Category: too much government

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First Amendment rights too much government

Permit Needed

It’s hot out, and I’m thinking of ants.

Specifically, I’m thinking of the City of Phoenix functionary who told Dana Crow-Smith and her fellow Christian proselytizers that they could not hand out bottled water in the 112-degree heat. She and her fellow “good Samaritans” lacked a permit for vending.

Though, as Brian Doherty noticed on Reason’s website, she wasn’t vending. She was giving.

One needs a vendor’s license to give?

Thankfully, lawyers have come to the rescue, claiming that the city has violated the good Christian lady’s “First Amendment right to freely exercise her religion, her Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, as well as Arizona’s Free Exercise of Religion Act.”

Specifically, Ms. Crow-Smith demands a formal apology from the city, hoping, she says, to avoid a lawsuit. She just wants to be able to hand out water as she spreads the gospel. “I don’t think it’s even about religious beliefs.” she said. “I think anybody should be able to give away water on the sidewalk to anybody.”

Anarchy! Chaos!

Government isn’t about freedom, or even “nice.” On the one hand, governments increasingly force people to behave like the Gospel’s Good Samaritan; on the other, if you spontaneously take on the role yourself, government folk want you to get permission, first.

Call it insect logic. Above the ant colony in T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, there is written the ants’ totalitarian motto:

EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY.

Hot or cold, we must not let our governments take such insectoid philosophy as a principle. (Oh, and Phoenix? Apologize.)

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers too much government

Somewhere Short of Salvation

When I heard that Mitt Romney had chosen Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to be his vice-presidential running mate, I thought, “Wow. It could have been worse.”

I like Paul Ryan. You know, for a politician.

Rep. Ryan, at least, appears to be serious about our country’s 16 trillion debt and the fact that yearly we’re still credit-carding a trillion more onto that tab. Ryan has crunched the numbers and written a budget blueprint that offers a more-or-less responsible way to restructure in-the-red programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that drive the government’s debt.

The “professional left” will argue that Paul Ryan wants to throw grandma off a cliff by slashing Medicare, but I think the problem is that his budget doesn’t go far enough. Under Ryan’s own optimistic predictions of economic growth, his balanced budget is still a decade away. According to analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and others, the Ryan “Path to Prosperity” won’t bring the federal budget into balance for many decades – 30 to 50 years.

Which, the way Washington works, means never.

And that’s even before the plan goes through Congress, where far too few share Ryan’s hawkishness on budgetary matters.

Paul Ryan is a breath of fresh air compared to mealy-mouthed politicians such as Obama and Biden . . . and Romney. But even if the Romney-Ryan ticket wins, Ryan will only occupy what John Adams called “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

Sounds like we’re still somewhere short of salvation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

Don’t French-Fry Les Riches

French voters were in a mood to eject the incumbent, often a good idea. But, alas, the president they picked to replace Nicolas Sarkozy is an ardent socialist. And socialism, sanctified or not by centuries-old fealty to notions of French Revolutionary egalité, is always a très mauvaise idée.

President François Hollande has vowed to impose a 75 percent tax on all income over a million euros, or about 1.25 million dollars. Such a steep levy is supposed to be moral because making lots of money is per se morally suspect — at least according to the egalitarianism in which Hollande is steeped.

The tax gouge is also supposed to be practical in that it will supposedly help cure France’s debt crisis. Sure, looting les riches will cover but a smidgen of France’s debt pileup. But because even not-rich Frenchmen are also likely to pay higher taxes to appease the EU, it’s best to pave the way by first flogging the envious not-rich man’s favorite target.

Meanwhile, more sensible measures — like freeing up the French economy and slashing the government’s social welfare programs — don’t seem to rank very high on Hollande’s to-do list.

In response to the danger, many of the wealthiest and most productive Frenchmen are doing the only moral and practical thing. They’re packing their bags, just in case their new leader fulfills his vow. If so, they’ll flee to lower-taxing places like Belgium and Switzerland, where jobseekers will be delighted to have them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Banker Away

Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency Mitt Romney has received some flak for keeping some of his vast hoard of wealth in foreign accounts. Though I have a few problems with Mr. Romney, this isn’t one of them. Folks with savings and investments should diversify. Anyone with large amounts of money should consider diversifying beyond our borderlines.

