Original Gangster
We don't do a lot of hip-hop here, but Ice-T has always been the one I most respect. When he wasn't doing his over-the-top act, he wrote a lot of songs urging young men to take their brains and their honor as seriously as their physicality. Not that he was opposed to violence, to be sure; but neither am I.
Here are a few of them.
Looks like he hasn't changed much.
Wow, So... That Bill O'Reilly Doesn't Know $#~! About Firearms, Does He?
Some of you sent me this.
"Howitzers"? Like, the Civil War ones that require a team of guys to operate? Yeah, you can buy those. Not these, though; and they still require a team to operate.
"Heavy weapons"? Most of what he lists has been banned without severe Federal intrusion into your life since the 1930s.
Apparently nobody ever explained to him about the difference between semi- and fully-automatic, either.
And as for owning 60,000 rounds... OK, you can buy them. How many can you carry?
"Howitzers"? Like, the Civil War ones that require a team of guys to operate? Yeah, you can buy those. Not these, though; and they still require a team to operate.
"Heavy weapons"? Most of what he lists has been banned without severe Federal intrusion into your life since the 1930s.
Apparently nobody ever explained to him about the difference between semi- and fully-automatic, either.
And as for owning 60,000 rounds... OK, you can buy them. How many can you carry?
On "Anglo-Saxon" Relations
Did you know that "Romney" was an Anglo-Saxon name? This article asserts that it is, based on an Anglo-Saxon place name that predates the Norman conquest. Given the structure of the name, and the time I've spent with Old English/Anglo-Saxon, I find that surprising. On reflection, though, it's not impossible.
But the authors of the book thought and wrote in French, and there were variations of "Robert" that was native to Anglo-Saxon England: Hrēodbēorð and some others. If the name was Normanized at the time of the Conquest, it could have survived in a form that doesn't look Saxon, but honestly happens to be. So possibly, for whatever it's worth, he's as Saxon as King Alfred.
Of course, for those Americans who aren't antiquarians, the real question is: "Was this remark just coded racism, or was it double-super coded racism?"
This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is lcoational from a place so called in Kent, which was originally the name of a river. The first element seems to be derived from the Old English pre 7th Century "rum", spacious, but its formation and meaning are obscure. The second element is derived from the Old English "ea", river. The placename was first recorded as "Rumenea" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of Essex in 1052. A derivative of Romney is found recorded as "Ruminingseta" in the Saxon Charters of 697, and means "the fold of the Romney people".... The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert de Romenel, which was dated 1086, The Domesday Book of Kent, during the reign of King William 1, "The Conqueror", 1066 - 1087.The spelling "Robert de Romenel" is clearly French on two points: "Robert" is an Old French name that existed among the Normans, but not among the Saxons; and "de -" is a French form as well. "Romney" also looks like a word of French descent.
But the authors of the book thought and wrote in French, and there were variations of "Robert" that was native to Anglo-Saxon England: Hrēodbēorð and some others. If the name was Normanized at the time of the Conquest, it could have survived in a form that doesn't look Saxon, but honestly happens to be. So possibly, for whatever it's worth, he's as Saxon as King Alfred.
Of course, for those Americans who aren't antiquarians, the real question is: "Was this remark just coded racism, or was it double-super coded racism?"
The Burning
Remember we talked about that paper by that professor out in Texas that purported to find worse outcomes for the children of adults in same-sex relationships than for those in intact marriages? We talked about it here.
Apparently that professor has received a certain amount of attention from his colleagues.
Apparently that professor has received a certain amount of attention from his colleagues.
His data were collected by a survey firm that conducts top studies, such as the American National Election Survey, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. His sample was a clear improvement over those used by most previous studies on this topic.Well, that will teach you to say something interesting. Back to the factory with you!
Regnerus was trained in one of the best graduate programs in the country and was a postdoctoral fellow under an internationally renowned scholar of family, Glen Elder, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.... His article underwent peer review, and the journal's editor stands behind it.... And another recent study relying on a nationally representative sample also suggests that children of same-sex parents differ from children from intact, heterosexual marriages.
But never mind that. None of it matters.... His antagonists have already damaged his chances of being promoted to full professor. If his critics are successful at besmirching his reputation, his career may be seriously damaged.
But something bigger is at stake: The very integrity of the social-science research process is threatened by the public smearing and vigilante media attacks we have seen in this case.
Government by Blackmail
Apparently this kind of thing works in New York City.
The mayor apparently realized that he was advocating an illegal action, and is trying to walk it back today. I wonder, though, if it wouldn't be a real awakening for the public sector union to take a walk? People might just find that they don't need as much help from the government as they think they do. Even in New York City, I'll bet there are many neighborhoods that could pull together and suppress any criminals who thought it was a good time to take advantage. They certainly might find that they'd like to be able to apply at-will employment principles to these jobs, rather than being subject to unionized blackmail.
In Chicago, crime rates might even go down. Whatever the police unions are doing out there obviously isn't working. Maybe it's time for a change of pace.
Last night New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an extraordinarily dangerous and radical pronouncement....Out here, I'd expect the public to respond to a 'police strike' by saying, "Look, if you don't want the job, don't let the door hit you on your way out." I don't see a deputy out here more than once a year or so anyway; I wouldn't even notice if they went away. Maybe even save some money come tax time.Well, I would take it one step further. I don't understand why the police officers across this country don't stand up collectively and say, we're going to go on strike. We're not going to protect you. Unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what's required to keep us safe.
After all, police officers want to go home to their families. And we're doing everything we can to make their job more difficult but, more importantly, more dangerous, by leaving guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them, and letting people who have those guns buy things like armor-piercing bullets.
