Here again, the left is arguing on our terms. If people keep thinking like that, sooner or later they will reach the conclusion that the government shouldn't be used to sacrifice anybody to anybody else.
May 3, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
"More than 160 foreign artists and intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have come out in defense of Cuba even as many of their peers condemn recent repression on the Communist-run island..." [Reuters, 5/1/03]
Those mentioned include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rigoberta Menchu, Aldolfo Perez Esquivel, Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover.May 3, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
"The two British suicide bombers who blew up a seafront bar in Tel Aviv, killing three people, had posed earlier as peace activists, acting as "human shields" for Palestinians.... A Western pro-Palestinian activist said the two... took part in a protest march in Rafah to commemorate Rachel Corrie, an American "human shield" killed by an Israeli bulldozer last March." [Daily Telegraph, 5/2/03]May 3, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Michael Kinsley writes like a typical rationalist: his focus is typically on others' contradictions, not on the truth--and even when he has something positive to say he has to do it dialectically. Nevertheless, he has a point here:
Republicans do give reasons for wanting to make big projected deficits even bigger. They say that tax cuts spur the economy and eventually will generate revenue to wipe out the deficits. They say that big deficits will force the government to cut spending. These arguments are contradictory and bogus. If the deficit will eliminate itself, it will not create pressure to cut spending. If tax cuts always spur so much growth that they pay for themselves, can we cut taxes to zero and still break even on revenue? If the trick stops working at some point higher than zero, how can we assume it will work for us? And if the purpose of tax cuts is to force spending cuts, why doesn't the governing party at least propose enough spending cuts to cover the cost? "I'm eating all this pie so I'll get fat and be forced to diet." Do you buy that one? [Michael Kinsley, Slate.com, 5/1/03]
Or another way to put it: The typical supply-side Republicans think that cutting taxes will allow them to avoid the moral battle over cutting spending--because they are fundamentally unwilling to challenge the altruistic premise behind the welfare state. But it's nothing but self-delusion.--Paul Blair
["I'm eating all this pie so I'll get fat and be forced to diet" is a poor analogy--a much better one is "I will be expropriating less pie, so I will be forced to diet." The only problem is that reduced taxation combined with no spending cuts will force the government into either increasing the deficit or inflation to pay for its prodigality.--Mark Da Cunha]May 3, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Whether poor families stay married shouldn't be a matter of public policy; those who act destructively should bear the cost of their own behavior. In today's world, welfare supports these families; public policy is concerned with whether or not welfare encourages irresponsible behavior that the taxpayer is expected to subsidize.
The Associated Press reports that the portion of black families headed by single women dropped by four points since welfare reform passed in 1996, contrary to the predictions of the naysayers. The article claims that "the surging economy of the late 1990's probably had more to do with the gains for black families than did welfare reform," but adds that "The increase came despite a recent drop in blacks' income." (Note that the number of black families headed by married couples is still only 47.9 percent.)
According to Mickey Kaus, "the economy has boomed and busted before--and before the mid-1990s the family trends for blacks moved relentlessly downhill for decades ... I doubt that honest liberals... think that welfare reform wasn't also a major part of the cause."May 2, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Comments Allen Forkum:
As the anniversary of Mr. Carter's Castro coddling approaches, he is again confronted with harsh realities that contradict his socialist sympathies.
In May 2002, Carter condemned the Bush Administration for suggesting that Cuba is pursuing biological weapons, which dictator Castro called a "lie." Carter praised the Castro regime for allowing him speak freely to the Cuban people, who are not allowed such freedom. The former U.S. president encouraged dissidents by publicly airing their calls for reforms. The BBC News reported at the time that Carter left Cuba on friendly terms. Excerpt: Organisers of the so-called Project Varela have handed in a petition bearing 11,020 signatures to the Cuban National Assembly asking for a referendum on civil liberties. Mr Carter said he believed the Cuban Government had not yet decided how it would respond to the proposals. "I think it's accurate to say the decision to deal with it -- or not -- has not been decided," he said.
A year later, we now know what Castro "decided": 75 political dissidents and independent journalists were recently rounded up and sent to jail for 28 years, and three men who tried to hijack a ferry to escape to America were executed.
