Tag: propaganda

Categories
folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies tax policy

Rebranding the Odious?

tax, taxes, charity, IRS, I.R.S., Alain de Botton, branding, rebranding, illustration, folly, Common Sense

Being a clever person is hard work. Many of the truly clever things about everyday life have already been said. New and innovative cleverness? A rare thing indeed.

But if you are in the business of being clever, that puts you in a pickle, if “being relevant” and “worth our attention” is part of your cachet.

Take Alain de Botton, a very clever man who has written at least one brilliant book … and several not-​so-​brilliant ones. He has tackled Proust, Epicureanism, and is now deeply into religion.

Well, maybe not so deeply.

He wants politicians to follow the lead of religious leaders, who, he asserts, are masters of rebranding. (I had thought that was for marketing specialists.)

Recognizing that the word “tax” is an odious one — few people really like paying their taxes — de Botton says that politicians should follow what “religions do” and “rebrand ‘tax’ as ‘charity.’”

Charity, he notes, is a “much more appealing word.”

Well, yeah. That’s because charity is a word for love. It is all about deep concern, sympathy, etc., and “acts of charity” are expressions of love and concern.

And the only way that acts of charity can be determined to be expressions of concern is that they are voluntary. Taxes, on the other hand, are not voluntary. They are taken by force (try not paying them — force will find you).

Forcing people to “be charitable” will automatically scuttle that very purpose.

Trying to rescue politics from the stench of compulsion should not be done with rebranding, but by limiting government.

The less government, the less force.

And more scope for charity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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tax, taxes, charity, IRS, I.R.S., Alain de Botton, branding, rebranding, illustration, folly, Common Sense

 

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Categories
media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

Humble Hillary Heads Off

Hillary Clinton, collage, photomontage, illustration, editorial, election, presidential, campaign, poverty, accomplishments, election

Hillary Clinton announced, yesterday, that she wants to be the next president of these United States. She made it official via an Internet video, which starts off with all kinds of normal, regular folks expressing their hopes and plans for 2015.

The small boy singing about “little tiny fishes” steals the show.

After a minute and a half of innocence-​by-​association, Hillary Clinton comes on to say that she, too, has big plans: “I’m running for president.”

Mrs. Clinton continues: “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”

She should know, what with her family’s struggles after leaving the White House in 2000 — multiple mortgages on multiple multi-​million-​dollar domiciles. I’m sure we all relate to that.

“Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion,” she states, “so you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead.”

Apparently, without Hillary at the helm of our Leviathan federal government, all we can do is “just get by.” Barely. Never “get ahead” and “stay ahead.”

“Because when families are strong,” intones Clinton, “America is strong.”

Yes, the woman who wrote It Takes a Village now extols family strength.

“So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote,” she pledges. “Because it’s your time.”

Or so says this Everywoman, a former first lady, U. S. Senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State, and savvy cattle futures trader.

Hillary Clinton has had a long career in government. It will be interesting to see what she runs on — what she identifies as accomplishments — as opposed to what she runs away from.

Or deletes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hillary Clinton Campaign

 

 

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture

Ends, Means, Evils

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who used bombs and guns in a terrifying killing spree a little over a year ago, got what he wanted: He was judged as a political terrorist and not insane, sentenced to prison for ten to 21 years, Norway’s unbelievably minimum “maximum” — with the state’s option of keeping him confined indefinitely if judged too dangerous for release.

Which sounds rather “clinical” to me. Even without a ruling of insanity, Norway appears to treat its murderers as madmen.

But as one survivor of the Utoya massacre explained, “I believe [Breivik] is mad, but it is political madness and not psychiatric madness.” Exactly.

“Madness” is some sort of loss of self-​control, a dangerous instability; “insanity” legally defines that subset of madmen who cannot distinguish between right and wrong. It is pretty obvious that though Breivik is deeply off his rocker, his condition is the result chiefly of bad ideas channeling base impulses.

And yet …

Breivik’s terrorism — like all others — justifies killing innocent people to serve a political goal. In doing so, the terrorist’s ideology becomes de facto insanity, rendering the terrorist incapable of recognizing his own evil.