The mayor apparently realized that he was advocating an illegal action, and is trying to walk it back today. I wonder, though, if it wouldn't be a real awakening for the public sector union to take a walk? People might just find that they don't need as much help from the government as they think they do. Even in New York City, I'll bet there are many neighborhoods that could pull together and suppress any criminals who thought it was a good time to take advantage. They certainly might find that they'd like to be able to apply at-will employment principles to these jobs, rather than being subject to unionized blackmail.
In Chicago, crime rates might even go down. Whatever the police unions are doing out there obviously isn't working. Maybe it's time for a change of pace.
The British Resistance
The Olympic games are in London this year. As those of you who were in Atlanta in 1996 will recall, or who were any other city where this plague of locusts has descended, with the Olympics comes aggressive enforcement of Olympic copyrights. Things you could say six weeks ago -- "Welcome to Atlanta, Home of the 1996 Olympics" -- suddenly become a civil offense for which you will be hauled into court. Actually, it's worse than that: even "Atlanta" or "1996!" becomes off limits for the duration.
Technically the law is on their side here, as they want to restrict their logo and name to their sponsors, in the hope of encouraging more sponsors. Of course, most people who fall afoul of the aggressive enforcement just wanted to get into the spirit of the thing, and are shocked when they are told they have to pay big bucks to join in celebrating the games. The games are, after all, famously proclaimed to be all about international goodwill. Though the Games are in the right by the lights of the law, they often end up trampling on that spirit.
A few street merchants aside, the citizens of Atlanta mostly just ponied up the dough and put up with it. The British were apparently more irritated. Londoners, for example, have taken to finding new ways to torment the enforcers.
"These aren't rings! They're squares!"
Technically the law is on their side here, as they want to restrict their logo and name to their sponsors, in the hope of encouraging more sponsors. Of course, most people who fall afoul of the aggressive enforcement just wanted to get into the spirit of the thing, and are shocked when they are told they have to pay big bucks to join in celebrating the games. The games are, after all, famously proclaimed to be all about international goodwill. Though the Games are in the right by the lights of the law, they often end up trampling on that spirit.
A few street merchants aside, the citizens of Atlanta mostly just ponied up the dough and put up with it. The British were apparently more irritated. Londoners, for example, have taken to finding new ways to torment the enforcers.
"These aren't rings! They're squares!"
The law is an ass
And never more so than in Wondertaxland! Prof. Althouse regales us with the fable of a rich woman who leaves a prominent work of art to her heirs. The problem is, the work of art features a long-dead stuffed endangered species, which therefore cannot be sold legally. How to extract estate taxes from this bonanza? (The woman died in 2007, before the estate taxes were temporarily de-fanged.) If the estate can't sell the art, is it worth anything? Absent the endangered species law, art experts say it would be worth $65 million, thus generating almost $30 million in tax bills. Assuming the estate doesn't have that kind of cash handy without selling the artwork, it's a tough spot.
The problem of valuing an asset that can't be sold isn't really as exotic as this story would suggest. It's the typical problem faced by a family business at death, and the reason it's a very good idea to have a big life-insurance policy available to pay the estate tax with if you don't want your heirs to be dragooned into a fire-sale. For decades I watched people spends untold millions of dollars fighting over the valuation of businesses that couldn't or wouldn't be sold for one reason or another; the usual approach in bankruptcy court is to hire experts to fight over what kind of income it's likely to generate over time, and then over the right discount rate to use in taking a present value of that stream of income. (Bankruptcy lawyers can keep that kind of thing up for years, if a sensible judge doesn't exert some discipline over what can never be more than a rough substitute for reality.)
The best approach is to imitate Solomon: try to find a way to force all the combatants to take responsibility for the flip side of their claims. The IRS should be forced, for instance, to confront the prospect of a charitable deduction from ordinary income resulting from the donation of the artwork to a museum. That will put a stop to wild imaginings about the huge value of the piece. Likewise, if the heirs insist that the work has no value, they should be forced to confront the price they would demand in an eminent-domain action. Even if they can't sell it, they may be very attached to the notion of keeping it, whether for personal pleasure or for the status of owning it. If a museum owned it, it might generate income from admissions fees. Regardless of the popular wisdom, sales are not the only means of establishing a value even in the strict economic sense. The old system of dividing a candy-bar fairly comes to mind: one cuts, the other chooses.
Better yet, though, just get rid of the unified gift-and-estate tax, which is an abomination to start with.
The problem of valuing an asset that can't be sold isn't really as exotic as this story would suggest. It's the typical problem faced by a family business at death, and the reason it's a very good idea to have a big life-insurance policy available to pay the estate tax with if you don't want your heirs to be dragooned into a fire-sale. For decades I watched people spends untold millions of dollars fighting over the valuation of businesses that couldn't or wouldn't be sold for one reason or another; the usual approach in bankruptcy court is to hire experts to fight over what kind of income it's likely to generate over time, and then over the right discount rate to use in taking a present value of that stream of income. (Bankruptcy lawyers can keep that kind of thing up for years, if a sensible judge doesn't exert some discipline over what can never be more than a rough substitute for reality.)
The best approach is to imitate Solomon: try to find a way to force all the combatants to take responsibility for the flip side of their claims. The IRS should be forced, for instance, to confront the prospect of a charitable deduction from ordinary income resulting from the donation of the artwork to a museum. That will put a stop to wild imaginings about the huge value of the piece. Likewise, if the heirs insist that the work has no value, they should be forced to confront the price they would demand in an eminent-domain action. Even if they can't sell it, they may be very attached to the notion of keeping it, whether for personal pleasure or for the status of owning it. If a museum owned it, it might generate income from admissions fees. Regardless of the popular wisdom, sales are not the only means of establishing a value even in the strict economic sense. The old system of dividing a candy-bar fairly comes to mind: one cuts, the other chooses.