And not just for “tax avoidance” reasons, either.

For one thing, as nice and generous as our politicians are, the U.S. isn’t exactly stable and business-friendly. That used to be the U.S. It may not be, any longer.

Take Peter Schiff’s new endeavor. The redoubtable Schiff, an investment expert perhaps best known for having predicted the 2008 mortgage crisis and the severity of the current recession, has started a gold bank, Euro Pacific Bank Ltd., which will back deposits with gold. The actual yellow stuff.

Its most interesting innovation will be its offer of a “gold debit card,” for use worldwide. Peter Wenzel calls this idea “awesome,” but then notes the downside:

U.S. security laws have become so intrusive, burdensome, and expensive to comply with, that it made it difficult for Schiff to offer the services in the U.S. So, Schiff opened his bank offshore, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It operates outside the jurisdiction of U.S. security regulations, and does not accept accounts from American citizens or residents.

America’s place in the world is changing. And not for the better.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

A Fraudulent Pill to Swallow

If you’re like me, you often rub up against common opinion and find little sense in it — or, as I like to put it, popular opinion with the common sense bled out of it.

On Monday I reported on an anti-Obamacare lawsuit against the federal government for mandating the purchase of medical insurance that included “free” contraceptive drugs (including “morning after pills”). I took on the obvious problems, but neglected to mention that it’s not insurance.

I guess you can call turnips “rainbows” and politicians “angels,” but, based on accepted meanings of terms, it is not “insurance” when benefits include regular maintenance or common preventive (“prophylactic”) products.

One doesn’t insure against dandruff by buying a policy that provides you with “free” shampoo or against sunburn by purchasing a policy that offers free SPF50 sunscreen. One doesn’t insure against obesity with insurance that provides “free” healthy foods according to This Diet or That Diet.

For instance, it would be absurd to have an insurance policy to pay for one’s vitamins.

In a sense, the vitamins are the insurance. Think of them as a separate, medicinal form of insurance, which you pay for at purchase.

Same for contraception.

One buys insurance for unexpected and irregular needs. Calling Obamacare’s “contraception benefit” mandate “insurance” is a fib.

Much of what we think of as insurance actually amounts to confused (and confusing) methods of savings (at best) or a confidence game to get some people to pay for the regular goods and services other folks use (at worst). By force and fraud.

The force is the government mandate. The fraud is calling this whole program “insurance.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights Ninth Amendment rights too much government

The First Isn’t Enough

The First Amendment isn’t enough.

Because its provisions have stronger teeth than most other amendments in the Bill of Rights, it gets put into service quite a lot, to bolster other freedoms. It’s a pity there’s no general “right to freedom” — or even “freedom of contract” — amendment.

A Western Pennsylvania Christian higher education outfit, Geneva College, joined by Seneca Hardware Lumber Co. in Cranberry, has sued the federal government over the new “Obamacare” requirement to provide morning-after “contraception” to employees, saying that the provision violates their religious freedom. The Justice Department argues that the case should be thrown out, on grounds that public entities like the college and the lumber company do not possess the legal right to “impose” their religious values on others.

As noted at reason.com, this is a weird misreading of the crucial negative right/positive right distinction: Under the “negative right” to freedom, an employer not providing a benefit to employees imposes nothing. Quite literally. The imposition lies entirely with the government forcing its way into contracts between businesses and employees.

One could construe a positive right to contraception, I guess, but that positive right would also be an imposition. “Imposition” belongs to the language of positive rights.

The government’s lawyers also object to the hardware company seeking sanctuary (so to speak) in the First Amendment to oppose the contraception mandate. If just anyone can appeal to the First Amendment’s freedom of religious exercise clause, then the government could hardly enforce conformity.

Well, yes.

That’s the idea of limited government. The problem, today, is that we citizens don’t have enough legal oomph to protect ourselves (either as employers or employees) from the federal government’s vast overreach.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Spice Trade

“Who knows how this got out,” one scientist mused, trying to account for how a synthetic marijuana substitute leaked out of his lab and onto . . . the black market.

I’ll echo that “who knows?” and raise it a “par for the course.”

The War on Drugs backfires all the time.