In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article by Moni Basu (Castro's crackdown strains budding ties), Mr. Carter stated: "Needless to say, I have been very disappointed by what has occurred in Cuba," Carter said. "The dissident movement has been severely crippled, and I would presume Draconian measures adopted by Castro will be maintained."
We would presume Carter was also "very disappointed" when the Draconian North Korea dictatorship broke the agreement he helped broker and started developing nuclear weapons. (The cartoon above is an allusion to this cartoon.)
For more on Cuba visit Liberty for Cuba.
May 2, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Last December more than 1000 "academics and intellectuals" signed a letter warning that Israel would use the cover of war in Iraq to expel the Palestinians. Never happened.
The New York Sun notes "this letter made drastic accusations about the Israeli government, condemning it for something it had not done and that there was no evidence it ever intended to do. Israel's haters, however, are seldom swayed by history or fact."May 2, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The State Department has released its Patterns of Global Terrorism report for 2002, which shows a gain: terrorist acts were down last year.
According to the report the seven designated state sponsors of terror are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan: "Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2002" and "Iraq planned and sponsored international terrorism in 2002. Throughout the year, the Iraqi Intelligence Services (IIS) laid the groundwork for possible attacks against civilian and military targets in the United States and other Western countries. The IIS reportedly instructed its agents in early 2001 that their main mission was to obtain information about US and Israeli targets."May 2, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
What better example of conservatives' stubborn unwillingness even to consider thinking in principles--and the disastrous results in practice:Is it realistic for any political leader to make policy today based on assumptions about what the world will look like nearly six decades hence?
As it happens, 58 years ago it was 1945, the year of the United Nations' founding. Whatever one might think of the U.N., one certainly cannot fault the men who started it for having failed to foresee how it would become a threat to world peace and an obstacle to American action today. [James Taranto, "Best of the Web Today," 5/1/03]
Yes one can fault them, James--that's what principles are for; anyone who had grasped the proper principles would have foreseen it, and Ayn Rand did foresee it.
May 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
While vouchers are routinely supported by 65% of urban residents, support levels are barely half that amount in the suburbs. Voucher proponents have grown increasingly frustrated with this resistance, and have yet to acknowledge that suburban resistance to choice is entirely reasonable and unlikely to be nagged away.
Families that purchase homes in good suburban school districts typically do so, in large part, because of the "seat license" it confers in the local schools. Choice-based reforms, on the other hand, allow students to attend schools where their family hasn't "bought" a seat....
Those who own homes in districts with good schools risk losing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity, may no longer be able to assure their children services they had purchased, and will find that local schools may no longer enjoy first crack at quality teachers or provide as uniformly desirable a peer group. [Frederick Hess, New York Sun, 4/30/03]
Well, maybe; the whole argument is on the premise that people are entitled to an education at someone else's expense. Vouchers are a mechanism for public funding of private schools. This effectively subjects them to all the strings that are tied to institutions that receive public money--vouchers will eventually bring private education down to the level of public education. Nor do vouchers address the fundamental moral issue that individuals have no right to demand that someone else pay for educating their children. Having children is a choice. If a couple can't afford to support children, then they shouldn't go having children; they have no right to make that choice and then force someone else to bear the costs.
Real education reform would institute tuition tax credits, whereby individuals spend their own money on education and their taxes are decreased by that amount. Of course, such a plan doesn't have the "altruistic" justification of sacrificing some members of society for the sake of the poor--but the notion that the poor are entitled to an education at public expense is a big reason why we're in this mess to begin with.May 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses, Dollars & Crosses 2
Americans are already used to socialist celebrities prancing about the country lamenting the fact that "regular people" don't care about the inane viewpoints of someone who once played a smart person on television. But now, they're telling those "regular people" to shut-up, and they're threatening to petition Uncle Sam (the guy with all of those banned "assault weapons") if America doesn't comply.In a letter dated 28 April 2003, the William Morris Agency sent a "cease-and-desist" letter to the "Boycott Hollywood" website. Apparently, some of William Morris' clients don't like what those regular folk have to say about them.Rumors that Susan Sarandon is petitioning to modify the first amendment to read "the famous people" are entirely unsubstantiated, but I don't mind spreading them anyway.[Because the Boycott Hollywood website may soon go offline, a copy of the William Morris letter can be found here. And yes, the server is slow. Just deal.]