Better yet, though, just get rid of the unified gift-and-estate tax, which is an abomination to start with.
Is Patriotism Moral?
A professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, Dr. Gary Gutting, asks the question. It's an interesting approach to the liberal/modern problem set, which tends to argue to the conclusion that patriotism isn't moral. Dr. Gutting wants to argue that American patriotism, at least, can be; but he also wants you to understand why many modern thinkers don't think it can be ("modern," in philosophy, generally refers to the lines of thought originating in the 18th century with David Hume and Immanuel Kant, which underlie most of contemporary philosophy as well).
1) How can it be a virtue, if it causes us to value some people's interests more highly than others?
2) Is it possible to treat people as equals while favoring your own group's interest?
I'll leave you to consider his approach to American patriotism. I'm going to propose another set of answers to the problem, which to me seem better.
Dr. Gutting should pause and reflect on how Aristotle, as well as Plato, would approach the question. First of all, what is a virtue? It is a strength, an excellence; it is also a capacity, which allows you to pursue new actualities. Courage is a strength, but having courage means being able to do things that the cowardly cannot do.
But to determine what capacities are really conveyed by the virtue, we also have to know the nature of the thing. Human nature is different from horse nature. The expression of the virtue of courage in a man will therefore be very different from the expression of what is courage in a horse.
Patriotism is a subset of the virtue of loyalty. Loyalty is certainly a virtue, because it gives us strength: those who possess mutual loyalty have a capacity to do things that those without it cannot do.
But what is the proper expression of loyalty? To know that we have to look to the nature of the thing that is being loyal, in this case, human nature.
Aristotle determines (in Politics I) that man is a social animal, and that political behavior is part of human nature. Every man will thus be born into a polity as he is born into a family; for every woman, it is the same.
It turns out that patriotism is a virtue that arises from our nature. It's like your relationship with your mother: you're going to have a relationship of one kind or another, but if you can find a way to love her and forgive her, it's a healthier relationship than if you get trapped in despising and resenting her. Thus, patriotism is a kind of human flourishing; everyone should be patriotic.
But what about the concern that we need to treat everyone as equals? Dr. Gutting is thinking about the American mission to free all mankind, which I also think is an admirable mission. There is, though, another answer: we often seek justice adversarially.
Our court system works this way. The idea isn't that it's wrong for the defense attorney to be totally committed, by hook or crook, to getting his client as free of charges as possible. It's that, in the opposition of such interests, justice will emerge. So there's no reason not to fight for your country; in fact, insofar as you are interested in that higher justice, everyone should fight for his country, and justice will emerge from the contest. The better ideas and systems will rise; the worse ones will fall, or reform.
Thus, if your interest is justice for all humankind, this may be the best way to achieve it.
At the beginning of Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates asks what justice (doing the morally right thing) is, and Polemarchus replies that it’s helping your friends and harming your enemies. That was the answer among the ancient Greeks as well as many other traditional societies. Moral behavior was the way you treated those in your “in-group,” as opposed to outsiders.The argument follows two questions:
Socrates questioned this ethical exclusivism, thus beginning a centuries-long argument that, by modern times, led most major moral philosophers (for example, Mill and Kant) to conclude that morality required an impartial, universal viewpoint that treated all human beings as equals. In other words, the “in-group” for morality is not any particular social group (family, city, nation) but humankind as a whole. This universal moral viewpoint seems to reject patriotism for “cosmopolitanism[.]”
1) How can it be a virtue, if it causes us to value some people's interests more highly than others?
2) Is it possible to treat people as equals while favoring your own group's interest?
I'll leave you to consider his approach to American patriotism. I'm going to propose another set of answers to the problem, which to me seem better.
Dr. Gutting should pause and reflect on how Aristotle, as well as Plato, would approach the question. First of all, what is a virtue? It is a strength, an excellence; it is also a capacity, which allows you to pursue new actualities. Courage is a strength, but having courage means being able to do things that the cowardly cannot do.
But to determine what capacities are really conveyed by the virtue, we also have to know the nature of the thing. Human nature is different from horse nature. The expression of the virtue of courage in a man will therefore be very different from the expression of what is courage in a horse.
Patriotism is a subset of the virtue of loyalty. Loyalty is certainly a virtue, because it gives us strength: those who possess mutual loyalty have a capacity to do things that those without it cannot do.
But what is the proper expression of loyalty? To know that we have to look to the nature of the thing that is being loyal, in this case, human nature.
Aristotle determines (in Politics I) that man is a social animal, and that political behavior is part of human nature. Every man will thus be born into a polity as he is born into a family; for every woman, it is the same.
It turns out that patriotism is a virtue that arises from our nature. It's like your relationship with your mother: you're going to have a relationship of one kind or another, but if you can find a way to love her and forgive her, it's a healthier relationship than if you get trapped in despising and resenting her. Thus, patriotism is a kind of human flourishing; everyone should be patriotic.
But what about the concern that we need to treat everyone as equals? Dr. Gutting is thinking about the American mission to free all mankind, which I also think is an admirable mission. There is, though, another answer: we often seek justice adversarially.
