From NYT:

A network of private and public surveillance cameras, license plate readers and weapons sensors already established in Lower Manhattan as an electronic bulwark against terrorist attacks will soon expand to a large patch of Midtown Manhattan, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Sunday as they announced the allocation of $24 million in Homeland Security grants toward the effort.

Mr. Bloomberg said the expanded monitoring network would cover the areas between 30th and 60th Streets, from the Hudson to the East River.

“We cannot afford to be complacent,” he said, noting that Midtown includes landmarks like Grand Central Terminal, the Empire State Building and the United Nations....

Asked Sunday about criticism of the increased surveillance, Mr. Bloomberg said: “We live in a world where we have to have a balance. We can’t just say everybody can go everyplace and do anything they want.”

He added, “Do you really want to work in a building that doesn’t have security?”

So where would this mysterious balance be, Mayor Blomberg?

By the way, I also work in a building that doesn't have security. Short of being in the military, I have never worked in a building with security.

Last year's Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina, Dr. Michael Munger of Duke University, had to listen to the same accusations that GOPers like to bring against Libertarians: Quit this stuff--you're electing Democrats and we're waaay better than them.

[Of course, this ignores the fact that in the 2008 election Michael actually pulled more votes from the Democratic candidate than from the Republican, but facts rarely seem to matter in this kind of discussion.]

At any rate, Dr. Munger [who admittedly once was a Republican] ends a post at Kids Prefer Cheese about conservative thought and arguments with these words:

I should point out that these plausible proposals have NOT risen to the forefront of the Republican agenda. (Yes, even these proposals are pretty tepid, and would hardly satisfy a Libertarian, but I am thinking in directional terms here: The Rs are still going fast in the wrong direction!) And so I am still most definitely not a Republican. You folks who send emails proposing that I am "really" a Republican need to realize that the Repubs are "really" full of goose dung.

Wrong direction ... full of goose dung ...

The most prominent Libertarian candidate for any office other than President makes it pretty clear: Republicans ain't Libertarians, and aren't even really coming closer.

Libertarian Republican remains an oxymoron in today's world.

I learned yesterday at Mass and today in the WNJ that Bishop Saltarelli is in hospice care, which presumably means that cancer or whatever else ails him has taken its toll.

On many issues I did not agree with my bishop, but I have repeatedly found him in interactions to be a warm, caring, and humorous man, whose love for his parishoners exceeded any intellectual devotion to a particular interpretation of Christianity.

My son Michael first met him at age six, when the Bishop was visiting Resurrection Parish to conduct Mass. We were in the church library, and one of the Bishop's hangers-on was preparing to uncase and screw together his staff for the service. My own Michael, fascinated with this entire operation, asked if he could do it. The young and oh-too-serious Monsignor was recoiling in horror (I suppose it was his primary job in life), but Bishop Saltarelli laughed and said, "I think another Michael will take quite enough care with the stick. Let the boy have it."

On one occasion we discussed same-sex marriage, which he knew I supported and he opposed. He admitted that his own position had to do almost as much with his upbringing as his understanding of theology, and that this had often caused him to pick his words with care. "After all," he said, "I can only say what I believe and what I think God commands. It is necessary to be humble, because while God cannot be wrong, it is certainly possible that I may not be understanding Him perfectly."

Abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cells, and other issues bedevilling the Catholic Church also sometimes tended to separate the Bishop from parts of his flock, at least intellectually. Yet I do not believe those differences have ever kept Bishop Michael Saltarelli from loving his fellow human beings, and from attempting to do his best for both the most and the least of them.

I wish for him today release from pain, peace of mind, and the Heaven to which he has devoted his life.

How DOES he do that?

You knew--or should have known--that being deeply in debt to China would eventually have consequences.

Not just the increased speed of movement toward a different world reserve currency than the dollar, or refusal to tolerate criticism of its human rights record, or its open analysis of Alan Greenspan's mistakes in managing the American economy....

Nope. Now Bejing is sending a clear message to President Obama regarding what it sees as the appropriate US foreign policy with respect to Afghanistan.

Originally published in China Daily, this piece by Lin Qinggong is pretty clearly speaking for the old men in Bejing:

The United States should first put an end to the war. The anti-terror war, which the former US administration of George W Bush launched in 2001, has turned out to be the source of ceaseless turbulence and violence in the past years.

To promote much-needed reconciliation among the parties concerned, the US should end its military action. The war has neither brought the Islamic nation peace and security as the Bush administration originally promised, nor brought any tangible benefits to the US itself. On the contrary, the legitimacy of the US military action has been under increasing doubt.

Public opinion within the US on the war has undergone dramatic change. According to a recent poll, opinion in favor of the war has declined from 53 percent in April to 39 percent, while opinion opposed to the war has increased to 58 percent from 46 percent. The US Congress has also cast doubt over the Obama administration's Afghanistan strategy. The opposition from 74 percent Democrats and 70 percent independent votes to the war would be a big restraint on the Obama administration's larger military strides given that the new president cannot afford to bet his political fate on a unpopular war.

