Category: ideological culture

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folly ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers too much government

Fiorina Fires Back

Fiorina, employment, HP, CEO, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, jobs, Presidential, collage, photomontage, illustration, JGill, Common Sense

Politicians love talking up job creation. Presidential candidates, especially, pretend to a Svengali-like virtuosity in producing paychecks and, if only handed the keys to the White House, creating — presto! — a bunch more.

This year, Republican Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, has been repeatedly attacked by Democrats, democratic socialists and her Republican opponents for firing 30,000 workers during her tenure running the company. As if she did so out of meanness.

Sunday, on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd went at her again.

“I find it very rich,” Fiorina fired back. “Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, all the Democrats who are attacking me, they’ve never created a job, they’ve never saved a job, and their policies destroy jobs, including Mrs. Clinton’s latest position on Keystone Pipeline.”

Mrs. Fiorina offers context for her “failure”: “I led HP through a very difficult time. The NASDAQ dropped 80 percent. Some of our strongest competitors went out of business altogether, taking every job with them.” As she sees it, her team “saved 80,000 jobs. We went on to grow to 150,000 jobs. We quadrupled the growth rate of the company, quadrupled the cash flow of the company, tripled the rate of innovation of the company. And went from lagging behind to leading in every single product and every single market. I will run on that record all day long.”

I’m not endorsing Fiorina, either as candidate or as CEO. Just sayin’ that those attacking her on 30,000 jobs don’t know anything at all about actually creating even one real one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fiorina, employment, HP, CEO, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, jobs, Presidential, collage, photomontage, illustration, JGill, Common Sense

 

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Common Sense folly general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers tax policy too much government

Weekend with Bernie: Fairy-Tale “Free”

Bernie Sanders, Free, Fairy Tale, promises, collage, photomontage, James Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, illustration

Bernie Sanders is many a progressive’s fairy-tale candidate.

Well, yeah.

Not “once upon a time,” but today . . .  the federal government’s public debt is in the double-digit trillions. The total debt — consisting also of unfunded/underfunded welfare state “promises” — may be in the triple digits. Still, politicians pat themselves on their backs when they deliver annual deficits under half a trillion per year.

Meanwhile, Senator Sanders, former member of America’s Socialist Party and current caucuser with the Democrats, is running on the “freebie” platform: let’s spend more!

He serves as the pusher of a very old folly: thinking that good things come to us without cost.

But the costs have to be paid.

And will be.

That’s the essence of common-sense wisdom since ancient times. Usually I conjure up an accountant or an economist to explain this, but why not go back to folklore? Folk and fairy tales, along with myths both ancient and modern (remember Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings?), tell us that magic powers come at a price.

And those costs can be killer.

Far-left-of-center magic pretends that not only can Bernie provide “free” stuff for everyone (including those of us in his “hard-working middle class”), but also that the wherewithal for these goodies (college, medicine, food, shelter, meaningful work) can easily come from . . . three pot-of-gold sources: “the rich,” “print more money,” and that least plausible sprinkle of fairy dust, “government efficiency.”

We tell children fairy tales not to make them wish for magic solutions, but to illuminate the logic of responsibility.

Bernie didn’t get that lesson.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Bernie Sanders, Free, Fairy Tale, promises, collage, photomontage, James Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, illustration

 

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Common Sense crime and punishment First Amendment rights folly ideological culture meme Popular

Scientists for Censorship

Climate Crime, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, censorship, global warming

“You have signed the death warrant for science,” scientist Peter Webster wrote to a colleague, recently.

The recipient of this charge had signed onto an entreaty to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren — along with 19 fellow climate scientists. They asked for an investigation into companies and organizations that publicly express doubt about predictions of impending catastrophic man-made global warming. Specifically, they urge the administration to pursue this line of assault using the oft-abused RICO statute, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.

Yes, the scientists are calling for harassment of dissenters and straight-out censorship.