Our court system works this way. The idea isn't that it's wrong for the defense attorney to be totally committed, by hook or crook, to getting his client as free of charges as possible. It's that, in the opposition of such interests, justice will emerge. So there's no reason not to fight for your country; in fact, insofar as you are interested in that higher justice, everyone should fight for his country, and justice will emerge from the contest. The better ideas and systems will rise; the worse ones will fall, or reform.
Thus, if your interest is justice for all humankind, this may be the best way to achieve it.
Chivalry in Action
Here is an interesting fact: out of those killed in the recent mass shooting, fully a third were men who had thrown themselves on top of their girlfriends to protect them. Two of these were US Navy sailors.
Another man was shot doing the same thing, but did not die. All of these men have the honor of the Hall, and deserve both our praise and acclaim. They chose a most honorable path.
Another man was shot doing the same thing, but did not die. All of these men have the honor of the Hall, and deserve both our praise and acclaim. They chose a most honorable path.
A Word with Zell Miller
Professor Zell Miller, former Senator, Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the Great State of Georgia, and a former Marine as well, consented to a brief interview at a recent fundraiser for a Republican. Zell credits the United States Marine Corps with his success in life. He had allowed himself to be made to feel inferior by those at his college who mocked his mountain upbringing, so that he had dropped out. Depressed, drinking moonshine, he drove his truck into a ditch and was picked up by the police. He joined the Marines looking to be straightened out. He learned discipline, honor, punctuality, and the other tools that let him ascend to the highest office in the state, and to be the natural choice to replace a Senator who died in office.
He endorsed President Bush in a firestorm speech at the Republican National Convention, but refused to leave the Democratic Party. It had been his home his whole life, he said.
Why would the most famous lifelong Democrat in Georgia break a long exile to help fundraise for a Republican?
Why?
He endorsed President Bush in a firestorm speech at the Republican National Convention, but refused to leave the Democratic Party. It had been his home his whole life, he said.
Why would the most famous lifelong Democrat in Georgia break a long exile to help fundraise for a Republican?
“My grandmother was a Collins out of Union County. And I was impressed by what a good legislator [Doug Collins] made. “I felt I had a mountain relationship with him.”The interviewer spends most of his time on Zell's health concerns and the terrible pain that resulted from a recent fall down a flight of stairs. He gets to something important late in the interview, though, which is to ask him why he had turned to the right so publicly back in 2004. He had become not only a Bush supporter, but an outspoken foe of abortion, and an equally outspoken critic of the dissolution of American morality.
Why?
“I had a conversion. I had a late life conversion. I changed my views on several things. This had to do with my son going blind, and me having to carry him to the doctor with his hand on my shoulder.... I prayed and prayed that they could do something about his sight,” Miller said.I suppose even the Marine Corps won't object to hearing that God had to finish what they started.
The prayers seemed to work. “He can see pretty good out of one eye right now.” But a bargain struck with God often transforms the petitioner more than the object of any plea. “I changed on a lot of things. Not just abortion, but my whole life in general. I was a pretty rough character in my younger days. I needed to change,” Miller said.
A Conceptual Point About the Division of Rights
We are all familiar with the division of liberties and rights into "negative" and "positive." A negative right is the kind of right that doesn't require anyone to provide you with anything; it just forbids them from interfering with you. A positive right requires some actual provision. In Georgia as in several other states, for example, there is a positive right in the state constitution to hunt and to fish. This means that the state is obligated to provide the means for such hunting and fishing. It cannot be the case that you have a positive right to hunt, but that there is no land available on which you may exercise this right. If you have a positive right to fish, you must have access to at least some waters in which fishing is possible.
These rights aren't unfettered -- there are licensing requirements, fees, bag limits, and so forth -- but they do require that the state provide something for you. Your right imposes an obligation on the state not merely to refrain, but to act on your behalf to secure the thing to which you have a right.
All that is well understood. However, what is less well understood is that there is a middle ground between the two categories. There are some otherwise-negative rights that require physical goods. No one is obligated to provide you with these goods, but your right to provide yourself with them is protected. Thus, the Second Amendment says that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Nobody needs to provide you with arms, but you must not be stopped from purchasing your own if you desire.
But it's a little stronger than that. There is an almost-positive element to it: we are obligated not to try to make the arms unavailable. It won't do to set up a case in which anyone who wishes to buy a firearm can buy one, but there are none to buy. It won't do for a governor to say, "I'm not infringing your right; go buy a gun, any gun you can find!" if that governor has previously arranged to buy up all the guns and melt them down.
In such a case the negative right has ceased to exist even though it is allegedly still extant and uninfringed by any letter of law. There isn't a positive right as such, but there almost is: the government may not be legally obligated to provide the good, or even access to the good. Yet if it isn't obligated not to prevent the possibility of access to the good, the right can cease to exist as an actual right that you can really exercise.
A similar case occurs with these "Free Speech zones," whereby the government orders you not to engage in assembly or speech near a political convention (say), except in a narrow area too small for all the competing groups (and usually far from the actual event). You have a negative right that is technically not being infringed; and technically, there is even a place provided for its exercise. But practically, the right is denied if there is not a place in which to practice it.
So yesterday I wrote up a piece about Commerce, Georgia, and the public pool that does not permit cursing. Is that an unacceptable infringement of freedom of speech, for the government officials who run the pool to refuse to allow you to speak certain words in a public park? Perhaps not, if you think that the existence of the rest of the world is an adequate amount of space for cursing in; in that case, you could say that this is better, because we have one place for people who don't like to hear foul language (and do like to swim), and people who like to curse can go do it elsewhere when they are done swimming; or they can simply forgo swimming, and curse all day if it pleases them.