Since taking office as president, Obama has been under pressure from the Pentagon for military reinforcements in Afghanistan. The calls of war opponents over that of supporters will give the young US president the best chance to extricate himself from the Pentagon's pressures. If Obama resolutely decides to stop the war, that would not only meet the US public expectations and save more American lives, but also help recover the US' peaceful image and enhance the president's personal political prospects.

Despite the fact that I actually agree with the Chinese that we need to get the hell out of Afghanistan, it is a distrubing development that Bejing not only publishes such dutch uncle advice to the US, but that it has pretty instant credibility around the world.

If you want to look for the nations intent on challenging the declining geo-political dominance of the United States in world affairs, look no further than China, followed fairly closely by Russia and France.

From a political perspective, the proper response to Glenn Beck in the past few weeks would have been to stand by Van Jones and Yosi Sergant.

[I realize both had become political liabilities, but not even one-tenth the extent a political liability that being seen to cave into a talk show host creates.]

Now that Beck is going after Valerie Jarrett, the proper political response would be (a) for the White House to ignore him and support Jarrett, while (b) sending out some heavy-hitting political surrogates to take him on.

Having White House officials directly challenging Beck on an official White House website does not debunk Beck, it elevates him.

Hell, at this point he appears to be getting more of Barack Obama's attention than General McChrystal in Afghanistan.

At the same time it diminishes the power of the Presidency.

Why? Because it says, in effect, This man has developed such a following that his lies now require the official attention of the government in lieu of real things we should be doing.

Since trust in government, from both ends of the political spectrum, is running pretty damn low, that gives Beck's followers the idea that he is striking a nerve, and--ironically--tells President Obama's supporters exactly the same thing.

The problem for the Obama administration is that what would have been the right move for a campaign--responding quickly--is the wrong move for a sitting president.

Glenn Beck is a sick-freak-fad that can only become a phenomenon with staying power if his enemies treat him like one.

There is bizarre talk these days from the Far Fringes of the Far Right that America's military might find itself tempted to stage a coup against President Obama.

This is not unprecedented in American history, and other presidents have found their own ways to deal with military officers [and those who egg them on] who see themselves as the white knight on horseback ready to save the republic from the dangers of democracy.

Perhaps the most elegant response ever penned to such a potential situation was writer by President Abraham Lincoln to Major General "Fighting Joe" Hooker on January 26, 1863:

GENERAL: I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe that you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reason, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside’s command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain success can be dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit you have aimed to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but, with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories.

Contrary to what John Perry may think--

Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America’s military leadership is lost in a fool’s fog.

--America's military leadership has a strong and proud tradition of subordination to civil authority. Men as diverse in outlooks and background [but holding in common the power and prestige from which to be tempted to that dictatorship] have included George Washington, George McClellan, Ulysses Grant, Smedley Butler, and Douglas MacArthur successfully met the challenge to place their own ambition behind their love of the American republic.

Any reader of this blog will know that I do not subscribe to much of the hero worship or positive spin for Admiral Mullen, General Petraeus, General Odierno, or General McChrystal. No matter. They are American officers who have sworn an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Make no mistake: These men and those men and women who serve with an under them will stand by that oath. If one of them were to receive orders he could not, within his conscience, carry out, then he would resign.

While among hundreds of thousands of people in the military I am statistically positive the individual exception could be found, here is the reality:

The American military will not support, condone, nor participate in a coup against the legal government of the United States of America.

What is most disturbing to me today is the reaction I have not seen to Mr. Perry's lunacy.

I have read dozens of condemnations of his--I will be blunt--chickenshit call for a military coup, and dozens more posts and stories using his idiocy as a talking point in current political battles.

What I have not read are dozens of stories explaining something that is as certain as the law of gravity:

The United States military does not act against the government of the United States.




**********

Note: I will now be besieged with either (a) idiots who think the American Civil War contradicts this statement [it doesn't; with a single exception all Southerners in the US Army who joined the Confederacy resigned their commissions and gave up their citizenship prior to joining the Confederate Army]; or (b) idiots who want to cite vaguely referenced internet black helicopter stories about coups and potential coups, and the ever-present danger of military fascism, or whatever. So be it. You simply do not know what you are talking about.

Note 2: John Perry's words are seditious; they may be idiotic and politically dangerous, but they are covered by the First Amendment--the same amendment that gives me the right to say that anyone who implies that a military coup is either justifiable or positive is an ignorant asshole.

From Angus at Kids Prefer Cheese:

I actually think we are going to get a reform that is both worse than the status quo and worse than a pure single payer system.

Kudos to our Congress!

As I understand it, insurance companies will not be able to refuse to cover some one, nor will they be able to charge high risk people a premium that reflects their risk. The price won't be uniform, but the maximum variation will be well below what it would take to correctly price the variation in risks.