Ronald Bailey, over at Reason, calls this a “new low in politicizing science.” Climatologist Judith Curry, who quoted Webster’s above judgment as an epigraph to her post on the subject, colorfully characterized her reaction: “When I first spotted this, I rolled my eyes — another day, more insane U.S. climate politics.”

The 20 alarmists, for their part, draw a parallel to the tobacco RICO investigations that were so influential a few decades ago. But that original case was badly decided. Moreover, RICO laws are themselves an affront.

The anthropogenic global warming catastrophists have previously undermined their case — lies, conspiracies to hide data, misleading use of computer models, and a relentless campaign to turn scientific inquiry into “settled science” will do that. But now, the grotesque spectacle of scientists demanding that the full weight and force of coercive government come down on their “opponents” completely destroys any remaining shred of credibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Climate Crime, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, censorship, global warming

 

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture

No Reconciliation with Communism

Pope, Castro, Vatican, Cuba, collage, photomontage, illustration, Paul Jacob, James Gill, Common Sense

Pope Francis met with Fidel Castro over the weekend.

It’s not the first time the Bishop of Rome has met with a dictator, in Cuba or elsewhere. But it is the first time this particular pope has done so.

Next stop on this tour? The United States.

The pope’s most pointed words were directed not to the Communist nation but south by southwest, to Colombia, from where hail contestant parties to peace talks (the government versus leftist insurrectionists) now being held in Havana. The pope wishes no breakdown in the talks, urging that the world cannot afford “another failure on the path of peace and reconciliation.”

Pope Francis has been credited with the thawing of cold war relations between the United States and Cuba, and, for his part, praises both parties for the detente, which he has dubbed “an example of reconciliation for the whole world.”

But Cuba remains under tyranny; the people cannot speak freely and are impoverished under the thumb of socialistic regulation. The pope may not be seeing elements of causality here, of teleology, of purpose: Cuba’s poverty is not caused by the American embargo, really, but by a pernicious attachment to outdated ideas of government supremacy over people.

Unfortunately, many of the pope’s most famous remonstrances about capitalism suggest that he may be closer to the Castro brothers’ oppressive Marxist ideology than to a more liberatory approach.

While the pope publicly prays for reconciliation, Americans would be better off if we repudiated reconciliation with destructive ideas that too easily get packaged as “humane” and “Christian” when they are really, and deeply, precisely the opposite.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pope, Castro, Vatican, Cuba, collage, photomontage, illustration, Paul Jacob, James Gill, Common Sense

 

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Common Sense folly general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Case Closed . . . But Ticking

Ahmed, clock, terrorism, terrorist, alarm, hysteria, collage, photomontage, illustration, political, chicken little, fear

Irving, Texas, authorities — I use that term loosely — announced yesterday that the case has been closed. Over. Finito. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

What case? That of the 14-year-old clock-maker assumed to be a potential bomb-making/let’s-err-on-the-side-of-panic terrorist.

Perhaps it didn’t help that the youngster had the wrong last name: Mohamed. Or that his family had immigrated from Sudan.

Ahmed loves to tinker. On Monday, he brought one project, a clock, to school hoping to impress his engineering teacher. His teacher mistook the clock for an improvised bomb, and told Ahmed not to show it to anyone. When the clock’s alarm went off later, his English teacher took the clock and told him to pick it up after school.

Later, the principal pulled Ahmed out of class. Five policemen then interrogated the lad, eventually handcuffing and marching him to juvenile detention.

A police spokesman admitted there was never any threat made. And, of course, no bomb. Ahmed’s engineering teacher clearly wasn’t scared. Yet, this 14-year-old was still treated like a . . . terrorist.

Before being released.

Some charge this is a case of obvious bias against this student’s race or religion. Maybe that’s why even Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for the student and why President Obama invited Ahmed to bring his clock to the White House.

Though prejudice may be part of this story, I doubt it’s the main issue. Many students not named Mohamed have been treated similarly — for bringing a butter knife to cut an apple at lunch, or gnawing a PBJ sandwich into the shape of a gun, or (horrors!) “shooting” pointed fingers at classmates.

