. (Via
A number of blogs reported this story last week. I first saw it on
where Charles has noted that few in big media are picking it up (exceptions include
). Perhaps the Sun-Times editorial will garner still more attention.
Feb 8, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Front Range Objectivist Supper Talks is pleased to announce Tara Smith speaking on: Egoistic Justice & Some of its Practical Implications. This lecture will explore Ayn Rand's illuminating account of the egoistic nature of justice. After tracing the practical case for being just, Dr. Smith will consider four of the unconventional implications that flow from this: the emphatic need to judge other people; the diametrical opposition between justice and today's ubiquitous ideal of egalitarianism; the proper place of forgiveness in a just man's life; the proper place of mercy in a just man's life. When, if ever, are forgiveness and mercy justified? Is either of them ever not merely permissible, but required?
Details: February 19, 2005. Social Hour--6:00 PM; Supper--7:00 PM; Talk--8:00 PM. West Woods Golf Clubhouse, 6655 Quaker, Arvada, CO. http://www.FrontRangeObjectivism.comFeb 7, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From CNN: Dean now sole candidate for DNC chair:Tim Roemer, the only remaining opponent of Howard Dean in the race to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Monday he's bowing out of the race -- but he offered a warning to Democrats. ...
Feb 7, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Bill Steigerwald interviews Arthur Laffer, the The Father of Supply-Side Economics, in "Is this a great world or what?" Pittsburg TRIBUNE-REVIEW, Saturday, (February 5, 2005).
Laffer on Bush's economics:
I'm really shocked by it. ...I was not a fan of his father's. I voted for Clinton twice. I really thought Bush (the elder) and Bob Dole were tax collectors for the welfare state. The reason I voted for Bush W. was more Al Gore than it was Bush. And now I am just totally a fan. This guy is just incredibly good at economics...[however]...the steel tariffs (were) terrible. They're embarrassing.
On Laffer's politics:
I'm pro-growth. I'm Democrat when Democrats are into pro-growth, and I'm Republican when they are....I like low, flat-rate taxes. I like sound money. I like free trade. And I like minimal regulation for serving social purposes...
On the most important economic principle for voters:
If you tax people who work and you pay people who don't work, do not be surprised if you find a lot of people choosing not to work.
Laffer on the American public (or at least half of it):
...I'm really impressed with the public. The electorate really sees through all this crap. They understand free trade. They understand low, flat-rate taxes. They understand sound money. The electorate is really cool. I'm superbly impressed by democracy -- and I'm not natively that way inclined, just so you know.
On America's economic progress over the past two decades:
OK, let's take a look at what happened to marginal tax rates. The highest rate has gone from what -- 70 percent -- down to what, 35 percent? What's happened to inflation? What's happened to regulation restrictions? What's happened to America and the world? What's happened to the stock market? What's happened to everything you and I believe in? Do you remember what unemployment rates looked like back in 1979? Do you remember what the prime was when Ronald Reagan came into office on Jan. 20, 1981? It was 21 percent.
...I cannot believe how wonderful it is. When (Nobel Prize-winning economist) Bob Mundell and I sat there at the University of Chicago in 1967, '68 and '69, we dreamt of a world. That world is now. Can you imagine a world with no inflation? ...
...If you looked at (House Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi and you looked at (Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid Wednesday night, they looked really, really uncomfortable. They were running everything in 1979. They had the president, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Fed chairman. They had every damn position in the world. They had everything -- the states, the houses, the governors. It was a Fabian redistributionist nightmare. Now it's really beautiful. I'm an old man, and old men are supposed to be curmudgeons and hate the modern day and love the ancient. But the truth of the matter is, we've won.
Feb 6, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes thomas Bowden in The Joy of Football: The Super Bowl Offers a Too-Rare Celebration of Goal-Achievement:
Traditional sources of inspiration in America have disappeared, but sports give us a look at heroes in action. Sporting events show us a vision of what life could, and should be like: Athletes earn their way by proving their superior ability, not by demanding a handout; rules are explicit and fair, not arbitrary and enforced at someone's whim; athletes take unapologetic pride in their abilities and achievements.
Feb 5, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
In a bumbled interview last night, CNN anchor Paula Zahn expressed outrage at professor Ward Churchill's unwillingness to apologize for public remarks in which he compared the victims of 9/11 to Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi bureaucrat responsible for managing the logistics of the holocaust.
But why are Zahn and others so shocked? Churchill's viewpoint is merely a logical extension of the ideas that Michael Moore and other Leftists have been advancing all along: namely, that corporate America is evil and capitalism is an oppressive, exploitative system deserving of punishment from seething Middle Easterners.
So long as the Leftist version of America is treated as legitimate, Churchill's characterization of World Trade Center office workers as "little Eichmanns"--technocratic cogs in a monstrous machine of capitalist imperialism--should come as no surprise.
Churchill shouldn't be denounced just for naming explicitly what others have only dared imply. Instead, the entire Left (including Churchill) should be detested for spewing their venomous ideas and for maligning the only economic system ever developed that respects individual rights: capitalism.Feb 3, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Any rational person knows that government handouts can cost private citizens an arm and a leg, but a 25-year-old German waitress recently discovered that sometimes they can cost less mundane body parts, too: genitals.