As I noted before, this will make premiums for healthy people extra high. And as the WSJ pointed out yesterday, at least on the margin, it will make healthy people want to hold off from getting any insurance until they are actually sick.

Problem solved, you say?

Ahh, but now it appears that the third leg of the trinity will be rule that it will be illegal to not have insurance!

So young healthy people will be forced to buy way overpriced (relative to their risk) insurance. Plus if said young healthy people make good money, they can look forward to paying more taxes to subsidize the purchase of said insurance by others.

Guaranteed Issue, Community Rating, Individual Mandate. They sound so reasonable and innocuous, but they are freakin' lethal.

Notice that this is not necessarily an argument against health insurance reform, just an argument that this particular flavor of health insurance reform in ... financially idiotic.

OK, I officially never want to hear about the 2000 US Presidential election again from anybody who does not question this decision:

The White House has ended weeks of hesitation over how to respond to the Afghan election by accepting President Karzai as the winner despite evidence that up to 20 per cent of ballots cast may have been fraudulent.

Abandoning its previous policy of not prejudging investigations of vote rigging, the Obama Administration has conceded that Mr Karzai will be President for another five years on the basis that even if he were forced into a second round of voting he would almost certainly win it.

The decision will increase pressure on President Obama to justify further US troop deployments to Afghanistan to prop up a regime now regarded as systemically corrupt.

The acceptance was conveyed by Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, in a meeting with her Afghan counterpart hours before Mr Obama received a formal request from General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, for up to 40,000 more troops.Mrs Clinton told Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the Afghan Foreign Minister, that she and her Nato colleagues — including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary — had reached a consensus that Mr Karzai would remain President even if investigations now under way cut his share of the first-round vote to below 50 per cent. The meeting took place last Friday but details emerged yesterday.

Now I understand why the administration did not issue a stronger denunciation of Iranian election fraud, and why President Obama continues to support Zelayas in Honduras.

Somebody in the White House has apparently read and digested Jeanne Kirkpatrick's famous 1979 essay Dictators and Double Standards, which became the basis for American foreign policy during the Reagan years.

You have to love the assertions of the Obama administration:

1) NATO and the US arbitrate the legitimacy of Afghan presidential election, based on the fact that a run-off would be inconvenient and the incumbent would probably win anyway.

2) Democracy only matters where we have intervened when the process returns exactly the result we wanted in the first place.

3) The laws of Afghanistan as expressed in the current constitution are of no matter and need not be obeyed or recognized by the international community, because--after all--we are only pretending Afghanistan is a real country, anyway.

From The Future of Capitalism:

The funniest moments of all in the movie, though, may just be in the opening and closing credits. We see that the movie is presented by "Paramount Vantage" in association with the Weinstein Company. Bob and Harvey Weinstein are listed as executive producers. If Mr. Moore appreciates any of the irony here he sure doesn't share it with viewers, but for those members of the audience who are in on the secret it's all kind of amusing. Paramount Vantage, after all, is controlled by Viacom, on whose board sit none other than Sumner Redstone and former Bear Stearns executive Ace Greenberg, who aren't exactly socialists. The Weinstein Company announced it was funded with a $490 million private placement in which Goldman Sachs advised. The press release announcing the deal quoted a Goldman spokesman saying, "We are very pleased to be a part of this exciting new venture and look forward to an ongoing relationship with The Weinstein Company."

Knowing that background puts the rest of the movie in a different context. Mr. Moore shows Rep. Dennis Kucinich asking rhetorically on the floor of the House of Representatives, "Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?" Later, Mr. Moore shows up at Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan driving an armored Brinks trunk and announcing, "We're here to get the money back for the American people." Maybe Mr. Moore should look in his own pockets.

Sort of reminds you of ... well, Al Gore, Fisker Automotive, Tesla Motors, and a billion dollars of taxpayer money [WSJ]:

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

Fortunately, the $14.9 billion that the government could raise from a soda tax, primarily collected from the poor and middle class, will underwrite those loans quite nicely, huh?

I kept looking for the violence, or even the potential violence.

I kept watching the police move closer and closer.

You have to watch the entire ten or eleven minutes to get the feel of the confrontation unrolling in real time.

President Obama insists that mandatory health insurance is not a tax, and compares it to automobile insurance.

But now we also know that, under at least the Baucus bill, if you don't purchase health insurance you may be fined $25,000 and sent to prison for a year.

The necessity for this non-taxation is driven by the President's assertion that we all need to become one big health insurance risk pool:

He noted that consumers currently pay higher health insurance premiums due to the costs run up by hospitals and other facilities providing care to uninsured people.

Those unable to afford health insurance should get government help, Obama said, but others who can afford coverage but choose not to get it should face coverage requirements similar to those for auto insurance.

"What it's saying is ... that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you any more than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance," he said. "Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that, if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs."

This is, of course, not news: it was first reported a week ago, and I have been mulling it over in my slow-moving brain.

