OUR LEADERS LOVE US and have our interest at heart.
1. Political Correctness on the enviormental effects of school choice:“We find that eliminating district-wide school choice (i.e., returning to a system with neighborhood schools only) would have significant impacts on transport modes and emissions, whereas in many cases proposed shifts in school choice and bus-provision policies would have only modest impacts.” But if that’s so good why not restrict more. Hey guys, you know what else can yield “larger increases in private-vehicle emissions”? Choice of grocery store, choice of dry cleaner, choice of shopping mall, choice of residential neighborhood, choice of restaurant, choice of romantic encounters, choice of entertainment, choice of visiting relatives, choice of basically any kind in which use of an automobile is implicated.
2. “...but I think ( Adam) Smith’s text supports view that it is the government cronyism, not commerce per se, that breeds corruption. You say that Smith believed that a healthy society “requires care for the poor.” Yet you neglect to mention that Smith remains entirely silent on the matter of tax-financed poor relief. A curious silence in the otherwise quite comprehensive Wealth of Nations. You say that he believed a healthy society “requires regulation.” Well, Smith clearly favored government “nightwatchman” functions. He also made numerous specific exceptions to the liberty principle, some of which are much vaguer than left-interpreters claim. But, at any rate, he treated exceptions as exceptional, bearing the burden of proof. I think Jacob Viner (1927), one of the early cataloguers of Smith’s exceptions, got it right when he said that Smith propounds a presumption of liberty. All in all, I think that classical liberals and pragmatic libertarians are on pretty solid ground in claiming Smith.
3. The other big problem in your piece is that you associate classical liberal views with greed, selfishness, being “uncaring.” Though inveterate in some quarters, such association is illegitimate, and renders several of your paragraphs non sequitur.”
4. Were Zinn still alive, I would ask him why the very same government that he believes scurrilously, cold-bloodedly, and deceptively sends young people off to die in unjustified wars is to be trusted on the home front with the task of rearranging America’s own economy and society.
Seems to me that an evil brute pointing guns at foreigners remains an evil brute when he turns ’round to point those guns at fellow citizens.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
5. As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said today during a commercial space telecon organized in response to the budget request, “There are certain members of congress who cannot be swayed by any rational argument. They simply want the answer to be that funding continues in their district independent of any sound basis for it.”
6. UPDATE: Economics professor E.F. Stephenson takes a healthcare lesson from the Obama Administration’s space policy: If human spaceflight—a technically challenging endeavor—need not involve NASA, then just maybe health care need not involve the meddling feds either.
Good point!
7. On the other hand, if graft is what it takes to kill cap-and-trade, maybe it’s worth it, especially if the offshore-drilling stuff stays in. Hey, you don’t expect those guys to do something good for the country without graft, do you? This is Congress. When you’ve got something valuable, you don’t just give it away.
8. If you stop listening you'll start imagining they're reasonable intelligent people, you need to listen for constant reminders of how corrupt and stupid they all are.
9. Government reports that Food Banks are overwhelmed by hungry Americans during this downturn and that Michelle Obama will head up new task force to combat the epidemic childhood obesity . Do I sense a contradiction here?
1. Political Correctness on the enviormental effects of school choice:“We find that eliminating district-wide school choice (i.e., returning to a system with neighborhood schools only) would have significant impacts on transport modes and emissions, whereas in many cases proposed shifts in school choice and bus-provision policies would have only modest impacts.” But if that’s so good why not restrict more. Hey guys, you know what else can yield “larger increases in private-vehicle emissions”? Choice of grocery store, choice of dry cleaner, choice of shopping mall, choice of residential neighborhood, choice of restaurant, choice of romantic encounters, choice of entertainment, choice of visiting relatives, choice of basically any kind in which use of an automobile is implicated.
2. “...but I think ( Adam) Smith’s text supports view that it is the government cronyism, not commerce per se, that breeds corruption. You say that Smith believed that a healthy society “requires care for the poor.” Yet you neglect to mention that Smith remains entirely silent on the matter of tax-financed poor relief. A curious silence in the otherwise quite comprehensive Wealth of Nations. You say that he believed a healthy society “requires regulation.” Well, Smith clearly favored government “nightwatchman” functions. He also made numerous specific exceptions to the liberty principle, some of which are much vaguer than left-interpreters claim. But, at any rate, he treated exceptions as exceptional, bearing the burden of proof. I think Jacob Viner (1927), one of the early cataloguers of Smith’s exceptions, got it right when he said that Smith propounds a presumption of liberty. All in all, I think that classical liberals and pragmatic libertarians are on pretty solid ground in claiming Smith.
3. The other big problem in your piece is that you associate classical liberal views with greed, selfishness, being “uncaring.” Though inveterate in some quarters, such association is illegitimate, and renders several of your paragraphs non sequitur.”
4. Were Zinn still alive, I would ask him why the very same government that he believes scurrilously, cold-bloodedly, and deceptively sends young people off to die in unjustified wars is to be trusted on the home front with the task of rearranging America’s own economy and society.
Seems to me that an evil brute pointing guns at foreigners remains an evil brute when he turns ’round to point those guns at fellow citizens.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
5. As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said today during a commercial space telecon organized in response to the budget request, “There are certain members of congress who cannot be swayed by any rational argument. They simply want the answer to be that funding continues in their district independent of any sound basis for it.”
6. UPDATE: Economics professor E.F. Stephenson takes a healthcare lesson from the Obama Administration’s space policy: If human spaceflight—a technically challenging endeavor—need not involve NASA, then just maybe health care need not involve the meddling feds either.
Good point!
7. On the other hand, if graft is what it takes to kill cap-and-trade, maybe it’s worth it, especially if the offshore-drilling stuff stays in. Hey, you don’t expect those guys to do something good for the country without graft, do you? This is Congress. When you’ve got something valuable, you don’t just give it away.
8. If you stop listening you'll start imagining they're reasonable intelligent people, you need to listen for constant reminders of how corrupt and stupid they all are.
9. Government reports that Food Banks are overwhelmed by hungry Americans during this downturn and that Michelle Obama will head up new task force to combat the epidemic childhood obesity . Do I sense a contradiction here?
posted by CAROLYN at 3:50 PM
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