Ronald Reagan once said that tyranny is only one generation away. It is now every 4 year Presidential election cycle away, and the economic implications are staggering. Why have other ostensibly free market societies never measured up to the titanic wealth-creating achievements of America? Why did America explode with economic success in the second half of the 20th century while at the same time bank-rolling the free world’s defense? Look no further than our Constitution’s guarantee of liberty. The parliamentary democracies do not offer a business or individual planning horizon longer than the term of the current government which in most cases is between 4 and 6 years. The prospect for a tyrannical regime ready to confiscate wealth and private property is always a possibility at the next election. Entrepreneurs must guard capital instead of investing it and not waste their personal investment in time, talent, and skill. Nations without the rock-solid foundation of institutionalized Liberty can and will steal the fruit of private enterprise.
Friday, June 29, 2012
The Four Year Horizon
Random Notes
For weeks now I've been reading opinion pieces from lefty pundits, reaching new heights of hysteria as this week approached, proclaiming that 5-4 Supreme Court decisions are a catastrophe. They undermine the "legitimacy" of the high Court, don'tcha know. Now, all of a sudden, 5-4 decisions are just fine. Wonder why?
While we're on the subject, why is the Court's "legitimacy" never an issue with the big decisions that liberals like: banning prayers in schools, setting criminals free because a cop made a mistake, or Roe v. Wade? Just asking.
Interestingly, yesterday's ruling upholding the Obamacare Tax is like an inverse Roe v. Wade. Roe got the policy outcome right, by means of what even liberal legal academics admit (quietly) was a pathetic travesty of legal reasoning. Chief Justice Roberts's opinion on the health law was mostly an exquisite piece of legal reasoning, my lawyer friends say, but it produced a monstrosity of a policy outcome.
Anyway, if this was what Roberts needs in order to be comfortable doing the right thing in future rulings, so be it. We've got a big one coming up next year, giving the Court a chance to outlaw racism in college admissions by means of preferences given to members of favored ethnic groups. The Court's likely to get that one right. Justice Thomas famously put a "15¢" grocery sticker on his Yale diploma, to illustrate what he says is the stigma of a degree attained in the era of affirmative action. He'll write a great decision.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
You Don't Need a Weatherman
... to see which way the wind blows.
Rep. Kathy Hochul won't attend the Democratic National Convention, to try to distance herself from President Obama. Neither will some other vulnerable Democrats running for re-election this year. But can they hide their support of the President's policies?
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Bill Maher: Black Congressman's an "Ape"
But the Congressman's also a Republican. So total mainstream media silence. Natch.
Bet it won't even rate a thumbs-down in the hair-trigger race-conscious Democrat and Chronicle.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
New York: Open for Business?
Not yet, says The Buffalo News.
"We're still the second-highest in terms of the cost of doing business in the United States, second-highest in state and local tax burdens, and many publications rank us the worst for economic outlook. For all the positives that have been done in the last year, we really haven't done anything except hit the brakes on the runaway train."This is not to detract from Governor Cuomo's heroic efforts, but rather to illustrate the magnitude of his task.
Vindication for Roger Clemens
Good for the jury that acquitted Roger Clemens. Who cares if sports figures ingest steroids, Mars bars or Jack Daniels?
More importantly, why should Congress care? Why should the Department of Justice squander millions on prosecutions like this?
Update - 6/20/2012
The New York Sun: "It was really the government that was on trial, and what happened yesterday is that at the bottom of the 9th, the government struck out."
Monday, June 18, 2012
Sticks and Stones
Monroe County Legislators made a mistake last week in enacting a "cyberbullying" bill that appears clearly unconstitutional. It's surprising they didn't recognize this before embarassing themselves.
The mistake was in criminalizing certain kinds of communications. Our legal consultant, Algonquin Bonapart, Esq., explains it this way: "This represents an attempted restraint on speech based on its content. The textbook paradigm of legislation violating the First Amendment's speech clause. First-year law school stuff."
This law will be overturned when challenged. The legislators should have had legal advice when they considered it. A Republican-majority body, like our county legislature, should stand against any restrictions on free speech. In the marketplace of ideas, we win. Which is why the Left often uses any trick available to suppress speech from our side -- from crying "racism" over something they disagree with, to intimidating sponsors of conservative radio hosts. Republicans and conservatives shouldn't be creating precedents for suppressing speech.
You can sue for defamation, but in America you can't go to jail for it. County legislators might have recalled the advice most of us received as children, when taunted by other kids: Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me.
Names can never hurt us. But compromises on free speech can.