It seems to me that taxes, in the modern world, exist to perform two functions for the State. They either raise revenue or modify behavior. Sometimes both. Requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance--explicitly singling out those who choose not to do so as a financial strategy--seems to meet the test of modifying behavior. It will no longer be an option to pay as you go or take your chances.

This move is also fairly obviously targeted as raising revenue, albeit somewhat indirectly, to defer some of the costs associated with universal coverage.

So why not admit it is a tax?

There are political calculations, certainly, and the White House protecting the more-and-more tattered candidate Obama' pledge that no family making less than $250K would see a penny of their taxes raised at all. But I don't think that's it. Everybody knew, back during the campaign, that he didn't mean it. Every analysis by any think tank--right or left--found that Barack Obama's promised new programs would add hundreds of billions to the deficit, and this before the Great Meltdown occurred. Nobody believed him; the people who voted for Obama either knew that he sort of, kind of, had to say that to get elected. After all, remember what happened to Walter Mondale.

But I don't think that's what is happening here.

I really don't think that President Obama believes that mandatory health insurance is a tax. Or that $.01/gallon on sodas is a tax. Or that cap-and-trade involves a tax.

I think that President Obama really believes that if the State's primary intention is to modify the behavior of American citizens for the better--to make them healthier or environmentally friendlier--then what he is proposing is not taxation.

It's influencing or encouraging people to do the right thing, to take responsibility for themselves.

Only if a tax were to be purely about raising revenue, without any pretense of social engineering, would President Obama consider it to be a tax.

There will be a name for this soon. We will actually see some political theorist write a book [and probably score a good position in the administration] delineating the difference between taxes and social responsibility payments. Or maybe it will be called economic democracy credits.

Think I'm nuts?

Then you don't remember George McGovern's Guaranteed Annual Income.

This is the guy who got everything started with the firearms outside the venue in which President Obama was speaking in New Hampshire.

You recall: the evidence that political violence and intimidation was being initiated by those who openly and peacefully carried handguns legally to demonstrations.

This, on the other hand, is the mass demonstration Thursday in Pittsburgh prepartory to the G-20 Summit, wherein legions of police marched in with smoke and pepper spray to disperse the crowd:



Here's how the Associate Press reported the news:

PITTSBURGH — Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins and throwing rocks.

The march turned chaotic at just about the time that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world's major economies.

The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held.

The protesters banged on drums and chanted "Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop."

The marchers included small groups of self-described anarchists, some wearing dark clothes and bandanas and carrying black flags. Others wore helmets and safety goggles.

One banner read, "No borders, no thanks," another, "No hope in capitalism." A few minutes into the march, protesters unfurled a large banner reading "NO BAILOUT NO CAPITALISM" with an encircled "A," a recognized sign of anarchists.

The marchers did not have a permit and, after a few blocks, police declared it an unlawful assembly. They played an announcement over a loudspeaker telling people to leave or face arrest and then police in riot gear moved in to break it up.

Protesters split into smaller groups. Some rolled large metal trash bins toward police, and a man in a black hooded sweat shirt threw rocks at a police car, breaking the front windshield. Protesters broke windows in a few businesses, including a bank branch and a Boston Market restaurant.

Officers fired pepper spray and smoke at the protesters. Some of those exposed to the pepper spray coughed and complained that their eyes were watering and stinging.

Here's how HuffPo has so far covered the protests--with [I couldn't make this up if I tried] a photo contest for the most intense image:

Protesters have taken to the streets of Pittsburgh in opposition to the Group of 20 summit taking place Thursday and Friday.

The protests turned violent Thursday, the AP reported, with demonstrators rolling trash bins towards police, and officers firing tear gas back. Read more here. Several thousand demonstrators protested in a more peaceful march on Friday, the New York Times reports.

Check out this slideshow of protesters and vote on the most intense image.

And are you going to any G-20 protests? Send us your G-20 photos and videos! We will publish the best ones of the HuffPost.

What I find ironic is this: Libertarians would mostly find themselves in agreement here with the diaryist at the Daily Kos who wrote:

Tonight in Schenley Plaza a large group of Pitt students and G20 protesters gathered to protest the violent tactics of the law enforcement officials. Hundreds of officers descended onto Pitt's campus, arresting everyone who remained within the vicinity. Countless individuals were arrested merely for standing on their campus, curiously observing the ongoing mele.

Police used tear gas, dogs, a sonic gun, and full riot gear. I myself had an automatic shotgun pointed at my chest and felt as though I was running for my life. I have never been so scared in my own country. We were meant for more than this.

And on the same page:

No permit was obtained for the grassroots protests of the G20 in Pittsburgh. You have to ask your government permission to protest it. This is what Democracy looks like?

THIS IS WHAT A POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE!

Libertarians would point out that the same Bill of Rights is supposed to be issue-neutral in terms of the rights of Americans to protest peacefully, or even openly carry firearms.