Take all the lying drug warriors have done (and continue to do) about illegal substances. Their job is to discourage drug use, so they engage in hype. However, once a drug user figures out that the government regularly lies to them about the dangers, they distrust everything the government says.

Our drug use educators also rarely admit that a key factor in all drug use is hormesis, the principle whereby the effectiveness (and lethality) of a drug varies by dosage. No doubt the “zero tolerance”/”just say ‘no’ rap” is easier to communicate, and sports a superficies of sense. But the downside of making drugs illegal (and thereby putting them in the black market) has a consequence: drug purity becomes almost impossible to maintain, rendering drug users unable to manage their doses — and, by long-term adaptation, making them more and more reckless, less and less responsible.

Not a good result.

Also bad is today’s trendy (and reportedly dangerous) marijuana substitute known as “Spice.” And yes, this — along with a cabinet filled with new synthetic substances — was invented by government-funded chemists.

To aid the War on Drugs.

No one knows who leaked the recipe onto the Net, allowing enterprising folks overseas to synthesize it and transport it here. It’s another case of outsourcing caused by an allegedly “well-meaning” government program.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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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.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Listicle!

In education circles, “lifelong learning” is a mantra, a piety, a cliché. For the rest of us, it’s how we maintain sanity.

Take words. It’s worth learning a few new ones now and then. After all, with new words can come new insights. Mostly, it’s just fun.Listicle

Yesterday, I learned a new word: Listicle.

This gem courtesy of Jesse Walker with Reason. He blogged about a Cracked “listicle” entitled “The 6 Most Popular Crime Fighting Tactics (That Don’t Work).” If you are on the Internet (and, since you are reading this, you almost certainly are) you’ve seen plenty of “listicles.” These are articles constructed in the form of a list. They are very popular, often linked on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter. Walker defends his recommendation: “Don’t sneer. Many listicles are excellent. I’ll take the average listicle over the average op-ed any day.”

I’d never heard the word before, but I am certainly aware of the art form. The listicle in question was concocted by Robert Evans, and he makes some great points:

  • Drug Dogs Are Inaccurate . . . and Racist
  • Car Chases Are More Dangerous Than Criminals
  • Drug-Free Zones Keep Dealers Close to Schools
  • Red Light Cameras Are Killing People
  • “Dry County” Laws Increase Drunk Driving
  • Capital Punishment Does Nothing to Reduce Violent Crime

Walker excerpts the “dry county” prohibition story, which is well-reasoned. I’m against capital punishment, but not moved by Evans’s take on it. Still, a tip of the hat to his red-light intersection revelation . . . which I won’t quote, because, like the most popular listicles, this one contains a plethora of words that, were I quoting, would contain a superabundance of aster**ks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture too much government

Estonia’s Success

When I was coming of age, the economic ideology of Keynesianism was going bust. Keynesians couldn’t explain the stagflation of the 1970s. Monetarists triumphed and the Austrian School experienced a resurgence.

Now, monetarist disputes are hard to follow, and the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle is not exactly a piece of cake. But Austrian economists’ preferred policies possess a kind of common sense: The thing to do is prevent false booms. Once you hit bust, it’s too late: we are going to experience the pain of readjustment, “recalculation,” as we find new prices and levels. I riffed on this theme last weekend, in my column “Dead Hobo in Trunk.”

Keynesians, now back in the limelight, have it easier, promising “less pain.” They offer drugs to make us feel better: Borrow, go further into debt, and spend, spend, spend!

So you can see why today’s Keynesians would hate Austrian wisdom. Not inflating the money supply, not engaging in deficit spending? Risible! And “austerity”? Keynesian shill Paul Krugman never tires of pillorying that program.

Which brings us to Estonia.

The little post-Soviet Baltic state was one of the few countries to actually restrain spending after the 2008 bust, freezing pensions and cutting public employee salaries by 10 percent. Krugman infamously blogged about it, noting that the country’s current recovery hasn’t yet reached the height of the pre-bust boom. He thinks this tells against “austerity.”

But to Estonian economists, the height of the boom was a false prosperity that couldn’t last. They’re glad their country’s rid of it, and note that their current recovery is above the pre-2005 levels.

In other words, Estonians not only understand their country and their situation better than does Paul Krugman, they understand economics better.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.