“Progress is in inverse ratio to the coercive interference of man with man, and in direct ratio to the control by man of external nature.”
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Yves Guyot
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Video: Lessig Misses the McCarthy Point
Fascinating look at Lawrence Lessig’s recent arguments about campaign finance, courtesy of Cato Institute:
It is worth noting that Lessig is running for the presidency on the Democratic Party ticket. On September 6, 2015, he announced his candidacy. Interestingly, he has stated that if elected president, he would resign the office and transfer power to his vice president as soon as he accomplished his goals of passing campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation.
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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Yves Guyot
“If you try to lessen or restrict competition for your private benefit, you are not denying the truth of an economic law; you are only trying to turn it to your own advantage.”
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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Leo Tolstoy
“The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor.”
Leo Tolstoy, What Is To Be Done? (1886) Chap. XXXVIII, as translated in The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï (1902) edited by Nathan Haskell Dole, p. 259
Queen Elizabeth II, the not-quite-just-a-figurehead monarch of Great Britain, has just become her country’s longest reigning potentate.
“She passes Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother,” the AP reports, “who was on the throne for 63 years and 7 months.”
This should mean almost nothing to Americans. A curiosity at best, alongside other eccentric British institutions, like cricket and pub cuisine. Americans fought and won against King George III, and we don’t have kings any longer. Or queens.
Britain’s prime minister dutifully predicted that “millions” of Britons would celebrate the “historic moment.” One of the most irreverent (and unpopular) things I ever wrote pertained to Her Alleged Majesty, and the weird, atavistic yearnings still focusing on celebrity sovereigns.
We have enough problems with non-sovereign celebrities in America — as well as with way-too-long-serving politicians.
I’m for term limits. I approve of them on our presidents (thank you, 22nd Amendment), work to place them on our legislators, state and congressional, and have suggested placing term limits on U.S. Supreme Court justices, too.
If we still had an old-fashioned monarch — as Alexander Hamilton wanted — then I would be for term limits on monarchs as well. I wouldn’t know how to implement them — it’s not exactly a live issue for me — but perhaps L. Sprague de Camp’s imagined five-year reign, leading to a beheading, could be considered.
Meanwhile, back in American reality, we have a lot of work to do. At least we aren’t saddled with a musty old . . . monarch-y.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Yves Guyot
“It is not the astronomer’s business to consider whether it would be better if the sun were nearer or farther from the earth, or if he turned round her, instead of turning round him. Nor is it the chemist’s business to consider whether carbonic acid and carbonic oxide are noxious gases that ought not to exist. It has never been thought desirable to make Newton responsible for tiles falling on the people’s heads.
“Economists, however, are held answerable for the laws which they discover.”
“Initiative 1366 is blackmail,” one plaintiff charged.
No; it’s just political hardball.
Washington State voters have cast their ballots five times (by initiative measure) to require a two-thirds vote of both houses of the state legislature, or a vote of the people, to increase taxes.
Though the rule is neither hard to understand nor difficult to implement, legislators have repeatedly overruled the people they supposedly serve, overturning the measure and then, finally, suing to overturn the repeatedly re-enacted two-thirds requirement.
The Washington Supreme Court ruled that only through a constitutional amendment could citizens place upon their representatives the two-thirds mandate. And — you guessed it — the state’s initiative process doesn’t permit constitutional amendments, only statutes.
As I reported back in June, Tim Eyman and Voters Want More Choices haven’t skipped a beat. Their grassroots army collected over 335,000 voter signatures to place a new initiative on the ballot. This measure would cut a penny from the state sales tax unless legislators propose an amendment to the state constitution establishing the rule that taxes can only be raised via a two-thirds legislative vote or a popular vote.
The day after the signatures were verified and the measure placed on the ballot, a group of legislators and various special interests sued to block the measure from going to a vote. Last Friday, the court declared that Initiative 1366 would remain on the ballot for voters to decide.
So, whether “blackmail” or ingenious hardball, it looks like voters will have a chance to send a very direct message to their representatives: Do what the people want or else.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Leo Tolstoy