Author: Redactor

Categories
ideological culture

Is Atlas Shrugging?

Atlas Shrugged: Part I, an adaptation of the first third of Ayn Rand’s 1957 bestseller Atlas Shrugged, is hitting theaters.

The movie has been awaited for decades, but some say it’s more than timely. Political commentator Robert Tracinski suggests that its portrayals of the themes of the state stomping the productive individual and the productive individual “going on strike against the creed of self-​sacrifice” are being multifariously echoed in the real world.

Tracinski relates how one moviegoer saw the film at a giant mall built with millions in government subsidies that now stands nearly empty — much like the many empty buildings in the socialism-​ravaged cityscapes of Atlas Shrugged. Other parallels Tracinski sees:

  • The federal government demanding that companies not locate operations in states relatively free of onerous regulation.
  • Environmentalists and regulators seeking to thwart innovative ways of extracting resources from the earth, like hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale.
  • Government punishing successful companies in order to provide bailouts for failing companies (General Motors, Chrysler).

And entrepreneur Jerry Della Femina just sold his famous eponymous restaurant and abandoned other business ventures. “I’m just not ready to have my wealth redistributed,” Femina explains. “I’m not ready to pay more tax money than the next guy because I provide jobs and because I work a 60-​hour week and I earn more than $250,000 a year.… Read a brilliant book by Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged, and you’ll know.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
political challengers property rights

Trump vs. Private Property

If real-​estate magnate/​pink-​slip impresario Donald Trump can’t comb over his hair plausibly, how does he expect to convincingly coif his wheeler-​dealer track record? 

Over the past several months, Trump has been making disturbing noises about pursuing the GOP presidential nomination. Perhaps those encouraging him want the Republicans to remain almost as unpalatable to freedom-​loving folk as the Democrats.

Trump has an atrocious track record when it comes to limited government and private property. Like many developers in collusion with bureaucrats and the tax man, he doesn’t hesitate to use eminent domain to steal what ain’t his. All in the name of the so-​called  “public good,” of course, a catchall concept used to excuse almost any kind of ruthless predation.

Michelle Malkin reminds us that in the 1990s Trump  “waged a notorious war on elderly homeowner Vera Coking, who owned a little home in Atlantic City.… The real-​estate mogul was determined to expand his Trump Plaza and build a limousine parking lot — Coking’s private property be damned.” Fortunately, the valiant Institute for Justice took up her cause. She prevailed.

Trump’s comments on the 2005 Supreme Court decision Kelo v. City of New London are candid enough. The justices ruled that government officials could treat the Constitution as irrelevant with respect to property. Trump says he agrees  “100 percent “ with the Kelo decision.

That confession alone makes the idea of a President Donald Trump 100 percent repugnant.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture

A Fairy Tale Day

Aren’t weddings fun? And romantic, don’t forget.

That’s why I’m excited about the wedding of two young people I don’t even know: Gladys Smith and Fred Klinkle. Yet, you won’t see their wedding on your television today. Instead, the tube will revel in the wedding of Britain’s Prince William and “commoner” Kate Middleton.

Too bad. Neither Gladys nor Fred are known to benefit from unjust privilege or to have been enriched through centuries of their family’s tyrannical rule. 

Not to be the skunk at the royal party, but I have a slight problem with those who live off the involuntary sweat and toil of others. Granted, to her credit, Miss Middleton has not been a leech on the British people … until today.

Sure, princes and princesses are just precious when animated by Disney. And it’s nice to know that in today’s real-​life Britain the royals can no longer separate the heads of “subjects” from their shoulders. But still I find it hard to get in a celebratory mood for the activities of a family that represents the most rotten aspects of our unfree past. 

Why do the Brits put up with the royals? 

Inertia, perhaps.

Why would any liberty-​loving American be caught fixed to today’s TV spectacle? 

Beats me!

