that the president will support vouchers. In Washington D.C., Obama killed the Opportunity Scholarship program even though it raised test scores while spending half as much money as government schools spent. The unions give to Democrats, and the unions don’t want competition to their public school monopoly. Unless we allow parents more choice, we effectively imprison kids.” (02/08/10)

Ukraine election result — a balancing act

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:24:38 +0000

“In Ukraine, presidential elections look to have brought the country full circle. Voters have apparently returned to support Viktor Yanukovich, the villain in the country’s democratic ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004. It was after fraudulent elections just over five years ago, when Mr. Yanukovich was declared the presidential winner, that Ukrainians persistently protested the phony results and eventually saw them thrown out. Their peaceful demonstrations inspired other ‘color’ revolutions and rattled Ukraine’s eastern neighbor, Russia. Ukraine must now get its geometry right and move forward instead of chasing its tail. Yet since the revolution, its democratic leaders have been running in circles, fighting each other while doing little to advance needed political and economic reforms.” (02/08/10)

Gross inaccuracies

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:23:09 +0000

“There’s a useful old carpenter’s adage — measure twice, cut once — that’s also pretty good advice for other projects, like crafting public policy. Knowing as precisely as possible how a society is ticking helps both to better understand problems and formulate solutions. Compared to woodworking, it’s harder to measure what is going on in a society — or even to know what to measure. And relying on the wrong measurements can mess up public policy, tilting decisions politically and ignoring a society’s shortcomings. The big emerging debate focuses on the single most influential economic statistic — the gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the market value of all the goods and services produced in a country over a year, including private household consumption, investment, government spending and exports (minus imports).” [editor’s note: as long as GDP includes the non-production of statist spending, it will never be an accurate measure of economic activity - SAT] (02/08/10)

Remembering John Murtha

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:21:24 +0000

“Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, the old soldier who looked like and in so many ways was a member of the Democratic establishment of another time, broke with the leadership of his own party and the opposition Republicans at a critical point in 2005 and said it was time to bring the troops home from Iraq. Murtha was a gruff warrior, with too many ties to defense-industry lobbyists and Pentagon insiders to number. He was the consummate insider, a Democrat who was more a part of the military-industrial complex — for better and for worse — than any Republican. For much of his career, he was a Democrat who was more liked by Republicans than by progressives in his own party. Ultimately, that’s what made his dissent so meaningful.” (02/08/10)

Secession is in the air

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:18:26 +0000

“So what’s going on? Basically, of course, it is the growing dissatisfaction, in blue states as well as red, and the purple and mauves, too, with a government grown too big, complicated, and corrupt to function. It can’t do health care, swine flue, stimulus payments, carbon limits, education, jobs, corporate bonus control, or airport security. It can send 30,000 soldiers to the sinkhole of Afghanistan, because Congress long ago gave up any role in military policy and the peace movement long ago folded up, but that’s what Presidents always do when they want to seem to be strong. Reagan invades Granada, Bush I Panama and Iraq, Clinton Kosovo, Bush II Iraq and Afghanistan. All for no reason than showing that they can do something in Washington. But there’s more to it than that.” (02/09/10)

The kid, the pimp, and the spineless media

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:16:46 +0000

“Since before even Ronald Reagan’s time, the conservative movement has complained about ‘liberal media’ bias, and to be fair, there is no shortage of valid evidence for that. The House impeachment of President Bill Clinton was a game-changer in that right-wing activists now had their own powerhouse cable television network (Fox News) and were slowly but tenaciously figuring out how to harness the real capabilities of the Internet. In fact, I would argue that the right wing was the first to recognize how to cow and manipulate the ‘old media,’ something they — and the real Left — had been trying to do for decades.” (02/09/10)

TSA: Too many Sex Addicts

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:49:11 +0000

“It hasn’t exactly been a banner month for our favorite terrorist organization, the Transportation Security Agency. The name is three lies in one, much like the military MRE, in that it doesn’t transport anything, secures even less, and the Keystone Kops run a better agency. And given recent news reports and official reaction to them, it’s a good thing that most TSA employees don’t carry guns, or there would be even more self-inflicted pedal injuries than there are now.” (02/07/10)