Libertarians would point out that this is not the sign of a healthy democracy:



And, finally, Libertarians would point out that we're pretty much the only ones--as a group--willing to stand up for the rights of conservatives protesting the public option in health insurance or anarchists protesting capitalism and bank bail-outs, even when those protests push the edges of what makes people comfortable.

PS: This is how much attention most of the MSM gave to the whole issue, captured in the single image of Michelle Obama and the rest of the G-20 leaders' wives showing off their fashion sense:

I thought it would be at least amusing to use the Delawareliberal comments as sub-headings regarding each category of what is wrong with the proposed tax on sodas and juice drinks. But there are so many different little strands of each comment that it would be impossible to pull them all out. So, instead, I'm going to let you read them in more or less the order they appeared, and note the assumptions.

pandora: I’m perfectly okay with taxing sodas and juice drinks. Mainly because they’re total crap, and one of the main reasons our country’s children are overweight. They are also dirt cheap.

Assumptions here: (1) Because "I" am perfectly okay with a new tax it should be imposed on everybody; (2) it is the government's responsibility to keep children from being obese; (3) the cheapness of the product to be taxed justifies charging people more for it.

John Manifold: Soda fattens your kids [and you and your husband], shortens their lives, costs more than water [and tastes worse]. Soda is a luxury item that is bad for you. It’s a liquid cigarette....

BTW, don’t you love how insecure males toss the term “nanny state” at random? They did it for seat belts, indoor cigs, warning labels, occupational safety, too.

Assumptions here: (1) luxury items are universally acceptable to tax; (2) I get to define what is a luxury item (used to be yachts; now it is $1.35 two-liter soda bottles; (3) anybody who thinks differently than me is insecure...

Unstable Isotope: Most people don’t have a problem with sin taxes. I find Republican rhetoric on obesity & health very strange. They complain about paying for health care for people’s “choices” but are against doing anything to influence people’s choices for the better. I guess they want to go with their tactic of shaming.... I’m OK with taxing – I like libraries, roads, public parks, police departments, fire departments…

Assumptions here: (1) consuming a potentially fattening product constitutes a sin and therefore should be taxable: (2) the word influence has now become a synonym for taxation; (3) government is the appropriate decider of what is better or worse for all individuals and should use the coercive power of taxation to enforce its standards on personal choices

Scott P.: I have no problem with taxing, either, if it raises money for useful ends in a fair manner. Even better if it encourages good, healthy behavior and helps to lower other related costs. The only relevant question here is whether a soda tax will actually accomplish this....

The talk is about placing a small tax, not outlawing them.... You can still drink all you want. And the point is not so much about stopping you from doing something that’s bad for you. The point is about believing that society has a responsibility to try to prevent people from doing things that are bad for others. The downside to excess sugar consumption is not that you get fat — I don’t give a damn how fat and disgusting you get. The downside is that being obese makes you much more likely to develop major (read: expensive) health issues that I and everyone else will have to pay for.

Assumptions here: (1) a small tax should not be a source for argument; (2) government (which is a synonym for society here) is supposed to stop people from doing anything that might be bad for others, no matter how indirect that connection might be; (3) regressive taxes that target poor people [who buy a disproportionate amount of soda] are fair; (4) government should be responsible for paying for the health care of people who make poor lifestyle choices

cassandra: We’re currently subsidizing this behavior now. We control sugar prices and we subsidize corn which is used to make high fructose corn syrup. I see that as government encouraging the wrong behavior. Consumers aren’t stupid – they definitely know they get more bang for their bucks with high calorie food, and fruits and vegetables are more expensive. Plus, we add lots of fats and things to make junk taste good – the food industry is way out in front in the science.

Remember though, I think humans are short term thinkers rather than long term thinkers. It’s not that people don’t recognize that junk food makes them fat, it’s just that they have to make decisions in the now and junk food is cheaper. If we want to encourage people to eat more healthy we need a way to make healthy eating more cost effective and not so much like swimming upstream....

Soda and juice drinks are luxury items — you don’t pay taxes on what you don’t consume in this case, so what you pay for is still under your control.

But cigarettes are luxury items too — and the lesson from taxing them is one of diminishing returns. As cigs got more expensive, people started quitting meaning that tax revenues started not meeting expectations. I don’t think it will be the end of the world to tax sugared sodas and juice drinks, but counting on these taxes as a persistent source of revenue to pay for health care seems short-sighted.

Assumptions here: (1) encourage is a new synonym for taxation; (2) all luxury items [and the government will define what is a luxury] are fair game to tax; (3) it is clearly OK to tax in order to coerce people into changing behaviors rather than to raise revenue

a. price: I dont mind these types of taxes, and long as there is a plan for the revenues. I, for example, with my just scrappin’ by lifestyle wouldn’t mind a 2 dollar a gallon gas tax… $2 extra per gallon whatever the regular price is, as long as all that money went to developing alternative energy sources. First of all, it would raise a ton of money because people need gas, but it would cause the market to demand private companies also use their 11 billion quarterly profits to fix the oil dependency.