How far can we take that principle? Can we ban cursing on all public property? Within the city limits, whether the land is public or private? Within the county? Within a state? Within the United States? At some point we're crossing that line pertaining to the mostly-negative right that has a necessary physical component. Just where?
These rights aren't unfettered -- there are licensing requirements, fees, bag limits, and so forth -- but they do require that the state provide something for you. Your right imposes an obligation on the state not merely to refrain, but to act on your behalf to secure the thing to which you have a right.
All that is well understood. However, what is less well understood is that there is a middle ground between the two categories. There are some otherwise-negative rights that require physical goods. No one is obligated to provide you with these goods, but your right to provide yourself with them is protected. Thus, the Second Amendment says that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Nobody needs to provide you with arms, but you must not be stopped from purchasing your own if you desire.
But it's a little stronger than that. There is an almost-positive element to it: we are obligated not to try to make the arms unavailable. It won't do to set up a case in which anyone who wishes to buy a firearm can buy one, but there are none to buy. It won't do for a governor to say, "I'm not infringing your right; go buy a gun, any gun you can find!" if that governor has previously arranged to buy up all the guns and melt them down.
In such a case the negative right has ceased to exist even though it is allegedly still extant and uninfringed by any letter of law. There isn't a positive right as such, but there almost is: the government may not be legally obligated to provide the good, or even access to the good. Yet if it isn't obligated not to prevent the possibility of access to the good, the right can cease to exist as an actual right that you can really exercise.
A similar case occurs with these "Free Speech zones," whereby the government orders you not to engage in assembly or speech near a political convention (say), except in a narrow area too small for all the competing groups (and usually far from the actual event). You have a negative right that is technically not being infringed; and technically, there is even a place provided for its exercise. But practically, the right is denied if there is not a place in which to practice it.
So yesterday I wrote up a piece about Commerce, Georgia, and the public pool that does not permit cursing. Is that an unacceptable infringement of freedom of speech, for the government officials who run the pool to refuse to allow you to speak certain words in a public park? Perhaps not, if you think that the existence of the rest of the world is an adequate amount of space for cursing in; in that case, you could say that this is better, because we have one place for people who don't like to hear foul language (and do like to swim), and people who like to curse can go do it elsewhere when they are done swimming; or they can simply forgo swimming, and curse all day if it pleases them.
How far can we take that principle? Can we ban cursing on all public property? Within the city limits, whether the land is public or private? Within the county? Within a state? Within the United States? At some point we're crossing that line pertaining to the mostly-negative right that has a necessary physical component. Just where?
A Place Called Commerce
I happened to ride through Commerce, Georgia today. It's a simple town, with a main street full of law firms and banks or credit agencies, antique shops and little shops for women, a couple of small restaurants -- including a pretty good pizza joint with pool tables and draft PBR -- and an active railroad track running right through the center of town. At one end of town is the Confederate memorial, kept up by the Daughters of the Confederacy and featuring an old-style Georgia flag.
At the other end of town is Veterans' Park, which is where the pool happens to be. The pool is open to the public for a small fee during the height of summer, Wednesday through Saturday from one to five.
If you go to the pool, though, leave your bad language behind. Signs proclaim in very tall letters that there will be absolutely no foul language at the pool, with violators ordered to leave at once.
The rule seems to have sparked little rebellion. Lifeguards refer to their elders as "Sir" or "Ma'am," as young Southerners are supposed to do. Teenagers at the pool are mannerly and obedient to it, though their tattoos suggest that they are otherwise embroiled in the culture that they see on television.
It's a nice little town. Too far from the mountains for me, but a pleasant enough place to pass through on a Saturday in the summertime.
At the other end of town is Veterans' Park, which is where the pool happens to be. The pool is open to the public for a small fee during the height of summer, Wednesday through Saturday from one to five.
If you go to the pool, though, leave your bad language behind. Signs proclaim in very tall letters that there will be absolutely no foul language at the pool, with violators ordered to leave at once.
The rule seems to have sparked little rebellion. Lifeguards refer to their elders as "Sir" or "Ma'am," as young Southerners are supposed to do. Teenagers at the pool are mannerly and obedient to it, though their tattoos suggest that they are otherwise embroiled in the culture that they see on television.
It's a nice little town. Too far from the mountains for me, but a pleasant enough place to pass through on a Saturday in the summertime.
Prices
This is courage, if you like. A South Korean man soaks up Marxist fantasies to the point that he defects to North Korea with his wife and children, expecting free health care and a nice government job. Right away he and his family are put into a brutal camp and told that his job will be to tour Europe and entice other families to the same fate. He explains to his wife that he may have to do it in order to preserve their new life. She slaps him in the face, saying "they would have to pay the price for his mistakes – he could not entrap others."
He goes to Copenhagen and defects, intending to spend the rest of his life telling the horrible, cautionary tale. His wife and children disappear into a camp to starve and die.
And in her place, what would we have done?
He goes to Copenhagen and defects, intending to spend the rest of his life telling the horrible, cautionary tale. His wife and children disappear into a camp to starve and die.
And in her place, what would we have done?