Public school’s zero-judgment zero-tolerance is equal opportunity insanity.

Not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Ahmed, clock, terrorism, terrorist, alarm, hysteria, collage, photomontage, illustration, political, chicken little, fear

 

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Accountability Common Sense government transparency ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers

Walker vs. Union Power

Taxes Make Us Strong

Governor Scott Walker, who is running for the U. S. Presidency, has cooked up a white paper on the subject for which he is nationally known: labor relations. It’s a doozy.

His main points are:

  • Reduce the power of union bosses by eliminating the National Labor Relations Board.
  • Eliminate big-government unions.
  • Take “right to work”
  • Protect state employees’ First Amendment rights.

And that’s not the whole of it. Some of his points are worth quoting at length, including this:

On Day One of my administration, I will put in place accountability and transparency rules. I will require online disclosure of union expenditures, including revealing the total compensation of union officers, itemizing union trust fund expenditures, increasing reporting requirements for local affiliates of government employee unions, and restoring conflict-of-interest reporting requirements.

Walker’s is not a detailed, in-depth policy paper. It’s a list of goals, really. It does not address how he would accomplish this, if elected. It’s obvious that many (perhaps most) of these reforms would require congressional compliance and even legislation.

Yet by focusing on the inordinate power of government workers’ unions, Gov. Walker advances what many of us were hoping for when we first heard that the surprisingly daring, surprisingly successful Wisconsin governor would make a bid for the top spot in the federal government. Something needs changing.

And that something is the general purpose for government: what and whom government serves, other than itself, and how.

Or, in Walker’s words, “commonsense reforms” to narrow “the federal government’s role. . . .”

He says let’s close “special-interest loopholes . . . once and for all.”

Is that possible? It’s worth a try.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Taxes Make Us Strong

 

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers too much government

Trump Blot

Trump Blot, collage, photomontage, Rorshach, inkblot, editorial, political cartoon, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/

I’m almost professionally required to say something nice about Donald Trump — because mainstream media feel professionally required to ridicule him. So here goes: he’s doing us a great service in his presidential run.

Trump’s sort of a bung puller; he’s unstopped the cork of polite political society, and shown the massive voter dissatisfaction by giving more realistic voice to just how stupid government is. “Really stupid!”

But, beyond that, where does he stand? On too many issues, that’s murky. For economist David Henderson, a friend of mine from way back, this shows promise.

Henderson is a free-market economist. He’s not into the whole warfare/big stick bullying that some conservatives channel from the first Progressive president, Teddy Roosevelt. Trump, writes Henderson, stands out, by not having “foreign policy advisers.” Which Henderson regards as “refreshing, given the hawkish views of the vast majority of his Republican competitors.”

Henderson also acknowledges Trump’s downsides, including “Trump’s claim, in 2011, that the U.S. government, having won the war in Iraq, should have taken their oil.” This nationalist plunder idea is evil on its face. And disturbingly retro, harkening back to the days of rapine and pillage.

Understandably, Americans fixate on the man’s “charisma.” Should that make us comfortable? Of Max Weber’s three types of authority (traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal), charismatic is the least predictable, least stable. People will follow too far those they love too much. Or find too entertaining?

Trump serves, for now, as a sort of Rorshach inkblot test. What you see depends on your hopes, fears, or the context of Trump’s candidacy, as you understand it.

For my part, I don’t see an accountable proponent of responsible, limited government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Trump Blot, Rorshach, inkblot, editorial, political cartoon

 

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies tax policy too much government

Weekend with Bernie: Hard Looker?

Weekend with Bernie Sanders, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, Paul Jacob, James Gill

What is a “democratic socialist”?

According to leading presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders, such a socialist “takes a hard look at countries around the world who [sic] have successful records fighting and implementing programs for the middle class and working families.”

I don’t believe him. He shows his cavalier attitude in his next few words: “When you do that you automatically go to countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden . . .”

