The Constitution Versus Academia and Corrupt Government Mandates

By Rich Kozlovich

   

The Supreme Court finally saw the light and decided racism is racism and racial set asides in universities are blatantly unconstitutional.  Well....duh!  

 

Unfortunately there are three of the justices, known dimwits, who find it impossible to grasp that simple and fundamental fact.   And we find the entire leftist nitwit brigade has joined them in their outrage, and many universities plan to ignore that ruling, because they know better, and simply don't care what the Supreme Court says. Isn't that amazing? 

  

When SCOTUS irrationally discovered abortion was a constitutional right, in spite of the obvious fact the Constitution never said any such thing, they were jubilant.  Except in order to "find" abortion in the Constitution, amazingly, the federal judiciary "discovered" there are penumbras and emanations that radiate  from the simple and understandable language of the Constitution.  Why?  Because the simple and understandable language didn't give them the right to impose legislation from the bench, so they had to develop language that did. 

 

The word penumbra originally was a scientific term "created to describe the shadows that occur during eclipses." And I think the word shadows is more than appropriate when its used in relationship with the Constitution.   The "penumbra" of the Constitution "implies" rights not actually written in the Constitution, and in fact the concept gives then the ability to define, redefine and even ignore the actual and simple language of the Constitution.  All of which has been done by the federal judiciary at every level. All in an effort to make the Constitution a "Living Document".  An open ended concept that allows for unending abuse, and the end to the rule of law!  And the left was jubilant beyond measure, because the SCOTUS was all great, and all wise beyond all imagination.

 

How quickly that can change.  

 

Now the Constitution is just an old dusty document, a racist document at that, and SCOTUS isn't all great, wise and knowing, and, according to Joe Biden, this SCOTUS isn't even a normal court.  Joe Biden defining normal?  Imagine that. 

 

 

 

The left also believes SCOTUS is in serious need of fixing with more justices, far left justices, and imposed restrictions by Congress.  And most importantly, SCOTUS needs to accept public opinion as the rule of law. Provided of course that public opinion is a leftest public opinion.   

Well, that's generated a massive red herring fallacy discussion regarding "fairness" and university admissions dealing with legacy admissions. 

Monica Showalter of America Thinker is one of my favorite writers.  I have a number of writers I regularly pay close attention to, and she's one of them.  Some even allow me to publish their work,    But I don't always agree with them.   Yesterday she published this piece entitled, Now it's legacy admissions' turn decrying the unfairness of legacy admissions to elite universities, many of whom wouldn't have been admitted if not for this preferential treatment.  And what about those kids who are admitted because their parents donated massive amounts of money to these universities?  Should the universities be forced to stop admitting the children of rich donors? 

 

What we're seeing here is family taking care of family.  Is that so terrible? Did anyone ever notice how many Hollywood stars had parents and/or grandparents who were Hollywood bigwigs?  Family taking care of family.  How many of the rich have inherited huge wealth because they descended from wealthy parents.  Isn't that a form of "legacy"?   As a result, should that be allowed? And who decides?   Should government bureaucrats, race baiters, insane leftists decide what's fair?    

 

Let's try an understand this properly. Legacy admittance was created by those who created these institutions in order to make sure the "right people" met the "right people" in order to perpetuate the "right people's" class and riches. 

 

Why is that so terrible? 

 

On a personal level, I despise all these elitist privileges, but so what?  Should that give me the right to strip them of these perfectly legal privileges.  Let me make it clear,  I’m not one of the “right people” and I don’t wish to be one of the “right people” because most of those of that class I’ve met, I didn’t like, and had no desire to associate with them. However, why shouldn’t people have the right to decide who they wish to associate with, or isolate themselves from?  

The left is filled with people who live in echo chambers of head nodding dunderheads, like Nikole Hannah-Jones, and yet, there’s no outrage over that from the media or so-called social justice warriors.

• Is it so terribly immoral for rich people to want their children to marry the children of other rich people?
• Is it so terribly immoral for people of a certain class to want their children to marry the children of parents of that class, or even race for that matter?
• Is so terrible for those who share religious beliefs to want their children to marry those who share those religious beliefs?
• Is it so terribly immoral for people of a certain political persuasion to want their children to marry the children whose parents share that political view?
• Don't think it's fair? Okay, but please tell me who wrote the Book of Fair? Generally speaking, fair is often a matter of who’s ox is being gored.
• Diversity, inclusion, equity, multiculturalism. Please explain to me how well that’s worked out for France.

The fact is these legacy admissions were created by these institutions, which they had every right to do, and were not imposed by the government.  That’s the difference, and it's a big difference!  Let's try and get this once and for all.   Fairness isn’t the issue here, government mandates based on race, religion or any other criteria is the issue here, and it's the only issue here.

Where in the Constitution does it say the government should be making these decisions? It’s not the government's job to decide who’s chosen by these institutions, and it's long overdue for these institutions to stop feeding at the government trough, and way long past time for government to stop funding education, at all levels.

Everything else are red herring fallacies playing into the hands of people who unending scream how terrible and racist is America. Many of them made wealthy by America.  What really needs to be done to fix all this is eliminate the Department of Education.

Now if we really want "fair", that's a really good start. 

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: The Holy Trinity of Leftism!

Diversity without accomplishment is philosophy without form and incompetence without consequence!

By Rich Kozlovich 

Before we go on let's dispense with that the idea the Holy Trinity of Leftism, diversity, equity and inclusion is about fairness. It's been my experience what's defined by so many as to what's fair is based on who's ox is being gored.  Who exactly wrote the Book of Fair? There is no Book of Fair, furthermore "fairness" can't be codified without being unfair to someone, anyone, or most for that matter. So who decides what's fair?