By taxing things like sodas, and sugary juices we have the opportunity to use that money to…. help pay for health care maybe? People who buy soda all the time will be buying into to their long term diabeties treatment.

There is nothing wrong with a vice tax. We are allowed to do things that are bad for us.. sugar, smoking, alcohol… if in Vegas.. other things etc. But, if they are going to negatively effect our health, and that will later have to be paid for, why not start building that coffer now?

Assumptions here: (1) Any tax I personally favor is good for the country as long as the money is used for causes I support; (2) the government has the direct ability to make the market perform specific actions through taxation; (3) we do not have a right to our "vices," they are only allowed to us by a benevolent government; (4) but government should tax us to protect us from the negative consequences of our own actions

Thus the three most prevalent liberal/progressive assumptions about the soda tax and the State in general:

1. The government has the responsibility to save us from ourselves, down to the choices we make in the foods and beverages we purchase to put on our tables, either because (a) we are too stupid to choose for ourselves, or (b) any action we ever take might conceivably indirectly raise a cost to somebody else years from now, which effectively justifies anything the government ever chooses to do.

2. Words can be redefined to suit today's political needs. I'm talking basic nouns and verbs here. Taxes are encouragement or influence; there is no coercion involved because you can just decide to give up whatever we are trying to tax. Anything the State does not approve of, in terms of personal conduct, is either a sin, a vice, or a luxury, none of which we have any rights to partake in; instead, we are conditionally allowed under State supervision.

3. Regressive taxes are fair as long as we are proposing them for causes that we declare to be socially acceptable.

Ironically, there is only conflicting rather than conclusive evidence that such a tax would even work to reduce consumption, a sophisticated examination of the market suggests that it would adapt and work around such a tax, and even the Center for Science in the Public Interest admits that the primary result of such a tax would be raising revenue rather than significantly curbing consumption.

There is, of course, the larger issue here that our friends who advocate an increasingly intrusive State never want to talk about straight up: Where is the line that they will not cross? At what point, for those individuals, should the power of the State be reined in by the rights of the individual?

You won't get a straight answer to that question ... ever.

Because just as badly as the religious right wants to police my bedroom and my libraries in the name of saving my soul, the progressive left wants to restrict my food choices and my recreational activities in the name of saving from myself.

From Jumping in Pools:

Eric Dondero, is the founder & editor of the "Libertarian Republican", a blog which features a Libertarian view, but is strong on national defense and on other issues which Conservatives can agree on, Mr.Dondero had the time to answer some questions for the twentieth interview in the Jumping in Pools series.

Tim K - Mr.Dondero, you are a self proclaimed Libertarian Republican, while I am a self avowed Conservative Republican, how can we work together to build a stronger Republican party?

Eric Dondero - We need to start by recognizing that we are ideological cousins and have far more in common than we have that separates us.

That said, Conservatives have to give a little. We we Libertarians mostly ask, is throw us some bones on some civil liberties issues. And no, I'm not talking tough issues like Abortion or Gay Marriage (actually we Libertarians ourselves are divided on these two issues.) I'm talking easy civil liberties issues that Conservatives can support like: Repeal of Seat Belt Laws!, Stopping Smoking Bans, Lowering the Drinking Age to 18, Gambling, Medical Marijuana and maybe even limited Decriminalization of Prostitution.

If Conservatives recognize that these issues are fundamentally important to us Libertarians, and stop pooh-poohing them as "extreme" or "out of the mainstream," than maybe we Libertarians will be much more motivated to assist Conservatives with their efforts.

Glad to know that you have defined the issues that are fundamentally important to Libertarians while you are there on your knees, Eric.

Coyote Blog is one of my favorites: driven by critical thinking and hard data.

Nonetheless, I disagree with the Coyote on this one:

Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech. Doesn’t say by whom or for what. There are no modifiers. Doesn’t say “except when individuals organize themselves into a corporation.”

My disagreement comes from the fact that free of speech does not mean freedom from consequences for speech. Freedom of speech, as it was intended by the Framers, meant freedom from prior restraint. I cannot be stopped from speaking about you, but if I threaten you, libel you, slander you, or engage in fighting words, then you have recourse against me.

If a normal business partnership does that, I have recourse against the business and the individuals who organized that speech.

But the individuals who have organized themselves into a corporation have done so, at least in part, for the purpose of avoiding personal liability for their actions. That means that a specific individual with power within a corporation may, if acting in his/her official capacity, threaten me, libel me, slander me, and even issue fighting words, and I have no recourse against that individual, but only the assets of the corporation.

I have a distinct problem with people using a state-supported business structure to avoid the consequences of their individual actions.

Corporations are as much if not more creatures of the state than creatures of market forces. You cannot have a limited liabiity business model without the power of the State to enforce those limitations.