Competent comparative economics doesn’t simply focus on a few policies one happens to admire and then trumpet them for America. Other countries following Bernie-branded socialist policies are in or headed into the proverbial toilet, i.e. PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain).

The common-on-the-left meme runs like this: “No Other Advanced Country,” which Kevin D. Williamson handily demolishes in a recent article:

If we are to go around the world cherry-picking policies from happy countries, we might pass over French paid-leave laws in favor of the Swiss capital-gains tax (generally 0.00 percent) or the Swiss national minimum wage (there isn’t one), or Finland’s very liberal (in the good sense of that word) education system, or Sweden’s free-trade regime and its financial-regulatory system. We’d have to make radical improvements on our federal balance sheet to get our public debt down to Norwegian levels.

American success has never really been about copycatting Europe. We need to look hard at those who pretend otherwise — like nova Bernie, the rising star of the left, who’s now besting Hillary in polls in New Hampshire and Iowa.

And about “democratic socialism” — extreme redistributionism in a putative republic — Bernie needs to look hard at the worldwide experience . . . not hardly look.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Weekend with Bernie Sanders

 

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Common Sense crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture judiciary national politics & policies too much government

Just Doing Our Jobs?

Barber Shop, discrimination, police abuse, Collage, editorial

I didn’t really want to talk about Kim Davis, County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Last week, she got put in jail for not doing her job; this week, she got released.

Generally, I’m for people doing their jobs. Especially, those in government.

However, when they are instructed to do something destructive, I’d prefer they refrain. Unfortunately, government workers too often select the wrong things not to enforce. I could use a lot more “blue flu” over Drug War efforts, or stealing our property through civil forfeiture, or shooting pet dogs.

No such luck, usually.

Recently, a 17-year-old boy was charged, as an adult, for child pornography. But the “child porn” was a naked picture of his own body on his very own cell phone. A law designed to protect him from sexual exploitation was turned against him, making him a “sexual predator.”

The police and prosecutor in this North Carolina case didn’t really do their jobs.

In Washington County, Pennsylvania, a barbershop has been fined $750 for refusing to cut one woman’s hair. The owner claims he has nothing against doing women’s hair, but merely that this particular shop wasn’t set up to handle women’s typical hair concerns. Public servants fined him anyway.

Do we really need government to patrol beauty salons and barbershops for “discrimination” “crimes”?

After all, they cannot even patrol themselves coherently. Witness the messy case of Kim Davis, Democratic County clerk in rural Kentucky. About which I hope I need not say more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Just Doing My Job, Collage, editorial

 

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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Debbie Does Democracy

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, collage, photomontage, Paul Jacob, James Gill, illustration

“Republicans in Congress are dead-set on rolling back the progress that Democrats like you and I [sic] have worked so hard to achieve,” wrote Democratic Party Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in a bizarre pitch letter last week.

They’ve already said that they’re going to try to repeal Obamacare, after more than 50 unsuccessful attempts (and two Supreme Court rulings in the law’s favor). They want to completely defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides necessary health services to women across the country. And if they don’t get their way, they’re just fine with shutting down the government — again!

Well, GOP strategists shouldn’t be fine with the brinksmanship of a government shutdown. That ploy has backfired before. But why? Because everyone seems to think that the Democrats’ “blame Republicans” strategy makes sense.

But it doesn’t.

Say the Republicans in Congress want to defund Planned Parenthood. Democrats want to keep funding it, but . . . the whole federal government spends over revenue — by nearly half a trillion this past year.

So if Republicans fight the spending and Democrats defend it and the government shuts down because of lack of agreement, it’s obvious: both parties shut down the government. Both refuse to compromise.

But for some reason, it’s only those who want to cut spending who get tarred with responsibility for the lack of a budget.

Debbie titled her email letter “This pisses me off.” But those who deserve to be so irked are her opponents, the Republicans, discriminated against in the double standard she perpetuates.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz, collage, photomontage, Paul Jacob, James Gill, illustration