Free Republic

A Kentucky man who was the first known person to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to more than four years in prison. Michael Sparks, 47, was convicted in March by a federal jury in the District of Columbia on all six charges that he faced, including two felony offenses of obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder. On Aug. 27, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Sparks to 53 months in prison and fined him $2,000.

>I’ve periodically cited the great 19th-century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, forhis very wise words about the importance of looking at both the seen and the unseen when analyzing public policy.Those that fail to consider secondary or indirect effects of government, such as Paul Krugman, are guilty of the “broken window” fallacy.There are several examples we can cite.A sloppy person, for instance, will think a higher minimum wage is good because workers will have more income. But a thoughtful analyst will think of the unintended consequence of lost jobs for low-skilled workers.An unthinking person will conclude that government spending is good...

As the President gets ready to propose yet another stimulus I thought it might be nice to review a centuries old retort to government spending as a solution to economic ills called “the broken window fallacy”. First proposed by 19th century Frederic Bastiat a French classical liberal theorist, political economist. It’s a short video but one worth watching and remembering when a neo-liberal proposes more government spending. This video was assembled by Sam Selikoff, an economic student at Boston College. Here is his blog. He writes: As an amateur Austrian economist, I often find it difficult to clearly and concisely...

ABC's 20/20 shows how government spending cannot create jobs.

For Christmas, my wife bought one of my sons a T-shirt featuring a complex series of equations that eventually “proved” that one equals two. Like most such joke proofs, the equations featured a cleverly hidden “divide by zero” error, an error that only a fairly competent mathematician was going to catch. The economic equivalent of the “divide by zero” error is what 19th-century economist Frederic Bastiat called the broken-window fallacy. Suppose, said Bastiat, a shopkeeper has a careless son who breaks one of his shop windows. Those standing by might think that, while the broken window is a misfortune for...

Two of today's LifeSiteNews reports provide more evidence of the severe need for a renewal of Catholicism in the United States. Pro-abortion, pro-homosexual former Senator Tom Dachle and California First Lady Maria Shriver both call themselves Catholic and yet don't appear to have a clue what that really means. Is this mostly or entirely their own fault? That is doubtful. Rather, they are likely just two of the millions of North American and European Catholics who are the products of decades of extremely neglectful, corrupt Catholic institutions and leaders who have not taught and defended the authentic Catholic/Christian faith.  This...

Earlier this month Andrew Sullivan, a well-known writer, once in the center, now on the left, nominated me for what is apparently his lowest badge of distinction for defending citizens who shoot to wound graffiti vandals, or "taggers," while committing their vandalism. Under the heading, "Malkin Award Nominee," Sullivan provides a quote from my radio show: "'So you will now say -- I hear the voice of an ACLU member -- 'Dennis, do you think that this guy should have shot these people spray painting graffiti on his shop?' To which my answer is yes. I do. Not to kill....

BERKELEY – A new University of California, Berkeley, report to be delivered to state legislators today (Wednesday, Aug. 16) finds that returning California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as envisioned by pending global warming legislation, can boost the annual Gross State Product (GSP) by $60 billion and create 17,000 new jobs by 2020. The report, "Economic Growth and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in California," offers an independent assessment of the economic benefits of Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), The Global Warming Solutions Act, sponsored by Assemblyman Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills). The study...