Tag: big government

Categories
ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Hurricane Algebra

hurricane, climate change, global warming, weather, panic, big government, regulations

Helene is x times worse than Katrina, but receives y less coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.

When we finally plug in the numbers, we will likely discover that the coverage difference is best explained by two factors: there are fewer reporters yet more “journalists” than ever before, and (you guessed it) politics.

You see, Katrina coverage helped besmirch George W. Bush and the Republicans.

Covering Helene in the same way, or to similar extent, could hurt the incumbents (FEMA has been especially lame), and the presidential race is too close for the Democrats’ lackeys in the media to do that.

So let’s blame Helene on Trump.

Or, the low coverage on Trump. Trump’s the why of the y!

It’s just as sensible as blaming Helene on man-​made climate change. Nearly every newsperson intones the plausible-​sounding theory that the warmer the climate the more damaging the storms. It’s a great hypothesis. But pre-​Helene studies have shown scant evidence for it.

Further, the oft-​repeated line that “never before” has a hurricane reached so far inland is also untrue. Asheville, North Carolina, was destroyed by a similarly horrific hurricane in July 1916.

These are rare events. Or, perhaps, cyclical, on repeat by century. 

The pity with all this theory and conjecture and political nonsense is: less coverage means less knowledge outside the hurricane zone of how horrible Helene is, and thus less sympathy elicited from the general population of generous Americans. Thus, less aid.

Making major media complicit — with the U.S. Government (FEMA, etc.) — in not helping relieve the suffering. 

So maybe we should thank the climate change agenda. Without that devil to fight, we might get no coverage of Helene at all. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

X Information

big government, big tech, big business surveillance, censorship

For well over a century, politicians have pushed Big Government/​Big Business partnerships. The policy, indeed, is as old as politics. While we who like free markets often like [some of] the products of today’s biggest businesses, we must recognize that much of what these corporations sell us comes with strings attached — as we’ve found out to our dismay in the corruption of major social media outfits; as proven by the attacks on our speech and to the undermining of free elections.

Before the #TwitterFiles revelations, Michael Rectenwald, author of The Google Archipelago and other books, wrote a commentary that appeared in the pre-​Christmas edition of The Epoch Times: “Who Really Owns Digital Tech?” In less than a thousand words, Rectenwald makes clear how deep governments have been involved in the tech space — particularly the Internet Space.

“Given the evidence of government start-​up funding,” Rectenwald reasons, “we may have to concede the argument that the internet might have developed differently, more slowly, or not at all if the Defense Department hadn’t been involved at the outset. Likely, what we know as the internet would have become a system of private networks” — and in this dispersed-​power system, free speech would not become a major issue, because not as easy a target.

As it is, however, “Twitter has operated as an instrument of the uniparty-​run state, squelching whatever the regime deems ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Rectenwald writes, giving us an ominous list of the topics of xinformation:

  • warfare
  • economics
  • pandemics
  • elections
  • climate change catastrophism
  • the Great Reset

There are big gains for … some. Big Biz/​Big Gov partnerships imply gains for both partners: business people gain access to governmental power and favors, and politicians and functionaries gain leverage to mold the citizenry. 

And that is where we have seen the partnership’s worst.

So far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-​E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

X Information (alternate illustration)

For well over a century, politicians have pushed Big Government/​Big Business partnerships. The policy, indeed, is as old as politics. While we who like free markets often like [some of] the products of today’s biggest businesses, we must recognize that much of what these corporations sell us comes with strings attached — as we’ve found out to our dismay in the corruption of major social media outfits; as proven by the attacks on our speech and to the undermining of free elections.

Before the #TwitterFiles revelations, Michael Rectenwald, author of The Google Archipelago and other books, wrote a commentary that appeared in the pre-​Christmas edition of The Epoch Times: “Who Really Owns Digital Tech?” In less than a thousand words, Rectenwald makes clear how deep governments have been involved in the tech space — particularly the Internet Space.

“Given the evidence of government start-​up funding,” Rectenwald reasons, “we may have to concede the argument that the internet might have developed differently, more slowly, or not at all if the Defense Department hadn’t been involved at the outset. Likely, what we know as the internet would have become a system of private networks” — and in this dispersed-​power system, free speech would not become a major issue, because not as easy a target.

As it is, however, “Twitter has operated as an instrument of the uniparty-​run state, squelching whatever the regime deems ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Rectenwald writes, giving us an ominous list of the topics of xinformation:

  • warfare
  • economics
  • pandemics
  • elections
  • climate change catastrophism
  • the Great Reset

There are big gains for … some. Big Biz/​Big Gov partnerships imply gains for both partners: business people gain access to governmental power and favors, and politicians and functionaries gain leverage to mold the citizenry. 

And that is where we have seen the partnership’s worst.

So far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-​E2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Political Regroupings

Democratic Party, Democrats, strategy, principles, big government, leftism, donkey

What’s true for hurricanes is true for the Democratic Party. 

