Paul M. Jones

... [I]f you look at a Marxist Utopia -- say, Cuba -- what you’ll see is basically a plantation. At the top, you’ve got the Massa and his family -- Fidel, Raul, et al. -- followed by various layers of overseers -- the Communist Party apparat, the secret police -- and House Negroes -- e.g., the state-controlled media -- all living off the surplus labor of the Field Negroes, whose produce is disposed of not according to their own desires (that would be capitalism!) but according to their betters’. This, we’re told is for the best, since they aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions anyway, and the Massa looks after them with food, housing, and health care. Slaveholders even defended their system as more humane and less exploitative than atomistic capitalism, conveniently ignoring the role of the lash, just as apologists for Marxism conveniently ignore the role of the gulag.

Oh how I *hate* the damned Communists. Via Instapundit » Blog Archive » DAVE KOPEL: Obama Is Too A Christian..

In one camp are conservative Christians and their champion, the Texas State Board of Education; in the other are politically radical multiculturalists and their de facto champion, President Barack Obama. The two competing visions couldn’t be more different. And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Unfortunately, whichever side wins -- your kid ends up losing.

That’s because this war is for the power to dictate what our children are taught -- and, by extension, how future generations of Americans will view the world. Long gone are the days when classrooms were for learning: now each side sees the public school system as a vast indoctrination camp in which future culture-warriors are trained. The problem is, two diametrically opposed philosophies are struggling for supremacy, and neither is willing to give an inch, so the end result is extremism, no matter which side temporarily comes out on top.

Both visions are grotesque and unacceptable -- and yet they are currently the only two choices on the national menu.

via Zombie » Ideological War Spells Doom for America’s Schoolkids.

While for the most part the Texas State Board of Education is in fact admirably defending patriotism, they unfortunately drag some ideological baggage into the meeting room as well, and do here and there attempt to push conservative and/or Christian viewpoints into the curriculum. Maybe not as much as their critics charge, and they’re not always successful, but they try. And try. And try.

And it is this attempt on the part of the TSBE to overreach which frustrates me to no end. Because every time they push back too hard, they look just as partisan as the leftists they’re trying to counteract. Which gives the media and the liberal critics a valid basis on which to criticize Texas’ attempt (and thus any attempt) to salvage a patriotic curriculum.

Furthermore, the conservative board members of the TSBE have in a few cases gone too far and ended up distorting historical fact to match their own wishful thinking for a Christian nation. When you want to rectify your opponent’s twisting of the facts, it’s never good to overtwist them yourself in the opposite direction. It might work when negotiating the price of a used car, but in an argument about the nature of truth it only serves to undermine your position.

via Zombie » What’s the Matter with Texas?.

There are a lot of folks who think that a border fence is part of the "solution" for illegal immigration in the US. The problem with fences is that they work both ways. A fence now might seem like a good idea to keep people out; call me paranoid, but at some point in the future, I fear the same fence might also be used to keep people in.

The very phrase “insecure borders” conjures an image of government failing at its most fundamental responsibility--namely, protecting citizens from invading marauders. People see in their minds’ eyes an America increasingly at risk of being conquered by foreigners, leaving Americans at the mercy of invading rapists, plunderers, and murderers.

Immigrants, however, aren’t invaders, much less warriors in a conquering army.

...

For perspective, ask if America’s borders were insecure until 1921 when, with the Emergency Quota Act, Uncle Sam first began seriously to restrict the number of immigrants allowed into the United States. Were Americans, until just 90 years ago, living in peril of their lives and livelihoods because U.S. borders were "insecure"?

...

In fact, the security of American borders--if by this phrase we mean genuinely decreased risks to Americans’ persons and property--would almost certainly rise with open borders.

via Secure in Freedom | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty.

Socialism: Quick, what's the murder capital of the world: Kabul? Juarez? Try Caracas, Venezuela, a city whose dictator, Hugo Chavez, has made murder a means of extending his control.

The silent protest at Monday night's Miss Universe Pageant in Las Vegas was invisible to nearly everyone -- except Venezuelans. On her final catwalk, the ranking Miss Universe, Stefania Fernandez, suddenly whipped out a Venezuelan flag in a patriotic but protocol-breaking gesture.

Fernandez waved her flag for the same reason Americans waved theirs after 9/11 -- to convey resolution amid distress. Her flag had seven stars, significant because Chavez had arbitrarily added an eighth, making any use of a difficult-to-find seven-star banner an act of defiance.

via The Killing Fields Of Caracas - IBD - Investors.com.

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center [i.e., the "Ground Zero mosque"], its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

(All emphasis mine.) Via The "Ground Zero mosque" debate is about tolerance--and a whole lot more. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine.

Social Security is predicted to go negative in 2037, at which point it must reduce benefits.

OK, 2037 -- no worries. Except that, as I said, I turn 41 this summer, which means I’ll turn 67 and qualify for full Social Security benefits in mid-2036. The very next year, the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted, according to the “intermediate” scenario contained in the most recent Social Security Trustees Report, available here (see Section IV-B and Appendix E). The program will still pay out some benefits -- but less than 3/4s of what it now promises. So what happens then? That’s not a good question if you’re my age or younger.

But suppose you’re not my age or younger. Suppose you’re 10 years older than me, and will have collected 10 years of benefits by 2037. Don’t feel smug -- you’ll be asking “So what happens next?” when you’re 77. That’s not a good question at your age, either.

Me, I figure I will never see a Social Security payment. That, or the currency will be so devalued as to be worthless for planning purposes. Via A Birthday Gift from Paul Krugman | Cato @ Liberty.

The “currency” that drives the political marketplace is fundamentally different from the private economy. In the private economy, it is enough to have a good idea, identify a new product, develop it, and sell it to an identified (or created) customer base. In the market, entrepreneurship and competition determine outcomes. Returns and values matter and are ultimately determined by individuals making choices.

In the political economy, good ideas, philosophical values, and economic efficiency have little to do with how public policy decisions are actually made. The biggest error made by advocates of government planning, from Marx to Keynes to Obama, is the assumption that bureaucrats and elected officials possess both the detailed knowledge and right motives to be able to solve the economic problems of a nation. While microeconomics correctly assumes that individuals act in their own self-interest, every macroeconomic proposal for government intervention assumes that public officials act in the public interest, somehow supressing their individual interests to the greater interests of society.

In reality, public choices are driven by the inetersts of those making the choices – the politicians who draft, promote, and vote on the legislation; and the special interests that work to influence the political decision-making process. Politics is driven by the need to solicit new voters to the polls. Power (to tax, spend and regulate) is used to consolidate those votes, and to buy more votes at the margin. The policyagendas of both parties are driven by this pursuit of votes and power.

via » Give Us Liberty! - Big Government.

O’REILLY: Do you believe -- do you believe that gay marriage is a threat to the country in any way?

BECK: A threat to the country?

O’REILLY: Yeah, it going to harm the country?

BECK: No, I don’t. Will the gays come and get us?

O’REILLY: OK. Is it going to harm the country in any way?

BECK: I believe -- I believe what Thomas Jefferson said. If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?

I agree with Glenn Beck. Via Glenn Beck: Gay Marriage No Threat To Me, Or America.