To Gladys and Fred and other loving non-​monarchical couples, best wishes: live long and multiply. To William and Kate? Once you renounce your position and stop fleecing the taxpayers, same to you. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
nannyism too much government

Bloated Government Makes Us Fat?

Since the 1980s, America has undergone an epidemic: We’re fatter than ever. And a lot of people look to the government to solve it.

But what if the government itself jump-​started the epidemic?

According to a growing number of researchers, doctors and successful dieters, the usual cause of obesity has long been known, but government-​supported science, backed by Congressional committees and official dogma, inverted that wisdom. What government sparked was the “low-​fat revolution,” which basically said that eating fats made you fat. Government propaganda and funding set industry off to replace fats in foods with … sugars.

And thus began a movement that ran right up against our endocrine systems, making us hungrier the more carbohydrates we ate, fatter the faster those carbs were turned to blood sugars, and diabetic in increasing numbers.

This is the point science Gary Taubes has been making for a decade, famously starting with a New York Times essay, “What If It Has All Been a Big Fat Lie?” He defends the approach of Dr. Atkins, famous for his high meat-​and-​fat/​low-​carb diet.

Since that essay, similar diets and research have pointed in that general direction. An economist has even touted a “cave man” diet.

You don’t have to turn to government to lose weight — though, interestingly, the USDA’s current advice isn’t as crazy as it once was, and the First Lady’s Let’s Move campaign appears reasonable. 

Ignore, instead, the government’s past bad advice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people

Pogue Privacy “Paranoia”

Apple customers recently learned that the cellular versions of their iPhones and iPads are storing detailed tracking information about users in an unencrypted format.

Ace New York Times tech reviewer David Pogue belittles anyone concerned about the threat to privacy. He himself has “nothing to hide,” lacks the “paranoid gene.” In conclusion, “So what?”

Chiming in online, reader “Diana” avers that “Privacy is dead. It is time to get over it” — a familiar yet incoherent sentiment which assumes that privacy is an all-​or-​nothing commodity.

If there were a spate of break-​ins in a neighborhood, would anyone feel justified in blithely asserting, “Security is dead. It is time to get over it”? Would you be making a pointless fetish of security by continuing to lock your front door or improving the lock? Should everyone suffering under dictatorship be instructed that their freedom is dead, get over it?

The costs of breaching privacy can be minor or great. With respect to unencrypted and archived tracking data, the practical costs of the vulnerability may be zero until the wrong person with the wrong motive exploits it. The danger may be a lot greater in other countries.

It’s appropriate to debate how great an apparent threat to privacy may be, and the best way of countering that threat. But it is wrong to assume that institutionally persistent but unnecessary assaults on personal privacy are either irreversible or silly even to notice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy

At Risk of Drowning

To those who hold that government should be all things to all people at all times, the prospect of cutting back the ever-​escalating level of government spending is a non-​starter. Like their chief spokesman in the White House, they propose a different solution: Make “the rich” pay more. 

Never mind that while President Obama talks about socking “millionaires and billionaires” who “can afford it” with higher taxes, the hikes are actually designed to wallop folks making $200,000 a year. That’s actually a tad less than a million. In many areas, such a salary hardly qualifies one as rich. 

We’re supposed to ignore the fact that federal income taxes remain progressive. The richer you are, the more you pay. That’s why the top five percent of earners pay 59 percent of federal income taxes, while roughly the bottom half pay nothing at all. 

“Fair” becomes slippery.

Also slippery? The real-​world outcomes. Say tax rates were raised enough that deficits might be covered. What would happen?

Just recently I had dinner with a couple of millionaires. “You know, we don’t have to work,” they told me. “We already have enough money to live out the rest of our lives, so if we’re going to be punished tax-​wise, we’ll simply retire.” Comfortably, in fact.

But what about those they employ? What about the enterprises and jobs they won’t create?

Maybe punishing productive folks with even higher taxes isn’t such a great idea.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.