Author: Redactor

The Solon of Smear

If political dishonesty were an Olympic sport, Missouri State Rep. Scott Largent would qualify for the medal round.

In a campaign mailer sent to voters in Missouri’s 31st state senate district just ahead of the August 7th GOP primary, Largent’s campaign attacks opponent Ed Emery for “Standing With Barack Obama and Missouri Democrats.”

How specifically did constitutional conservative Republican Ed Emery “stand” with the opposition?

Emery voted for a non-binding resolution condemning Obamacare, sure, but on one amendment to that resolution he sided against fellow Republicans. As an analysis on the Missouri First website puts it: “Emery voted against” that particular amendment because it “urged Congress to replace Obamacare with another federal scheme.”

Apparently no more fond of “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it” legislation when proposed by Republicans rather than Democrats, Emery refused to blindly endorse a new, undefined nationalized “solution.”

A badge of honor.

But Scott Largent, the Solon of Smear, sent voters a copy of a letter on White House stationary purportedly from President Barack Obama to Ed Emery:

I wanted to personally thank you for your “no” vote yesterday on the amendment to HCR 18 regarding Obamacare. . . . The fact that you stood against every one of your Republican colleagues to support Democrats really impressed me. I truly hope you will be as willing to stand against your party in your future elected positions.

Only thing is, the letter is a fake.

There is no Olympic medal for political dishonesty. Let’s hope Show-Me State voters show Largent the agony of defeat.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags Ed Emery, Missouri, Scott Largent

Thought

Thomas Jefferson

Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known & seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error.

Thought

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy and socialism are not interdependent concepts. They are not only different, but opposing philosophies. Is it consistent with democracy to institute the most meddlesome, all-encompassing and restrictive government, provided that it be publicly chosen and that it act in the name of the people? Would the result not be tyranny, under the guise of legitimate government and, by appropriating this legitimacy assuring to itself the power and omnipotence which it would otherwise assuredly lack? Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, an instrument, a number. Democracy and socialism have but one thing in common—equality. But note well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude.

government transparency

Forward the Fed Audit

Will Ron Paul get his audit of the Federal Reserve?

The U.S. House has just approved it. Now it’s up to the Senate. That the proposal has gotten this far is a credit to Congressman Paul’s determination to give Americans a better idea of how their money is being misspent.

The central bank’s actions are often secret. During the 2008 bailouts, the Fed concealed which banks were getting how much of the trillions it doled out. We now have specific info — for example, $86 billion to a Bank of America that at the time touted its stability — mostly because Bloomberg LLC sued in court.

Fed defenders can be transparent about this government agency’s need for opacity. Isn’t it better, some burble, to let the Fed help dupe depositors at troubled banks about the condition of those banks so that depositors will be less likely to rescue their money? (I paraphrase.)

Some Fed champions declare that the Fed must not be “politicized” by any audit or other check on its abuses. Fine, fine, let’s stop the politicization right now. Privatize the money system, return to a gold standard, shutter the Fed and — oh, that’s not what they mean? They just want the Fed’s politically constituted and politically maneuvering officers to be able to fiscally frolic at will, a process that could be hindered if citizens knew in high-dpi detail what it’s up to?

Oops. Okay. Now I understand. . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

ideological culture

Philosophic Anti-Fanaticism

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 31, 2012
9 Comments on Philosophic Anti-Fanaticism

Popular French philosopher Pascal Bruckner is in hot water with fellow left-leaning French intellectuals.

Bruckner doesn’t hate humanity and doesn’t want to unplug all the life-promoting conveniences of industrial civilization. He intimates as much in a controversial new book entitled The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse: Save the Earth, Punish Human Beings, available only in French for now, but soon in English translation as well.

The book assails ludicrous and nihilistic environmentalist pronouncements of the Left. As the title suggests, the author believes that these are based more in religious fervor than in carefully reasoned science. He stipulates that he does not object to ecology as such but rather to the “greenwashing” notions that the “planet is sick. Man is guilty of having destroyed it. He must pay.”

After all, what is the “carbon footprint that we all leave behind us [but] the gaseous equivalent of original sin, of the stain that we inflict on our Mother Gaia by the simple fact of being present and breathing?” A baleful implication of such views is that peoples in developing countries should forget about improving their economic and technological circumstances. The earth has suffered enough, n’est-ce pas?

Bruckner’s observations underscore how radical environmentalism is largely a convenient hook for anti-capitalism. Long before anybody fretted about our chronic exhaling of carbon dioxide, certain anti-capitalists urged the extinguishing of industrial civilization and a return to the blissful Tupperware-free, iPhone-free, hunting-and-gathering way of life.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags AGW, environmentalism, guilt, Pascal Bruckner

Thought

Milton Friedman

Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.

free trade & free markets too much government

An Olympian Budget Fiasco

The original conception of the modern Olympics was flawed. Its bedrock notion of an “international” contest unduly accented the “national.” This directed attention away from individual achievement and towards “national” competition, especially to the “national teams” and how many medals countries win.

The Olympics became a venue for Big Government in action. And so of course, that means: waste of money. The current events in London are way over-budget. CBS takes a look at this:

It seems there’s a trick to putting together a winning Olympic bid: You have to have a flexible relationship with reality.

The London bid that beat out New York and Paris won, at least in part, because it promised value for money.

And after the extravagance of the Beijing Games, London promised, in 2005, to deliver a more measured approach, games that would cost under $4 billion — a bargain.

But that figure turned out to be an underestimate. A whopping underestimate, if $15 billion meets your definition of a whopper.

No surprise, of course, as Katherine Mangu-Ward explains at Reason.com: “Hosting the Olympics is virtually always a big fat money suck, despite what you may have heard.” Nick Gillespie, at the same site, opines, “Mega-activities such as staging the Olympics are often sold as economic development programs for dreary local economies, but they almost never deliver anything other than big bills and useless infrastructure.”

This applies to sports stadiums and league franchises, too. It’s time to separate sports and state.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags London, nationalism, olympics

Thought

Milton Friedman

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40 percent of our national income.

Thought