Elizabeth Warren Annoys Us for the Wrong Reasons
Via HotAir, an excellent summary of what regulations might help in the financial market, vs. what regulations actually will be pushed by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Another poster child:
Congress should require federal agencies dealing with mortgages to put into place a minimum down-payment rule. Existing regulators and law enforcement agencies could do better at policing deception and fraud—and show that they’re willing to shut down repeat offenders, even big ones. And lawmakers should start phasing out Fannie and Freddie, so that government dominance no longer distorts the housing market.Instead, the focus of CFPB enthusiasts, notably including Elizabeth Warren, is the kind of jam that 10% of consumers can get into when they demonstrate why the bottom 10% of consumers shouldn't be trusted within 100 feet of a financial instrument without a court-appointed guardian (leaving the rest of us alone, thanks very much). New York economic-justice advocate Sarah Ludwig uses a middle-aged government worker as an object lesson. Finding herself short of cash one month, she resorted to a payday lender, which lent her money a sky-high rates in exchange for a post-dated check on the strength of a pay stub proving she was employed. Each month she could either pay the loan back or extend it. Eventually, if she failed to do either, the payday lender would present the check at her bank. Now, this was a deliberately kited check; there were no funds to pay it. So she started incurring bounced-check charges and ended up with bad credit. Is the solution for this once-burned consumer to work through the bad credit and repair her reputation? Or is it greater federal government involvement in consumer protection and education? It's hard to imagine that lack of education led this middle-aged government worker to close her eyes to the consequences of kiting a check.
Another poster child:
Andrew Giordano’s bank mistakenly gave him a replacement debit card that offered overdraft protection, and he failed to realize it. He proceeded to overdraw the account multiple times, enough to result in $814 in fees. “Funds obviously were not there,” his wife says plaintively. “Why would [the bank] continue to accept the charges?” Warren neglects to respond with the obvious question: Why did Giordano have no idea how much money was in his account?I had a little more sympathy for the woman who "became a victim when she racked up long-term debt on a variable-rate credit card and then professed shock when her card issuer exercised its right to raise the rate." But Congress already passed a bill in 2009, with bipartisan support, requiring credit-card issuers to warn customers of an impending rate increase and to continue to apply the old rate to existing balances. What's left for the CFPB to do? Well, for one thing, a rule
that requires home buyers to pay a minimum-percentage down payment would be a simple, effective option. People who have been able to save, say, 10 percent of a house’s value demonstrate financial discipline. Further, a family that has equity in a house can refinance easily to get out of a bad mortgage; such a family also has the flexibility to move, if a breadwinner has the opportunity to take a better job in another city or state. And creating a minimum down-payment rule would be fast and easy—a major benefit, since continued uncertainty about financial rules is contributing to banks’ reluctance to lend and thus to today’s sluggish economy.
Yet the CFPB almost surely won’t take such an obvious step, and again, the fault lies with Congress. The Dodd-Frank bill didn’t specify a down-payment rule because such a rule would push house prices down further—anathema to Congress. Moreover, a down-payment requirement would run afoul not only of America’s debt-carrying middle class but of the affordable-housing and minority-group advocates who want poorer Americans to enjoy the same dream of indebtedness that the middle class enjoys. As Orson Aguilar, executive director of the nonprofit Greenlining Institute, puts it, any mortgage rules that would require homeowners to have a good job, good credit, and a hefty down payment are “problematic.”The author concludes: "the CFPB is likely to encourage poorer people to take on debt that they cannot afford."
The bureau can do so because Congress gave it the responsibility to enforce some “fair-lending” laws. As Congress put it, the CFPB must study “access to fair and affordable credit for traditionally underserved communities” and ensure “nondiscriminatory access to credit for both individuals and communities.” The probable result will be to strong-arm the financial industry to lend money cheaply to the poor—and when something is cheap, people buy more of it, even if they shouldn’t.
The CFPB is already moving aggressively on this front. . . . In April, the CFPB’s deputy director, Raj Date, told consumer advocates at a Greenlining conference that the bureau would work assiduously to make sure that “lenders are not creating conditions that make loans more expensive, or access more difficult, for certain populations."
An Analysis of the Mass Shooting Problem
It's a little surprising when a mass shooting gets a lot of attention these days; we've seen so many of them over the years that they usually have to contain some especially shocking element (like last year's famous one, almost exactly a year ago). People often seem to think about these things as a sort-of disease.
For a long time we tried to understand how the disease was spread -- was it by violent video games? Movies? -- but that kind of efficient cause proves elusive, and for good reason. There is no such cause. The actual cause is not the efficient cause but the choice of the individual killer. They are doing these things for reasons of their own.
In spite of what we hear from determinists, humans are not pinball machines. We don't do X because we experienced Y; rather, we ourselves determine what experience Y means. We do that according to our beliefs, attitudes and upbringing, informed by far from determined by our physical makeup. The determination of meaning, and the decision of what to do about the meaning we find in the world, is a spontaneous process in the sense that it arises at least as much from our concepts as our biology.
Since concepts are invisible, we cannot prevent the free choice of evil. We can sometimes predict it, but often we cannot.
So: a certain number of people are going to decide to become killers. What to do about it?
One idea we often hear is that we should restrict access to firearms. There are reasons not to do this arising from the broader nature of human life, and the free citizen's relationship to the state. However, there are also reasons not to do it within the context of the problem. The first one is obvious: an armed citizenry can sometimes stop these attacks, whereas a disarmed citizenry is much more vulnerable.
Carrying a gun is kind of a pain, really, and the odds that something like this shooting will come up are small enough that most people may not think it's worth the hassle. However, a former Marine who happened to take his pistol to the movies that night could have stopped the attack earlier. This is in fact the best defense to an attack in progress, since it is an unpredictable factor from the point of view of the killer. He can avoid the police, but he can't be sure about the concealed weapons in the audience.
There's a second reason that is less obvious. The kind of mind that chooses this path is capable of worse. Even Timothy McVeigh, far from the smartest man in the world, could concoct a huge bomb. This fellow appears to have been brilliant: there's no limit to what kind of harm he could have created if he had chosen that route.