The woman, a former information technology professional whose name was withheld for legal reasons, recently turned down a job offer to provide "sexual services" for a Berlin brothel. Consequently, the German government [could legally] cancel her meal ticket.
According to German law, a woman under 55 who has been unemployed for more than a year must take any available job or lose unemployment benefits. Because prostitution is legal in Germany, whoring counts.
Note to socialists everywhere: when one relies on the government to sustain one's life, it eventually becomes clear who owns it.[Updated: Feb, 12, 2005]Jan 27, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
This cartoon is from March 2004 and is in our book, Black & White World II. This weekend, Iraqis will brave death just to vote. Our hope is that no more Iraqis or coalition forces are harmed trying to exercise a freedom that we take for granted. We also hope that the election results will not be favorable to the Shiite religious parties. Politically secular candidates are in the running and competitive, including interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. President Bush should never have allowed the possiblity of a democratically established theocracy, but that's the reality. As we noted earlier this week, though the Shiite parties announced that their platform for governing Iraq would be secular and not an Islamic theocracy, there is reason to doubt their claims. For instance, the United Iraqi Alliance includes candidates who are followers of Moktada al-Sadr, the Islamist cleric who declared that 9/11 was "miracle from God" and whose militia killed American soldiers in Najaf. Other major parties in the Alliance are ruling Basra in a manner reminiscent of the Taliban. But the above article also reports that some Iraqis see that Islamists are not the answer to Saddam:
"Don't listen to what people tell you -- look at what they do on the ground," said Anwar Muhammad Ridha al-Jabor, 40, director of Al Nahrain Radio in Basra. She believes, based on her call-in radio show and polling conducted by her station, that people in the southern provinces are fed up with authoritarian rulers and are not impressed with a year and a half of Islamist rule. "People just got rid of Saddam," she said. "Now they want to be free, and not be threatened by anyone, including the Islamic groups."
We're rooting for Iraqis like Anwar. Here are more Iraqis who'll be speaking out as the election take place this weekend:
-- Friends of Democracy: Ground-level election news from the people of Iraq
-- Iraq the Model
-- Democracy in Iraq
UPDATE -- January 28: This editorial by Amil Taheri explains why the issue of theocracy (among others) will remain an issue after the election: Iraq Votes: The Issues. (Via TIA Daily)
Mosque and State: Some radical Shiite and Sunni groups want Islam declared to be not only the official state religion, but also the sole source of legislation. This is opposed by others across the political spectrum. The terror campaign has prevented fundamentalist Sunni groups from forging an alliance with their Shiite counterparts in a common quest for an Islamic government. And the bitter anti-Shiite tone of the insurgency has prevented Shiite fundamentalists from advertising their true colors in the campaign. ...
Women's Rights: Thanks to U.S. pressure, all electoral lists consist of 30 percent women candidates; at least a quarter of the seats in the Assembly are likely to go to women. Most Islamist parties and some tribes oppose this, and the quotas imposed in favor of women in government departments. Even more serious is their objection to giving women equal rights in matters of marriage, divorce and child custody. Secularist parties, however, believe the measures must go further in favor of women. Reviewing the laws on such issues of private life will be one of the early tasks of the new parliament. While many fear that new laws will be more reactionary, women's organizations and secularist parties are determined to fight any such backtracking. ...
Foreign Policy: Always a hot topic in Arab politics, it will be even more so in Iraq in this period of transition. Some want Iraq to withdraw from the Arab League and even OPEC and to seek a special relationship with the U.S.-led NAFTA. Others want to seek the leadership of the Arabs with a message of democratization. Some want Iraq to recognize Israel; others strongly oppose that move. Tehran's mullahs, operating through their clients and sympathizers inside Iraq, will do all they can to goad Iraq towards a "third-worldist" and anti-American posture. The United States and its allies, meanwhile, will work hard to persuade the new Iraq that it is in its best interest to jettison the prejudices and misconceptions that have passed for Arab foreign policy over the past five decades.
Jan 26, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From AP: Senate Confirms Rice As Secretary of State. (Via Little Green Footballs)Condoleezza Rice won easy confirmation Wednesday to be President Bush's new secretary of state, despite strong dissent from a small group of Democrats who said she shares blame for mistakes and war deaths in Iraq. ...
The Senate vote showed some of the partisanship that delayed Rice's confirmation vote by several days. Twelve Democrats and independent James Jeffords of Vermont voted against Rice. The Democrats included some of the Senate's best-known members such as Massachusetts Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, who was the party's presidential candidate in last year's election. Thirty Democrats voted for her. ...
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suggested Democrats are sore losers. Rice had enough votes to win confirmation, as even her Democratic critics acknowledge, McCain said.
"So I wonder why we are starting this new Congress with a protracted debate about a foregone conclusion," McCain said. Since Rice is qualified for the job, he said, "I can only conclude that we are doing this for no other reason than because of lingering bitterness over the outcome of the election."
