Environmentalism: Hatred of man

Sep 1, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses

While people are still dying in Louisiana and Mississippi, the New York Times comes out with an appalling editorial and this article, gloating about how the destructive power of Hurricane Katrina is nature's "revenge" against man for the hubris of believing that he can control nature. Keep these on file as a reminder of the real meaning of environmentalism: hatred of man.

"Since the 18th century..., people have been trying to dominate the region's landscape and the forces of its nature.... Although early travelers realized the irrationality of building a port on shifting mud in an area regularly ravaged by storms and disease, the opportunities to make money overrode all objections. When most transport was by water, people would of course settle along the Mississippi River, and of course they would build a port city near its mouth. In the 20th century, when oil and gas fields were developed in the gulf, of course people added petrochemical refineries and factories to the river mix, convenient to both drillers and shippers. To protect it all, they built an elaborate system of levees, dams, spillways and other installations.... In the last few decades, more and more people have realized what a terrible bargain the region made when it embraced--unwittingly, perhaps--environmental degradation in exchange for economic gains." ["After Centuries of 'Controlling' Land, Gulf Learns Who's the Boss," Cornelia Dean and Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, August 30]

The Flat Tax Takes over the World

Aug 30, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses

While the "flat tax" has been pretty much dead for the past decade in the US, it has been adopted in one country after another overseas, a process outlined in the article linked to below. While the flat tax is no cure-all--it is often justified as a way of increasing tax revenues--it represents a rejection of the egalitarian premise behind "progressive" tax rates.

"The World Is Flat," John Fund, Opinion Journal, August 29

"Next month's report of the White House tax reform commission will likely stop short of advocating a complete scrapping of the tax code. But look for it to have warm words for how well the flat tax is promoting economic growth in the more than dozen places--ranging from Ukraine to Hong Kong--that have adopted variations of it.... It's increasingly popular overseas, with Romania and the republic of Georgia adopting it last January.... Even Germany, normally a center of intellectual stagnation when it comes to tax policy, has gotten the bug.... Flat-tax pioneer Estonia is even reducing its rate by two percentage points a year until it drops to 20% in 2007.... Alvin Rabushka, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, believes it's only a matter of time before an emerging economic superpower like China or India goes the flat-tax route. His book on the subject has just been published in Chinese, with a preface by Lou Jiwei, the vice minister of finance."

(See also today's Daily Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/08/29/do2902.xml.)

Author of Kelo Says He Would “Oppose” Eminent Domain Abuse as a Legislator

Aug 25, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion in Kelo v. City of New London upholding eminent domain for private development, said during a speech last week that the result in the case is one "I would have opposed if I were a legislator," the New York Times reported today.

In a speech to the Clark County Bar Association in Las Vegas, Stevens noted that the result of his majority opinion in Kelo is "entirely divorced from my judgment as concerning the wisdom of the program" to take homes for private development.  "My own view is that the free play of market forces is more likely to produce acceptable results in the long run than the best-intentioned plans of public officials," he said.

While Stevens reiterated his belief that eminent domain for economic development is constitutional under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, he noted that as a matter of policy, the result in Kelo is "unwise."

"Legislators should take up Justice Stevens on his invitation and advice to end eminent domain abuse," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represents the New London homeowners.  "In his majority opinion, Justice Stevens invited states to set stricter standards for the use of eminent domain and now he points out that eminent domain abuse is indeed ‘unwise.'  When even the author of the Kelo opinion believes that eminent domain abuse is bad policy, it is clearly time for legislators to act to protect home and small business owners from condemnation for private development."

"Eminent domain abuse is unconstitutional, bad policy and just plain wrong," said IJ Senior Attorney Dana Berliner.  "Justice Stevens still has the law wrong: ‘public use' never has and never should include taking homes and businesses for ordinary private development that may or may not produce more jobs and tax revenue.  But in acknowledging that eminent domain is a poor means of achieving economic development, he has issued an important call for real reform."

Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the Institute for Justice and its Castle Coalition grassroots arm launched a $3 million Hands Off My Home campaign.  The campaign supports eminent domain reform at the state and local level and equips ordinary Americans with the means to protect their homes, small businesses and churches from eminent domain for private profit.  Learn more at www.castlecoalition.org.

Gary Hull on Book TV

Aug 19, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses

“Peace” in Palestine!

Aug 18, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses

Search Seizure

Aug 10, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses

A solemn handful of plaintiffs surrounded New York Civil Liberties Union head Donna Lieberman last week as she announced the agency's latest lawsuit--this one targeted at new procedures allowing for the random inspection of bags carried onto the subways. This will not come as a surprise--the agency has had an exceptionally busy few years, since 9/11, campaigning against expanding police powers, increased surveillance and other antiterror measures, all of which, the NYCLU and likeminded watchdogs regularly inform us, pose a greater danger than any that might come from the terrorists themselves. ... The head of the NYCLU ... charged not only that the random bag searches didn't work but that they were also likely to lead to racial profiling. She explained how this would happen in a statement that would require, of those who read it, the deciphering talents of the Enigma codebreakers: "Although the NYPD claims that they are conducting searches that are purely random, the large number of people entering the transit system and the lack of control over that traffic result in people being selected for search in a discretionary and arbitrary manner, which creates the potential for impermissible racial profiling." ...

Ethnic/racial profiling may not, in fact, work very well as a security strategy--but the frenzy of the attacks it has excited tells more than we may want to know about our post-9/11 condition. Large numbers of citizens of every religion and ethnicity lost their lives in the terrorist attacks. Today, a strategy designed to help ensure that such a calamity will not again occur has been converted to a bizarre race-discrimination issue, subordinated to the concerns and ambitions of politicians. This won't, in the end, do much for the office-seekers and -holders now competing for the honor of delivering the most hysterical denunciations of ethnic and racial profiling. What, after all, can citizens (black and brown among them) think of leaders still prepared to argue that young Arab males receive no more scrutiny than the famous 80-year-old little grandmother--and that the people's security lies in measures clearly the least suited to assuring their safety?