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links

Townhall: Earmarks and Ezra to the Rescue

This weekend’s Townhall excursion takes us back to the utopia of just a few years ago, when politics was stable. Yes, that’s an argument. It was made by Ezra Klein. Click on over, then come back here for a few choice bits of further reading.

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Thought

Albert Jay Nock

As long as our people are incapable of the simplest possible process of putting two and two together, I can not get much warmed up over their political misfortunes.

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Thought

Ludwig von Mises

It is a widespread fallacy that skillful advertising can talk the consumers into buying everything that the advertiser wants them to buy. The consumer is, according to this legend, simply defenseless against high-pressure advertising. If this were true, success or failure in business would depend on the mode of advertising only.

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video

Video: The Second Amendment Is Outdated?

The First Amendment isn’t, and neither is the Second:

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free trade & free markets too much government

Resistance Is Not Futile

Who says signing up for Obamacare is all snarls and snafus?

Thirty-year-old law student Brian Mahoney already had a high-deductible, low-premium insurance plan. But the day the Obamacare exchanges went online, he decided to check it out. For him, unlike thousands of others, signing up was easy.

Great. Except that . . . Mahoney had been paying for medical insurance, and now he’s on Medicaid. The website told him he was eligible. Thus, the “success” here is the triumph of making a capable adult less self-responsible and more dependent on government handouts.

And that’s bad. If we care about our freedom, what we must do is resist appeals, or demands, that we forfeit control over our lives — even if offered a mess of pottage in return. Refuse to cooperate with the bureaucrats and politicians. Not become martyrs, but resist to the extent that we can resist. Even if it’s, well, more than a tad inconvenient. Certainly we should not submit to new chains and crutches eagerly.

A reader at the Hot Air blog reports that when he asked his doctor about “about how our electronic records would be used and protected” under the Obamacare regime, the doctor replied: “We’re not keeping electronic records. We refuse to comply with Obamacare. We’re not switching over.”

Good for you, Doc. We need more like you.

I certainly don’t want my medical records in the hands of government . . . to name just one of the things having to do with me, my rights and my life that I don’t want government anywhere near.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Ludwig von Mises

The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.

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national politics & policies too much government

Something to Protect

Blasé about sweeping government surveillance? Think you have “nothing to hide”?

I bet you do.

Ever draw curtains? You have “something to hide.” If you balk when a con man says, “I need your birthday and Social Security Number,” you have “something to hide.” When you feel comfortable giving certain information about yourself to some persons but not others, you demonstrate your preference to hide some things from some people.

That’s not nothing.

Philosopher Harry Binswanger, however, says he is not worried. “I have no secrets. Those who raise the specter of Big Brother are not on a wrong basic premise, but they are being unrealistic: when and if we fall into the grip of totalitarianism, there will be nothing to stop the dictatorship from spying on us by any means it wishes. Such a regime does not require that the tools have been set up in advance.” Some reining in may be appropriate, but “alarmism” is unwarranted.

It’s warranted.

Totalitarianism doesn’t happen with a flip of the switch. Tyranny works from precedents. Daily encroachments help establish it.

And our government violates our rights in the here and now, in days prior to any fully Orwellian dystopia. The tools usable tomorrow by an American-style GPU or Gestapo to violate our rights can be thus used today by an IRS or NSA.

Our governments snoop on us unwarrantedly today. They hide the extent of their spying on innocent people, today. They have motives to use what they get by their spying — today.

It should stop.

Today.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Ludwig von Mises

Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

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national politics & policies

The Apple of Their Own Eyes

“Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it,” President Obama recently told an audience. “I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t.”

Acknowledging the many problems that popped up in last week’s rollout of the online healthcare exchanges, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered, “[H]opefully you’ll give us the same slack you give Apple.”

Let’s review. Apple fixed its problem. And customers continued to voluntarily purchase its products.

That’s where the president’s and the secretary’s analogy badly breaks down. Obamacare’s problems are myriad and metastasizing . . . and hardly being fixed.

Even Obamacare enthusiasts Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, writers of The Washington Post’s “Wonk Blog,” objected to the ridiculous comparison between Apple and Obamacare in a story headlined, “Obamacare’s Web site is really bad”:

The Obama administration doesn’t have a basically working product that would be improved by a software update. They have a Web site that almost nobody has been able to successfully use. If Apple launched a major new product that functioned as badly as Obamacare’s online insurance marketplace, the tech world would be calling for Tim Cook’s head.

The differences between Apple and Obamacare hardly end there. Did I mention that no one is forced to buy Apple products?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Anne Hutchinson

If any come to my house to be instructed in the ways of God what rule have I to put them away? Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women and why do you call me to teach the court?