Funny Things Progressives Believe

They believe:

• Every adult person is smart enough to vote.

• Most adult people aren't smart enough to make their vote choice without having their betters regulate what information they receive (campaign finance and speech laws).

Tax Cuts for the Rich!

It's fairly rich (heh) that for more than a decade, Democrats have referred to the Bush tax cuts as "tax cuts for the rich," but now that they're due to expire, they're forced to admit that they were, in fact, tax cuts for everyone, and that letting them expire will increase taxes for everyone.

Aspirin And The Totalitarian Urge

I clicked on the link to an article in the New York Times, The 2,000-Year-Old Wonder Drug thinking I'd find an informational article on the benefits of aspirin.

Instead I found a political screed that justified government "regulating a person’s habits in the name of good health" as a "moral and social duty."

It's the same old story. Experts have decided what's best for you and they'll make you do it whether you like it or not.

C.S. Lewis said, "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipresent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with approval of their own conscience."

It's a fundamental tenet of libertarian thought that one may not subordinate another person for one's own ends. No matter how good the intent, taking from a man's daily wage to force him to pay so that the government can coerce him is a terrible evil.

There are no experts so wise that they deserve to have power over innocent peoples' bodies and lives. My "habits," good or bad, are my own business, so long as my habits don't directly harm others.

If we have so socialized our society that the cost of my health care is determined to be a harm to others, then the proper remedy is to not force people to pay for my health care, not to impose other people's opinions of proper behavior on me.

The only just government is a government instituted with the consent of the governed, to secure their rights -- not to infringe them.

All Of Our Accomplishments Are Minor

This is a lovely, lovely article.

Two quotations that caught my eye in particular:

Am I “cheerily generalizing” as Solomon says of other Down syndrome parents, “from a few accomplishments” of my child? Perhaps I am. But one thing I’ve learned these last four years that possibly Solomon has not: All of our accomplishments are few. All of our accomplishments are minor: my scribblings, his book, the best lines of the best living poets. We embroider away at our tiny tatters of insight as though the world hung on them, when it is chiefly we ourselves who hang on them.

 ...

“The happy ending of tragedies,” he notes, “have a dignity beyond the happy endings of comedies.” Warriors at heart, we cherish what we’ve gone to battle for far more than what’s been handed to us with a lifetime warranty and a lollipop.

This Judge Doesn't Understand What 'Choice' Means

Federal judge rules North Carolina's 'Choose Life' plate unconstitutional

The article says it's unconstitutional unless an opposing viewpoint is offered.

I wondered if that rule is applied consistently, so I went to NC's specialized license plate page.

Wow, funny, there seems to be no "Animal Hater's" plate to counter the "Animal Lover's" plate.

There's no "Screw the Arts" plate to counter the "Arts NC" plate.

 There's no "Blow off Breast Cancer" plate to counter the "Breast Cancer Awareness" plate.

There's no "Oppose Militarism" plate to counter even one of the many military plates.

There's no "Support Atheism" plate to counter the "In God We Trust" plate!

There's no "Kids Last" plate to counter "Kids First."

There's no "Brady Campaign" plate to counter the NRA plate!

There definitely needs to be a plate to counter the "Shag Dancing" plate. That just sounds immoral!

There's not even a "Sons of American Slaves" or "Sons of Union Veterans" plate to counter the "Sons of Confederate Veterans" plate!

In fact, not one of the specialized plates has an "opposing viewpoint" plate unless you count the different Collegiate plates that might include team rivals, or the NASCAR plates for competing drivers. It seems that opposing viewpoints are only required when the state doesn't like your viewpoint!

Also, what, exactly is an "opposing viewpoint" for "Choose Life?" The legislature considered and rejected suggestions such as “Trust Women. Respect Choice,” or simply “Respect Choice,"

And rightly so! Because, really, to us native speakers of English, there is nothing about those plates that is in opposition to "Choose Life!"

Do you "Trust Women?" Well, then you must them even if they "Choose Life."

