Author: Redactor

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Townhall: Finns, Americans and the Income Guarantee

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 20, 2015
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Fixing the welfare state, for everybody’s benefit, should be high on the political agenda. But if a fix isn’t possible, maybe we should be thinking more radically about its very real problems.

Click on over to Townhall.com, for Paul Jacob’s December 20, 2015, column. Then come back here, for more information.

Cato: “Finland to Break New Ground with Basic Income Experiment,” by Charles Hughes
Independent Institute: “Property Rights, Coercion, and the Welfare State: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income for All,” by Matt Zwolinski
Independent Institute: “A Philosophical Economist’s Case against a Government-Guaranteed Basic Income,” by David R. Henderson
The Tom Woods Show: “Should Libertarians Support a Basic Income Guarantee?,” Tom Woods interviewing Matt Zwolinski
The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society: “Guaranteed Income as a Replacement for the Welfare State,” by Charles Murray
The Atlantic: “The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income,” by Noah Gordon
Cato: “Tangled Web of Welfare Programs Creates High Tax Rates on Participants,” by Charles Hughes
Congressional Budget Office: “Effective Marginal Tax Rates for Low- and Moderate-Income Workers in 2016”
The Guardian: “Even in Finland, universal basic income is too good to be true,” by Declan Gaffney
Adam Smith Institute: “Will the Finns be the first to introduce a basic income?” by Mikko I Arevuo

Today

Diplomat and Spy

On December 20, 1740, Arthur Lee — Revolutionary Era diplomat, spy, and Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress — was born. He practiced law in London from 1770 to 1776, where he wrote polemics against slavery and in defense of the American colonies’ resistance to the Townshend acts and other tyrannical British policies.

He was brother to Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee.

video

Video: What Spurs a Democracy to Abandon Freedom?

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 19, 2015
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A clever and timely explanation, featuring robots and politicians:

Today

American Crises

On December 19, 1776, Tom Paine published one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled The American Crisis. Exactly one year later, George Washington’s Continental Army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

On December 19, 1828, Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun penned the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828, a key moment in what became known as the Nullification Crisis.

Common Sense

Henry David Thoreau

“It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.”

Henry David Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government,” Aesthetic Papers, 1849 (republished in a variety of titles, including On the Duty of Civil Disobedience).

Today

Thanksgiving in December

On December 18, 1777, the United States celebrated its first official Thanksgiving, marking the then-recent October victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne [pictured, above] in the Battle of Saratoga.

Today

Official Recognition

On December 17, 1777, France formally recognized the United States of America.

The 17th of December, 1819, was the day Simon Bolivar declared the independence of the Republic of Gran Colombia in Angostura.

Thought

Arthur Latham Perry

Contrary to a common conception in the premises, the sacred books of both Jews and Christians display no bias at all against buying and selling, but rather extol such action as praiseworthy, and also those qualities of mind and habits of life that lead up to it and tend too to increase its amount, and they constantly illustrate by means of language derived from traffic the higher truths and more spiritual life, which are the main object of these inspired writers.
Arthur Latham Perry, Principles of Political Economy, 1891.

Thought

Henry David Thoreau

“If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.”

Henry David Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government,” Aesthetic Papers, 1849 (republished in a variety of titles, including On the Duty of Civil Disobedience).

Today

The Convention Parliament

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 16, 2015
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On December 16, 1689, the Convention Parliament began, not only transferring power from one king to another, but establishing procedures and rights into the British Constitution, both of which were copied in the United States of America a century later, with the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.