Moreover, corporations in practice serve as tax farmers for the State.

Sorry: I don't buy State-award artificial personhood, and I do not buy corporations rather than individuals being protected by the Bill of Rights.

... and didn't you hate that?

I've been trying (in my usual long-winded way) from time to time to explain why GOP bashing is not quite the Democratic answer to tea-baggers and other protesters out there these days.

Frank Rich gets it in one sentence [although I had to suffer through an article about Glenn Beck to find it]:

Many of those Americans may hate Obama, but they don’t love the Republican establishment either.

As a political observer [and not as a shill for libertarianism] I think the mood of the public is increasingly populist, while the leadership of Democrats is increasingly progressive, and what's left of the leadership of the GOP is increasingly reactionary.

Despite the fact that populists and progressives both generally share a sense of the necessity for government activism, very little else actually unites them in terms of policy prescriptions, and some of the antipathy toward Barack Obama is as much anti-intellectual as it is racist.

Some readers know that I am also a union president. Right now I am involved in contract negotiations, which is stressful at the best of times. Even though I am president, I am not chief negotiator, because I have an officer who is better at that, with loads more experience. I generally sit in the second chair, and it is often my role to be "bad cop."

Nonetheless, in participating in these kinds of negotiations now for the better part of a decade, I have learned some rules of thumg that serve me well, particularly when you know that you have to work with the people on the other side of the table before, during, and after the negotiations process.

Rule One: Know what you need, what you want, and what you'd just like to have--and understand that it will often be necessary to give away things you like or want to get what you need. Novice negotiators decide on their priorities during negotiations; experienced and successful pros sit down with their teams and rank order the importance of each item at issue. Although your priorities may change during negotiations, it is a guaranteed sure loser to wait until you're actually sitting there to decide which of your proposals is worth drawing a line in the sand and which is not.

Rule Two: Be civil, even collegial. Taking time for the opening/closing pleasantries, being a generous host when the talks take place in your venue, not jerking the other team around over meeting times or even over legitimate mistakes is not merely pro forma, it is crtical to successful negotiations--no matter how big an asshole you think the person across the table is in real life. This may seem awfully simplistic, but you would be amazed how many people cannot or do not do it. An example: two years ago I was scheduled to represent a grievant at a hearing in front of a vice-president. We have ten days to hear these issues, or it is supposed to default to the next level; on this particular occasion the VP and I could not schedule the hearing until the tenth day at 2pm. That morning at 11am he called me up and told me his son had been in an accident at school and he needed to go to the ER. I waived the timing immediately. The next day when I brought my unit member into his office for the hearing, I started by asking how his son was, and wishing him well. My unit member later went off on me both for the schedule change and for "sucking up" by asking about the boy's broken leg. My unit member, ironically, had gotten everything he asked for in his grievance, in part because I had taken the time to develop a cordial working relationship with the VP. Yes, sometimes we had an adversarial relationship, but we never had a rude relationship. There is a critical difference.

Rule Three: Listen to what the people on the other side of the table are saying--and are not saying. Sometimes, if you actually listen to those folks, you will find out that there are compromises to be made that they could agree to, but cannot propose. That's because the negotiators on both sides of the table are rarely the final authority. In my case we have to sell our end product to an Executive Committee and then to a full vote of our membership. The university team has to get the approval of both the President and Board of Trustees. There are some issues that a university negotiator might be able to concede, if we brought them up, but he could not go back to his Board and tell them he offered. Good negotiators learn to communicate with each other by being very precise in their language. If Proposal One has three parts (A, B, and C), and the other side tells you, "We can't accept Proposal One; "A" as it is written is out of the question," he is telling you that B and C will probably fly, but that you need to offer him alternative language on "A". It's that "as written" which then becomes the key. Too many negotiators with whom I work (on both sides) do not really listen to what is being said.

Rule Four: Respect the confidentiality of negotiations. What should matter to your team and your side is the ultimate product you can deliver, not the details of the haggling and horse-trading that got you there. Sometimes the other side--if they trust that you will keep information confidential--will confide the real reasons why they cannot do X or Y, and those reasons will make sense to you. At other times, the final deals are literally made, not for reasons of policy, but to get the overall deal done. If both sides have correctly prioritized their issues, and you are coming to the end of negotiations, you can often outright swap items. Say there are four items left: two of yours and two of theirs. Somebody eventually says, "OK, we're not going to take your issue A and you're not going to take our issue B, so we'll agree to both withdraw them. Then we will hold our nose and give you issue C in exchange for you looking the other way and giving us issue D. Deal?" This is the way that successful agreements get concluded; but nobody outside the room should actually be privy to nitty gritty details of the negotiation, or you will make it impossible to ever deal with these people again. I repeat: your ratifying body has the right to know the final outcome upon which they will vote, but they selected you to go into the room, and the details of the conversation need to stay there.