This is to say that the easy availability of firearms, and the glamour they are endowed with culturally, acts as a kind of brake on the harm done by mass killers. Firearms are less deadly than bombs, they take longer to do their work, and you have to be right there operating them in person. That exposes you to being stopped mid-act by armed citizens, and potentially even to the police arriving (although that is unlikely, since 'longer than a bomb' is still only 'a few minutes' rather than 'instantly'). You are available to be stopped before the harm is completed. You're easier to catch afterwards. Finally, a single person with a firearm can only kill so many people because of weight limits on how much ammunition he can carry.
For all these reasons, the best response is to encourage the carrying of arms by citizens, and to continue to glorify the gun. The last thing we want is for the evil among us to innovate.
For a long time we tried to understand how the disease was spread -- was it by violent video games? Movies? -- but that kind of efficient cause proves elusive, and for good reason. There is no such cause. The actual cause is not the efficient cause but the choice of the individual killer. They are doing these things for reasons of their own.
In spite of what we hear from determinists, humans are not pinball machines. We don't do X because we experienced Y; rather, we ourselves determine what experience Y means. We do that according to our beliefs, attitudes and upbringing, informed by far from determined by our physical makeup. The determination of meaning, and the decision of what to do about the meaning we find in the world, is a spontaneous process in the sense that it arises at least as much from our concepts as our biology.
Since concepts are invisible, we cannot prevent the free choice of evil. We can sometimes predict it, but often we cannot.
So: a certain number of people are going to decide to become killers. What to do about it?
One idea we often hear is that we should restrict access to firearms. There are reasons not to do this arising from the broader nature of human life, and the free citizen's relationship to the state. However, there are also reasons not to do it within the context of the problem. The first one is obvious: an armed citizenry can sometimes stop these attacks, whereas a disarmed citizenry is much more vulnerable.
Carrying a gun is kind of a pain, really, and the odds that something like this shooting will come up are small enough that most people may not think it's worth the hassle. However, a former Marine who happened to take his pistol to the movies that night could have stopped the attack earlier. This is in fact the best defense to an attack in progress, since it is an unpredictable factor from the point of view of the killer. He can avoid the police, but he can't be sure about the concealed weapons in the audience.
There's a second reason that is less obvious. The kind of mind that chooses this path is capable of worse. Even Timothy McVeigh, far from the smartest man in the world, could concoct a huge bomb. This fellow appears to have been brilliant: there's no limit to what kind of harm he could have created if he had chosen that route.
This is to say that the easy availability of firearms, and the glamour they are endowed with culturally, acts as a kind of brake on the harm done by mass killers. Firearms are less deadly than bombs, they take longer to do their work, and you have to be right there operating them in person. That exposes you to being stopped mid-act by armed citizens, and potentially even to the police arriving (although that is unlikely, since 'longer than a bomb' is still only 'a few minutes' rather than 'instantly'). You are available to be stopped before the harm is completed. You're easier to catch afterwards. Finally, a single person with a firearm can only kill so many people because of weight limits on how much ammunition he can carry.
For all these reasons, the best response is to encourage the carrying of arms by citizens, and to continue to glorify the gun. The last thing we want is for the evil among us to innovate.
In Praise of Sprawl?
What if a major reason for the income inequality that concerns many on the Left was anti-Sprawl aesthetics?
Economists have long taught this history to their undergraduates as an illustration of the growth theory for which Robert Solow won his Nobel Prize in economics: Poor places are short on the capital that would make local labor more productive. Investors move capital to those poor places, hoping to capture some of the increased productivity as higher returns. Productivity gradually equalizes across the country, and wages follow. When capital can move freely, the poorer a place is to start with, the faster it grows.... Or at least it used to....So, to fight inequality, encourage sprawl. Or, if you hate sprawling cities like Atlanta or Phoenix, accept that you're the problem when it comes to creating inequality. You're making it too expensive for the working man to come live and work where you do. That means he'll live in Atlanta, where he will make a bit less money, but he can afford to live better on it. Which, in turn, means you might rethink what "inequality" means. If I could earn $5,000 a month here, or in New York City, or in China, there's a significant "inequality" even at the same rate of pay. After expenses I'd be scraping by in New York, doing quite well here, and rolling in dough in China once I converted my pay into Renminbi.
In a new working paper, Shoag and Peter Ganong, a doctoral student in economics at Harvard, offer an explanation: The key to convergence was never just mobile capital. It was also mobile labor. But the promise of a better life that once drew people of all backgrounds to rich places such as New York and California now applies only to an educated elite -- because rich places have made housing prohibitively expensive....
[T]here are two competing models of successful American cities. One encourages a growing population, fosters a middle-class, family-centered lifestyle, and liberally permits new housing. It used to be the norm nationally, and it still predominates in the South and Southwest. The other favors long-term residents, attracts highly productive, work-driven people, focuses on aesthetic amenities, and makes it difficult to build. It prevails on the West Coast, in the Northeast and in picturesque cities such as Boulder, Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The first model spurs income convergence, the second spurs economic segregation.
Addendum: Hank III & The Edge
My series on country music is over, but I wanted to provide a response to a comment. Raven expressed an opinion that modern, pop country music seems to have lost the Outlaw edge. That's true. It has.
But there are some out there who are pushing the edge still, and one of them is Hank Williams Sr.'s grandson. If you look into his music far enough, you'll find a lot you don't like. He's part of a country band, a punk rock band, a metal band, and pushes out without regard to what people will be ready to accept. So, you know, be warned.
Here's a couple of easier to digest things to get you started.
Here's him doing a couple of Outlaw classics.
...and some less easy things, which some of you will not like, and some of you will like even better.