After a disaster, it takes a while to regroup, really get a handle on what went wrong. Men and women take some time to absorb new realities.

A few interesting think pieces have come out of the left and center-​left, recently, trying to digest what is wrong with the Democrats that they lost so much ground last year — even to someone like Donald Trump. To serious people, the “Russians did it” and “the Deplorables!” are not exactly winners. 

Hillary Clinton may be stuck in that mode, but the Democratic Party needn’t be.

The more radical response came from John B. Judis, whose name was big in lefty magazines when I was young. His article “The Socialism America Needs Now,” in his old stomping grounds, The New Republic, tried to make the case for a vague leftism that could be called socialism, if you stretch the term, emphasizing bigger government without seeming too … Marxist. 

Meanwhile, Mark Lilla has a new book of a somewhat more perceptive nature. Interviewed in Salon, Lilla makes much of the fact that while “smack in the middle” of the GOP’s website “is a list of 11 principles” … the Democratic Party could sport “no such statement.” Just a bunch of interest groups.

Interesting. Because, today, I went to GOP​.com and saw no such principles list. But I did find a lot of Trump stuff … and a bunch of links to “identity groups.”

Talk about regrouping! 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom local leaders media and media people nannyism national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility tax policy too much government

Ballots & Books

New York Times, taxes, tax, libraries, tax cuts, big government, public services, free markets

The people of Roseburg, Oregon, aren’t paying enough in taxes. That’s the upshot of Kirk Johnson’s recent New York Times article, “Where Anti-​Tax Fervor Means ‘All Services Will Cease.’”

“For generations in America,” readers are informed, “small cities … declared their optimism and civic purpose with grand libraries that rose above the clutter of daily life and commerce.” 

And then, the unthinkable: “last fall, Douglas County residents voted down a ballot measure that would have added about $6 a month to the tax bill on a median-​priced home and saved the libraries from a funding crisis.”

How dare voters so vote? Didn’t they know the Times wanted those libraries fully funded? Where was the “optimism and civic purpose” of Roseburgians?

“We pay enough taxes,” said auto mechanic Zach Holly.

“The trust is gone from people who are paying the bills,” acknowledged an elected commissioner one county over.

Even Jerry Wyatt, who voted for the library tax, decried that, “There’s no end of waste” in government, adding, “We need less people on the county payroll.”

Meanwhile, the Times reporter explained that “few places” are confronting “the tangled implications … more vividly than in southwest Oregon.” It’s not merely “lights out, one by one, for the [library] system’s 11 branches.” There have also been “cuts to the sheriff’s budget … [ending] round-​the-​clock staffing.” 

“If a crime is reported after midnight there,” Johnson wrote, “best not hold your breath for a response.” 

This is “what happens when citizens push the logic of shrinking government to its extremes.” 

To the extreme, eh? Hmmm. Doesn’t seem bad at all. 

Douglas County voters made a free choice about libraries and taxes. 

Close the book on it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* There have also been worthwhile innovations in county government due to the budget cuts. Nearby Curry County combined its juvenile justice department with its parks department to save scarce funds. Then, the parks department began using juvenile offenders to clean up the parks. By engaging teenagers in meaningful work, the policy pushed recidivism rates way down and now Curry County has one of the lowest rates of youths committing a second offense.

Printable PDF

 

Categories
Accountability government transparency ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Legislating in the Real World

Steve Bannon, Trump, Freedom Caucus, big government, Ryancare, Trumpcare, Obamacare

Rolling back Big Government is not easy, especially when you are not that into it.

Robert Draper, profiling Steve Bannon in the New York Times, gives us a view into the mind of Trump’s right-​hand man, who appears to think GOP insiders are obsessed with principles. “[I]t’s all this theoretical Cato Institute, Austrian economics, limited government — which just doesn’t have any depth to it. They’re not living in the real world.”

At best, this only fits the Freedom Caucus members, who killed RyanCare. But who is avoiding reality, here?

“Bannon clearly is not as familiar with the mindset of congressional Republicans as he imagines,” counters Jeff Deist, head of the “Austrian” Mises Institute. “They are primarily concerned with how the whole ‘repeal and replace’ debacle plays back home.” 

Like Deist, I see the spectacular fizzle of RyanCare as evidence of the increasing irrelevance of Republican compromising. “The GOP is the party of trillion dollar military budgets,” Deist insists, noting that it “won’t even kill an openly cronyist program like the Export-​Import Bank.”

If keeping Big Government secure is all Republicans can do, what use are they?

“All around us are the almost unimaginable benefits of markets, cooperation, and technology,” Deist explains, “yet somehow we’re naïve if we don’t want to funnel human activity through government cattle chutes.”

Bannon will not secure solid GOP support if he keeps pushing the usual establishment compromises while pretending they are either realistic or revolutionary. Freedom Caucus Republicans seem bent on doing something Republicans usually avoid: change “the real world” for the better by practically limiting government.

Not just in theory.

Bannon seems to have other goals.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF