Free Republic

This is the real question. Does the West have enough belief in its own civilization to defend it? Rob Lowe, of all people, got in trouble because he tweeted after the attacks when the President of France announced that France would close its borders...Yet Lowe is right. What was happening was and is entirely predictable. And the "pitiless war" was supposedly declared on 9/11.

We seem to have reached a point in our politics in which op-ed columnists for the New York Times think it is unreasonable to expect the president of the United States to do things that are not in their short-term political interests. If our expectations for our political leadership are so low, our ability to progress as a nation will be low indeed.

Allowing a speech at the convention that is discordant with a nominee’s positions is only going to lead to confusion and alienation. Bringing in advisers whose advice a nominee has already decided to reject is a recipe for a blow-up later on when supporters learn the advisory role was disingenuous.

...the fact that the government might do it, that learned people suggest such things and politicians consider them, sends the message to businesses that they are vulnerable and that the government might decide to impose policies that would unfairly burden their particular business.

That message screams out: Don’t invest, play it safe, take your money off the table.

One wishes there was some indication that Professor Frank or policymakers who push these macroeconomic modeled programs had thought at all about the way an entrepreneur, confronted with the prospect of his business being disadvantaged by such a federal policy, could easily come to the conclusion that his goal should be to stop reinvesting, not to start new ventures, and to pull out money where he can. A whole society can come to start thinking that government policy is too arbitrary and that it makes building a business too risky.

Thus the all too clever machinations of brilliant policymakers can purchase a little short-term stimulus at the cost of the death of American entrepreneurialism. And the oh-so-smart experts, who know little of human motivation and fear, will stand befuddled wondering why the model didn’t work.

It is always the case that those who don’t want to work will point to the mismatch between the work available and their skills. Indeed, many of the proposals Brooks mentions, such as expanding community colleges or paying people unemployment while they start businesses, are just another way of helping people avoid the necessity of taking the jobs that might actually be available.

The long and short of it is that if the government wants to build subsidized housing, it is much better for the country if the government explicitly taxes people, including Alex Rodriguez, for that purpose. Then, instead of the statistics’ suggesting that multi-millionaires pay no tax, the numbers will reflect reality​—​and dealing with reality is to no small extent what the Tea Party is all about.

Giving massive new powers to the government, rushing legislation in lame duck sessions, adding to the deficit – there is just no reason for these Republicans to be involved in all that. Obamacare already is set to give the government a stranglehold on our medical system. Do we have to give the government enhanced control over our food as well? Is too little government regulation over the food supply really the banner under which these Republicans wish to march?

There are limits to what policymakers can do to improve employment levels, at least if they limit themselves to what is conventionally considered politically feasible....Prosperity depends upon getting people back to work in private-sector jobs, which will not only take them off the dole and generate short-term income, but will also set them on the path toward increasing skills, developing better habits, and creating wealth.

Dear Shibumi:

Rest assured there is nothing in the article that is unfit for publication on Free Republic or, for that matter, anywhere else.

The issue is really this: although it is, of course, easier to read things on Free Republic without having to click on a link, it is a small inconvenience.

Political journals that publish the kinds of editorial material many here at Free Republic are interested in are perpetually operating in the red.

When you click onto their websites they can sell the value of that traffic to advertisers whose payments will help defray some of the costs of producing that material.

In the long run, if we don't provide some financial support for this material, less of it will be produced.

Very truly yours -

Jim Prevor

Any time there is a big issue, the politicians avoid letting the voters see the cost of public policy decisions by exempting the high profile cases from the law that applies to everyone else – that is what tax abatements are about.

...there is no heroism in simply surrendering the Supreme Court to the left, which is the practical implication of Miguel Estrada’s letter.

When are politicians going to learn that the more things government tries to do, the less likely it is to be effective at any of them? Strong government depends on the ability to execute effectively. Governments that hire daddy czars before the schools are great, the neighborhoods safe, the potholes filled, and the subway runs on time just encourage disdain toward incompetent government. Straining to do so much, it can do nothing at all.

One day, in some future Oval Office speech, we could very well be listening to the president, following a failure of in the air force, reporting to the American people that, yes, he did cancel the F-22 but did so only “under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe.”

President Obama is almost halfway through a four-year term: Yet the thought that we have an executive who gives credence to such things still bristles.

In any case, ending “strategic defaults” on federally supported mortgages will save the taxpayer money and lead homeowners to consider more carefully the obligations they undertake. Both outcomes devoutly wished. And both outcomes unlikely to be obtained by a seven-year gimmick.

President Kennedy understood that yearnings for peace are like nothing compared to leadership and that leadership is impossible without achievement and achievement impossible without commitment. As he put it, “the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first.”

One listens to this interview and remembering this is the United States of America we are talking about, one is tempted to say the piece is an absolutely nutty story, one wants to say it is ridiculous, even bizarre, a fraud.

Then one realizes it is real, it is where we have traveled in the last 48 years, and one shudders.

The question is, to a large extent, whether the Tea Party movement can acquire the intellectual coherence and distinctive voice to go beyond expressing dissatisfaction and toward articulating rules of conduct for both political parties and the government itself.

...if local boosters in Holland, Michigan, wanted to improve their community by converting an old auto parts plant to a milk processing plant, then more power to them. It might increase jobs and economic activity in town and get rid of an eyesore, but those milk processing jobs will come from some other areas.

There is really no reason for the federal government to be involved in this case. Certainly there is no reason to think of these 70 jobs as some net addition to the nation’s job rolls.

The comeuppance of the Democratic positions that Professor Blinder undertakes to defend is that the government, by taking more in taxes and divvying it up as it sees fit among the populace, reduces the sphere of economic activity from which entrepreneurs can draw sustenance. And that will both make society poorer and less free.

The FDA already possesses enormous power: It can and has stopped commerce in whole industries and blocked the entry of produce from companies and countries. With its vast influence on consumers and trade buyers, it can bankrupt almost any produce farmer, rancher, packer, or processor. Few will take the risk of crossing the FDA.