This next one is NSFW at all... but for the record, he doesn't like pop country either.
And then there's this one, featuring a "hellbilly" sound.
So if you're interested in edge, it's out there. He's far from the only one; if you liked the more radical pieces, you might also try the Pine Box Boys and see where that leads you. They have less range, but they're very good within their range, and are linked to a lot of other bands who are looking for the edge.
If you didn't like Hank Williams, stay far away from those guys.
But there are some out there who are pushing the edge still, and one of them is Hank Williams Sr.'s grandson. If you look into his music far enough, you'll find a lot you don't like. He's part of a country band, a punk rock band, a metal band, and pushes out without regard to what people will be ready to accept. So, you know, be warned.
Here's a couple of easier to digest things to get you started.
Here's him doing a couple of Outlaw classics.
...and some less easy things, which some of you will not like, and some of you will like even better.
This next one is NSFW at all... but for the record, he doesn't like pop country either.
And then there's this one, featuring a "hellbilly" sound.
So if you're interested in edge, it's out there. He's far from the only one; if you liked the more radical pieces, you might also try the Pine Box Boys and see where that leads you. They have less range, but they're very good within their range, and are linked to a lot of other bands who are looking for the edge.
If you didn't like Hank Williams, stay far away from those guys.
The Attack Dogs Eat At Waffle House
I had much the same sentiment when I saw this list. Naturally, the presumptive explanation is that these organizations are, well, you know. I mean, "Dixie" cups and "White" Castle burgers, well, how loud does a dog whistle have to be?
But I have to admit, I was a little surprised to learn this guy was among them.
But I have to admit, I was a little surprised to learn this guy was among them.
The safety net
From the American Enterprise Institute, an essay speaking exactly to what's been troubling me lately about the argument that we have to submit to mandatory entitlement programs because capitalism is too risky:
H/t Maggie's Farm.
What used to be called "public charity" is now "entitlement programs." The difference is much more than semantics. The word "charity" carries with it the implication that the intended beneficiary is someone else. Those who paid taxes to support such programs, approvingly or not, did so in the clear understanding that they were paying to help other people; they neither expected nor desired any personal benefit from the programs. . . .
Gradually, however, the left inculcated the notion that we are all at risk, due to the nature of "capitalism" (i.e., freedom), and hence that government programs for those in need ought to be seen as a universal necessity. In other words, such programs were no longer to be viewed as something the vast majority of citizens provide for the benefit of the very few, but rather as something government ought to be providing for each of us as a primary function.As I read somewhere else today, the safety net is supposed to be a trampoline for the very few, not social flypaper for the many. I've been arguing with Grim recently about the conflation of insurance with subsidies. The distinction is critical: Insurance is appropriate for most adults, but subsidies are not. If the category of "needy citizens" expands to include a large fraction of Americans, or even (as is now becoming the norm) a majority of Americans, the category has lost its meaning and programs that address it have lost their justification for existence.
H/t Maggie's Farm.
Taxing Internet Sales
Dr. Mercury at Maggie's Farm has been discussing the current proposals to tax Internet sales nationwide. Some states are already doing it; my own beloved Texas has bullied Amazon into assessing sales tax, effective this month. One of the ostensible rationales is the need to "level the playing field" for brick-and-mortar stores (as if anyone believed the motive was anything but the obvious desire to glom onto more revenue), but as Dr. M and many commenters pointed out, the local stores are going to need a lot more than an 8% advantage to complete with the on-line prices and selection.
Here at Swankienda99, we rely heavily on Amazon for things we can't get locally. Ever since Amazon expanded out of books and took on the entire retail market, I've depended on them for the many food brands my duopolistic grocery store won't carry. They're an especially good source for brands that have fallen out of disfavor but haven't completely ceased production. In fact, I buy most things from Amazon that I don't need to touch or handle ahead of time, from cookware to linens to small appliances. They let me search efficiently for products by key word and best price, they provide customer reviews that take the place of indifferent sales clerks, and they get me my stuff in two days for a flat annual fee. It just has to be a product that can be easily shipped, so it can't be too heavy, too voluminous, or too perishable.
In order to compete, local stores may have to specialize in that kind of tricky freight, or provide expertise and advice that can't be duplicated by my fellow customers on-line, or carry things for which I'll pay a premium for same-day availability. Big-box stores have gotten used to being passive purveyors who make their customers wander through miles of aisles on scavenger hunts. I wonder if future retail merchants won't have to function a bit more like knowledgeable brokers in order to lure customers back.
What do you guys buy online?
Here at Swankienda99, we rely heavily on Amazon for things we can't get locally. Ever since Amazon expanded out of books and took on the entire retail market, I've depended on them for the many food brands my duopolistic grocery store won't carry. They're an especially good source for brands that have fallen out of disfavor but haven't completely ceased production. In fact, I buy most things from Amazon that I don't need to touch or handle ahead of time, from cookware to linens to small appliances. They let me search efficiently for products by key word and best price, they provide customer reviews that take the place of indifferent sales clerks, and they get me my stuff in two days for a flat annual fee. It just has to be a product that can be easily shipped, so it can't be too heavy, too voluminous, or too perishable.
In order to compete, local stores may have to specialize in that kind of tricky freight, or provide expertise and advice that can't be duplicated by my fellow customers on-line, or carry things for which I'll pay a premium for same-day availability. Big-box stores have gotten used to being passive purveyors who make their customers wander through miles of aisles on scavenger hunts. I wonder if future retail merchants won't have to function a bit more like knowledgeable brokers in order to lure customers back.
What do you guys buy online?
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