In this case, his ideology also kept the terrorist from seeing the actual consequences of his horrifying violence. Breivik’s politics is of an extreme anti-​Muslim nature. It has surely been fed by the rise of radical Islamic terrorism. But killing 77 people, including scores of non-​Muslim teenagers, doesn’t exactly serve to rally European “militant nationalists” to an anti-​Muslim pogrom. Mad. Wanton. Feckless.

But just “evil” will do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Johnny Can Be Indoctrinated

Government schools in Frederick County, Maryland, deem the third grade the appropriate time to push a political agenda. Cindy Rose found this out when her daughter came down with the flu and read a textbook, Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, at home.

Mrs. Rose calls the book “socialistic.”

Judge for yourself. On page 104, it reads: “Child care is important, but it is not free for most people in the United States. Families have to pay for child care. It can be very expensive. In some countries, child care is a public service. For example, in Denmark and Vietnam, child care is free or costs very little. This makes it easier for parents to work. Do you think child care should be a public service in your community?”

Rose took her complaint to the school board, which suggested that the book’s slant might be balanced by other materials — but could point to no evidence it was being balanced. Those defending the textbook insist that it teaches critical thinking, but as one school board member asked, “Do you get much pushback from an 8 or 9‑year old?”

Only if the book explained marginal utility and the Thomas Theorem would I put much stock in the “critical thinking” excuse.

“The entire slant of the book,” Cindy Rose argues, “is … the idea of government running your life.”

Thankfully, my wife homeschools our children. I can tell you that’s not one of the lessons.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

What’s Next, Democracy?

Not all votes are democratic, for — as Stalin pointed out — it’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.

Same for “town halls” and public discussions: Politicians regularly hold meetings with constituents the main point of which is to make sure that nothing too challenging gets aired.

This being the case, you might guess my reservations about “deliberative polling” in the “What’s Next California” vein.

This weekend three hundred “randomly selected” Californians gathered in Torrance to undergo what looks to be a three-​part process:

  1. Submit to polling on the major issues facing the crisis-​ridden state.
  2. Gather to discuss the issues, with fact-​sheets in hand, and lecturers to listen to and answer questions.
  3. Submit to polling at the end of the session, to see how many of the participants’ ideas have changed.

Project founder James Fishkin is obviously interested in the initiative process, but just as obviously interested in seeing it lean more towards a “progressive” direction. Of the three opinions on the program featured at Zócalo Public Square, I lean towards Tim Cavanaugh’s: “By combining polling with top-​down instruction from a panel of ‘experts,’ deliberative pollsters hope to determine how voting would change if voters’ opinions could be forced into compliance with establishmentarian thinking.…”

Athenian-​style public deliberation? Not really. The experts aren’t polled, so it’s obvious that they aren’t expected to modify their opinions. 

Besides, in a real democracy, the people would do their own research and bring along their own experts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Give Me Fever

Today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors premiers its new video, “Recall Fever: Stop the Madness,” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The video is part of a “public awareness initiative” to convince folks that recalling their mayor is “destructive” and “costly.”

“This archaic rule,” said U.S. Conference of Mayors chief executive Tom Cochran recently, “is being put to sinister use.”

But just how sinister was it when 69 percent of Ogden, Kansas, voters recalled their mayor last year? What would you do were you to discover, after the election, that your mayor had served more than a decade in neighboring state prisons for burglary, aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter?

The 88 percent of Miami/​Dade, Florida, voters who unseated their mayor last month don’t seem sinister, either — his self-​dealing and cronyism, on the other hand, surely qualify.

Though the anti-​recall event doesn’t feature any mayor who has actually been removed from office through recall, more sensible testimony can be found from the ranks of the ousted: Carmen Kontur-​Gronquist of Arlington, Oregon. After online pictures of her posing scantily clad on a city fire truck created a firestorm, voters recalled her by a mere three-​vote margin. Still, her reaction was philosophic: “[T]he democratic process took place, and that is a good process that we have in the United States, and it’s fair.”

Maybe Cochran and his cabal of mayors should keep their shirts on … so to speak. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.