Wall Street’s killer instinct spells death knell for jobs

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:46:20 +0000

“What is the benefit to Wall Street in killing things or bringing the share price of companies to near worthless? Tails they win; heads you lose. Wall Street can and does make enormous profits on bets that share prices will decline (shorting), that companies will disappear (credit default swaps), that the economy will crater (interest rate swaps). And there’s a slogan on Wall Street: the trend is your friend. When it’s clear the bull is lying in the center of the ring (think Lehman’s death and the Merrill Lynch shotgun wedding on September 15, 2008), Wall Street moves its bets to the downside.” (02/08/10)

Legalizing drugs: It might end the war in Afghanistan and reduce prison overcrowding

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:40:15 +0000

“Towards the end of last year, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama were uttering the idea of having a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, but I believe it to be a ploy rather for real. The reason I believe it to be a ploy is that the situation of perpetual war, with the Taliban not being able to defeat NATO outright and NATO not being able to defeating the Taliban outright, is the way the Military Industrial Complex wants it. It’s good for profit. It occurred to me long ago that if the Establishment wanted to truly defeat the Taliban and end the war in Afghanistan, they’d legalize opium.” (02/07/10)

The illegality of cars and the re-birth of freedom

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:39:02 +0000

“I’ll let you in on a secret you may not be aware of: cars are illegal in America. Don’t believe me? Then just try driving around Albuquerque, or any other populated area, in a car and see what happens when you are found to be in possession of that car. Not a ‘licensed and registered car,’ but just a car. Even if you pay the State all the demanded fees, simply being in possession of a car is an excuse to be stopped and searched by enforcers at any time without any warning. Anything as heavily regulated as a car can not honestly be considered ‘legal’ anymore.” (02/08/10)

Is scripture statist?

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:33:32 +0000

“Leaving aside the highly dubious proposition that one’s personal religious beliefs should be directly translated into public policy — including laws governing citizens who do not share those beliefs — the notion that the Bible supports government redistribution of wealth should be firmly challenged. The fundamental question for those who consider the Bible authoritative is not whether it advocates charity or helping the poor. Obama, Wallis, and other statist Christians are not arguing for charity. They are arguing for government appropriation of property. The issue isn’t charity, but property rights. If the Bible rejects the notion of a right to property, then these people may have a basis for their perspective. But if the Bible supports a right to own property, safe from government redistribution to others, then their policy proposals are unbiblical.” (01/10)

News flash: We “no longer control our government”

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:21:32 +0000

“You mean we once did? I must have missed it when I blinked.” (02/08/10)

Privatize booze

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:20:28 +0000

“Nineteen states still maintain Prohibition era laws in which the state retains the sole right to distribute wine and spirits. As Prohibition died a justified death about 77 years ago, many state leaders justify the archaic state control laws with the rationale that without tight government control of booze underage drinking, driving while intoxicated, and domestic abuse cases would skyrocket. Well, on the surface that doesn’t seem to be the case in those 31 states where a private system of distribution exists.” (02/08/10)

Can a person be a judge and a libertarian?

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:19:02 +0000

“Given the libertarian tenet that everyone has the right to do as they choose as long as they don’t initiate or threaten force or fraud against anyone else, how can a person be both a Libertarian and a judge? Wouldn’t libertarian judges have to recuse themselves from every victimless crime case on the books? The Libertarian Party of Texas lists six judges running for election in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area: three for County judgeships, two for Court of Criminal Appeals, and one for Supreme Court justice.” (02/08/10)

Bottom up resistance to the GOP’s attempted top down takeover of the tea party movement

Thomas L. Knapp — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:16:16 +0000

“Is it possible that the GOP’s public hijacking of the tea party movement could turn out to be a grave strategic error? Is it possible that the attempted coup will solidify resistance to the co-optation of the movement by the representatives of the establishment parties and their political apparatus? One thing is certain: if tea party activists do not fight to maintain their political independence, they will soon find themselves deprived of it.” (02/08/10)