Rule Five: Be prepared to accept "Yes" for an answer. NEVER put anything into your proposal that you don't really want them to accept. And recognize that when you put something in, and they agree to it, you've exhausted your options on that issue. Possibly you could have asked for more, and that knowledge will guide your proposal next time. But if you say, "This is what we want," and they say, "That's fine with us," then the ONLY response is, "Thanks." Example: If you want a travel stipend increased from $1,000 to $1,500, it is OK to ask for $2,000 and allow yourself to be bargained down. But if you ask for $1,500, and they give it to you, you don't get to say, "Wait a minute, since you're willing to give me $1,500, I want $1,800." You can say it, I guess, but if you do you will find that future negotiations get tougher and tougher for no apparent reason. Take what you wanted originally and don't get greedy.

No: I didn't write a book and I didn't get a shot on The Apprentice. But these five rules have served me, and those to whom I am responsible, well over the past several years.

How appropriate it was on Constitution Day.



Notably, this Friday 9/25/2009 @ 9 AM the House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to hold a full committee hearing on Ron Paul’s HR 1207 to audit the Federal Reserve.

The proposal now has 291 House co-sponsors.

From AOL Auto, a thorough debunking of the myth of Cash for Clunkers (C4C) success finally begins to hit selected parts of the MSM:

Myth One: C4C was environmentally friendly

Quicker than you can say, “Holy statistics, Mr. Wizard,” the numbers nerds ascertained that the new vehicles sold under C4C will use more—not less—fuel than the beaters that were turned in and destroyed.

How can that be? Think of it on a personal level. Suppose you had a 10-year-old particulate belcher that, as the euphemism goes, needed work. Even if you lived in an Orlando suburb, you’d still be less than excited at the idea of piling the kids into it and lighting out for Disney World. But that new Malibu that gets a hell of a lot better mileage is a different kettle of green. You trust it; it’s economical; you drive it more. A lot more, according to another piece of research.

CNW surveyed drivers involved in the purchase of the first 239,000 C4C vehicles. The average intended annual mileage was 10,894, up from the actual clunker mileage of 6,162. For those of you without a calculator falling readily to hand, that’s nearly double.

But what about that miles-per-gallon improvement we were promised? Well, we got it. The average fuel economy reported by C4C buyers rose from 16.3 mpg for Old Dobbin to 24.8 for the new carriage. A monster step in the right direction. Add to that the over-90-percent reduction in tailpipe excretions and we’re still looking good, right?

Not as good as we might. The new car, because it’s new and fun and green and clean and smells good, will be given some 61 additional gallons each year by its grateful owner. For those first 239,000 C4C vehicles, that’s 14.6 million gallons that the clunkers wouldn’t have gobbled up. The approximately 700,000 total vehicles moved under the program will therefore use an additional 42 million gallons of fuel annually during the first years of ownership.

OK, but what about Myth Two--the effective stimulation of the economy? Turns out that a lot of those enthusiastic buyers are now beginning to realize they've been had:

Twice as many C4C participants as normal buyers are worried about the negative impact a brand spanking new payment book with $275 printed on each of its 72 pages might have on rent and Hamburger Helper expenditures. (The actual C4C numbers were an average loan length of 49 months and an average payment of $317.) No wonder. I’m surprised that the survey didn’t find half of the C4C spenders sitting up nights watching Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey re-runs.

If you are someone other than the owner of a Treasury Department printing press, you might be allowed a mild case of regret over adding $20,000 or $30,000 to your household debt during what can be called a time of economic uncertainty.

Three revealing line items in a separate CNW survey noted that the drain on the family coffers would be offset by reducing the pay-down of credit card debt, deferring home improvement and removing money from non-targeted savings. About one-fifth of buyers surveyed cited each of these categories as the number one source of their car payment bucks.

Leaving aside the prospects of leaking roofs or empty savings accounts, just consider the act of slowing up on reducing those credit card balances on which you are paying 19 percent interest or worse. Thinking about that in the cold light of early dawn could do more than induce buyer’s remorse; in a clear-thinking head of household able to do basic arithmetic, it could result in thoughts of panic.

Myth Number Three--that this was a good use of Federal tax dollars, is now finally being exploded in parts of the MSM as it has been by Libertarians since day one:

Cars for Clunkers took $2.8 billion from the general roster of 300 million citizens and handed it tax-free to a small group of 700,000 citizens.

Not quite right there: a lot of those folks with $20-30,000 of new car debt are now discovering the dirty little secret that their rebates are taxable, but the point remains:

Cash for Clunkers--without either making a significant environmental impact--managed to achieve the following

1) Transfer $2.8 billion of taxpayer money into the hands of 700,000 Americans for a consumer spending binge that many of them couldn't actually afford

2) Created hundreds of billions of dollars in new consumer debt in the middle of a deep recession; and

3) Failed to succor the automobile industry for even ten minutes longer than the massive cash giveaway lasted.

Change we can go to the poorhouse with.