Do you "Respect Choice?" Obviously then, you respect the choice to "Choose Life."

In fact, the only sentiment clearly in opposition to "Choose Life" would be, obviously, "Choose Death."

If they're going to go ahead with this opposing vewpoint requirement, then I expect that "Choose Death" will be at the head of a slew of newly issued specialized plates that oppose our military, the arts, animals, breast cancer awareness, NASCAR Racing, colleges, many civic organizations, and so on. The people of North Carolina will truly be able to speak their minds through their license plates!

That's what will happen, right? I think the "Sons of American Slaves" plate will be extremely popular in the North Carolina African-American community! I can't wait!

Think It Through

In an article on James Scott's new book Two Cheers for Anarchy, Lucy Steigerwald writes:

He points to the 101st Airborne's role in integrating Little Rock schools to refute the notion that a state can never be used to protect individuals.

In most of his discussions of the modern world, though, Scott sounds like an anarchist again. He detests public schooling, for example: not just in this post–No Child Left Behind, standardized test–heavy era (and not just in Jim Crow Little Rock), but in general. Public schools, he writes, were developed to create good, hard-working citizens "whose loyalty to the nation will trump regional and local identities of language, ethnicity, and religion."

That's a sweet, sweet juxtaposition. Why? Because if we could do away with public schools, as the Scott of the second paragraph would like, then the government in the first paragraph would never have had the legitimacy to force integration of the schools.

Understand Our Form of Government

In a recent article, Gene Healy discusses President Obama's use of recess appointments:

Obama isn't the first president to abuse the clause to appoint nominees that the Senate wouldn't confirm. He is, however, the first to invoke the power when the Senate was—according to its own rules—actually in session. The White House called the "pro forma" sessions adopted by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "a procedural trick" aimed at unjustly stifling his ability to bypass Senate confirmation.

 What President Obama doesn't seem to understand or accept is that our three branches of government are designed to thwart each other at least as much as complement each other. Not only are powers distributed among them, but they are designed so A) each is supreme within its domain, and B) each can thwart the other branches.

If the Senate enacts rules to extend their session to thwart recess appointments, that's part of their balancing power, because they are supposed to confirm appointments and when a mechanism is being used specifically to avoid that, then they have a responsibility to stop it.

Under the Constitution, no branch of government, no official has the power to say when the Senate is in session but the Senate.

By clearly disregarding the Senates own statement of its status, the President was committing an impeachable offense.

Sadly nobody in the legislative branch seems to have the courage to draw up articles of impeachment.

If Obama wanted to approach the problem legitimately, he would have gone to the Supreme Court to see if the Senate's rules regarding their sessions were unconstitutional. Of course, the court would probably have declined to take such a case, as the Senates actions are so clearly constitutional. Obviously, Obama didn't want to hear that.

The only power we, as citizens have, is the ballot box. We've got to start electing Senators and Representatives who aren't afraid of Presidential power and who are willing to impeach when necessary.

Remember, impeachment isn't a finding of guilt, it's just a finding that something needs to be put to trial. It's the only power outside election that can thwart a President who refuses to adhere to the constitutional limits of his office.

Of course, Congress itself is no big fan of constitutional limits. Witness its egregious abuse of the commerce and general welfare clauses (abetted by the Supreme Court, who has made violating the constitution with the "presumption of constitutionality" precedent the standard way of doing business). That's why they won't act, they are afraid that if they start invoking constitutional limits on the President, someone might think of applying them to Congress.

Again, our only direct power (short of the ammo box) is the ballot box. We need to elect Representatives who understand the limitations of their branch, and adhere to it, and we need to vote out those that don't, even when their violations are favorable to us individually.

We need to elect Presidents who know their place, and who appoint judges that aren't slaves to unconstitutional precedents -- the idea that "we've been doing it wrong so long we're bound to keep doing it wrong because it's a precedent").

We need to return appointment of Senators to the state legislatures to keep the federal government from running roughshod over the states.

And, ideally, there'd be more requirements to vote than merely being a citizen over 18 and having a pulse.