In modern days, in civilised days, men’s choice determines nearly all they do. But in early times that choice determined scarcely anything.
Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics (1872), p. 29.
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Walter Bagehot
He’s never met a government monopoly he didn’t love, or a free market service he didn’t distrust or despise…
…but don’t worry, he’s not really a socialist!
Click below for a high resolution version of this image:
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Townhall: Stand In for Rand?
Yes, we miss Rand Paul already.
Paul Jacob’s February 7, 2016, column is online . . .
Go to Townhall.com to read!
And come back here for more information:
- Washington Post – Rand Paul suspends presidential campaign
- Politico – Rand Paul drops out of White House race
- YouTube – Rand Paul: Thank You
- RandPaul.com – Issues
- Common Sense — Tunnel with No Light
- Paul – Nobody read the $1.1 trillion omnibus bill
- Grabien – Rand Hits Cruz: He Wants It Both Ways on the NSA
- Breibart — Rand Paul: Ted Cruz Is ‘Not Authentic’
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Soviets Give Up
On February 7, 1990, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agreed to give up its monopoly on power, thus ushering the way for the dissolution of the putatively communist empire.
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Video: A Much-Abused Clause
Colorado citizens have an interesting advantage . . . over their politicians. Except in cases of “emergency” or matters of “safety”:
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Aaron Burr
On February 6, 1756, Aaron Burr was born. Burr was an American politician who served as third Vice President of the United States, a man with a deeply ambiguous record. His popularity in his home state of New York, combined with the Slave Power vote, allowed for Thomas Jefferson’s victory in 1800 — and yet, another constitutional quirk, in addition to his apparent calculating ambition, precipitated a constitutional crisis in that election. He found a strong opponent in Federalist politician Alexander Hamilton, whom he later killed (in a duel, during his vice presidency). Out of office, Burr gathered an army west of the Appalachians, ostensibly to conquer Mexico. The army was captured, and Burr was put on trial for treason, with Thomas Jefferson moving heaven and earth to see a conviction. Burr was found not guilty, traveled to Europe, and then returned to America for a long life in the private sector.
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George H. Lewes
“History shows how the human mind, which, at the dawn of civilisation, was a lyre of three chords, became in the progress of civilisation a lyre of seven chords. . . .”
G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind (Third Series) Problem the First — The Study of Psychology: Its Object, Scope, and Method (1879), p. 157.
Bernie Sanders is worse than merely wrong about the rich not paying their fair share of taxes.
It’s we, the much-lauded “Ninety-nine Percenters,” who don’t pay enough!
At least, when we figure taxes paid against direct subsidies/services rendered: taxes minus transfers. And, according to the Congressional Budget Office, only the top quintile of income earners — including the much-abhorred One Percenters — pay appreciably more in taxes than they receive in “benefits.”
In a republic, you would expect the masses to pay taxes, receiving only indirect benefits, like a broadly defined “security” and “the rule of law.”
The calculation of who is and is not a net tax-payer or net tax-consumer has to be difficult. I certainly haven’t vetted the studies carefully. But previous accountings also show that the super-rich pay the bulk of income taxes in America.
How to put the system aright?
Don’t tax us more!
Bernie’s preference, to tax a whole lot more as well as to provide more subsidies and “benefits,” will only make a bigger mess.
Unfortunately, doing the right thing (cutting back on the giveaways at all levels) is politically . . . tricky.
But there’s something missing in all this: the indirect hazards of the “benefits” . . . the opportunity costs involved when we get hooked on hand-outs. The most trapped people in America are those who pay the least and take the most. The dollar-value of their received transfer payments measure neither their dependency nor their consequent lack of upward mobility.
How could we figure real harms and helps embedded in the current system, when some “benefits” are, in fact, detriments?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Walter Bagehot
“Much as the old world believed in pure blood, it had very little of it. Most historic nations conquered prehistoric nations, and though they massacred many, they did not massacre all. They enslaved the subject men, and they married the subject women. No doubt the whole bond of early society was the bond of descent; no doubt it was essential to the notions of a new nation that it should have had common ancestors; the modern idea that vicinity of habitation is the natural cement of civil union would have been repelled as an impiety if it could have been conceived as an idea.”
Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics (1872).
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Sir Robert Peel
On February 5, 1788, Robert Peel was born. He would become one of the most important of the United Kingdom’s prime ministers, ushering in some reforms that led to the liberalization of England in the 19th century. He is regarded as the father of the modern British police and as one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party. Robert Peel died in 1850.