For the most part we get out of life what we put in it - at least in America. In so many parts of the world the corruption is so massive the wealth can only go to an elite ruling class, all leftists.  is a perfect example of that, but take any communist or socialist nation and you will find the same pattern.

But this is America, and anyone who wants to have a good life can have that life, and this irrational demand for fairness is nothing more than a false leftist quilt trip on those they wish to rob. If those who go to school, have a job, start a business, work long hard hours, don't do drugs, deprive themselves of a great many things in the beginning to make it big later in life in order to have luxuries, then we should ask:  Why isn't that outcome "fair"?  Shouldn't we in fact expect that outcome?

If someone takes a diametrically opposing view of life,  refusing to get educated, refusing to get and hold a job, live on welfare, become drunkards or are drug addicted, live irresponsible lives and end up in poverty and misery, then we should also ask:  Why isn't that "fair". Isn't that the outcome we should expect from such behavior?

So then, why is it fair the rest of us have to support lazy or irresponsible people with food stamps, welfare and other social programs that's created a permanent underclass who now refuse to work and live responsible lives? Why is that "fair"?   This unending march by the left to redefine words to attain their goals requires unending vigilance.  Instead of "fair" they now tout their Holy Trinity.  Diversity, equity and inclusion. 

On September 10, 2021 Sheldon Bart published this article, The Case for Merit, Character, and Capacity saying:

The politically correct write the three-word mantra “diversity, equity and inclusion” with capital letters and refer to it in acronym form as DEI. This is a distinction never accorded to such familiar triads as “duty, honor, country,” “faith, hope and charity,” or “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” You’ve never seen any of the latter set forth as DHC, FHC, etc. Despite having elevated its linguistic status, the acolytes of this political religion haven’t been thinking deeply about their Holy Trinity’s components.

He goes on to explain that "inclusion" and "exclusion" are parts and parcels of the same package.  In our lives we will include and exclude things daily, and that simply can't be avoided.  Would you include a poor athlete on a sports team?  Would you include vinegar in a sweet desert?  We include and exclude things as they fit the circumstances, so demanding "inclusion" based on race, gender or anything else is irrational, and impossible, and as he notes:

And contrary to the howls of the hypersensitive, no one need apologize for that.

We have to recognize equity and equality are two different things.  Equality means being treated the same under the law, and allowed to compete with anyone, win or lose.  Equity means everyone has nothing more than anyone else, irrespective of their abilities or character.  He goes on to define equity saying:

Equity goes a step beyond inclusion.........it really means allocating rewards to favored groups while withholding considerations from other people who earned them on the merits........ equity, which sounds fair and square, actually displaces fairness, it can also get in the way of achieving one of the social justice advocates’ legitimate goals, which is helping truly needy people...............

As for this claim that "diversity is our strength", Thomas Sowell has called this a "fact free dogma".  He cites the Balkans, and being Serbian I completely understand and agree with his assessment when he asks:

Have the Balkans been blessed by their heterogeneity — or does the very word "Balkanization" remind us of centuries of strife, bloodshed and unspeakable atrocities, extending into our own times?

He goes on to ask:

Has Europe become a safer place after importing vast numbers of people from the Middle East, with cultures hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization?

The author goes on to note:

Diversity has not historically been associated with peace and stability. Rather, increasing diversity is tearing our country apart. Diversity can be handled safely, but only by practicing inclusion and exclusion based on merit, character, and capacity, and emphasizing equality of opportunity rather than equity.

This is just common sense. What should also be clear is that those extolling the creed of diversity, equity, and inclusion have, in this regard, set common sense aside along with the history books. Instead, they exercise emotionalism and airy intellectuality. Unless common sense eventually prevails, we can look back to Colonel Greene for a projection of our future.

Understand one thing above all else. Everywhere and through all time the left has demanded perfection and promised utopia.  History has shown the left only delivers dystopia: Tyranny, misery, suffering, starvation, disease and early death.  That's history, and that history is incontestable.   

What are the alleged “compelling” benefits of “diversity“? They are as invisible as the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. Yet everyone has to pretend to believe in those benefits, as they pretended to admire the naked emperor’s wardrobe. - Thomas Sowell

A Nation of Free Men or Free Things

Thursday, July 04, 2019 Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

The 2020 Democrat primaries are underway with candidate after candidate promising a nation, not of free people, but of free things.

Free college, free health care and free everything else. Even for illegal aliens.

Of course there's a price to pay.

You get free health care by giving up the freedom to pick your own health care. You get free education, but the indoctrination is the price.

The Fourth to many is Fireworks Day. Every country has its fireworks days and this is the day that this one chooses to light up the night sky. The day means nothing to them because though they are surrounded by free things, they aren’t free.

The difference between freedom and free things has been progressively erased so that many think that the American Revolution was fought because the British weren’t providing affordable health coverage to the colonies. If only they knew about the NHS, they would vote to go back.

All that the Crown really wanted was for the colonists to pay their “fair share”, a share that was determined thousands of miles away. All that the colonists wanted was the rights of Englishmen that they believed they were entitled to. After a great deal of bloodshed, the colonists won the right to be Americans instead—an odd series of consonants and vowels having to do with an Italian explorer but meaning free and limited government.

There is a big difference between a free country and a country of free things. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both. A free country isn’t obsessed with free riders, only a country of free things obsesses with making everyone pay their fair share for the benefit of the people who want the free things. The rugged individualism of Colonial America has given way to stifling crowds, co-dependent on each other, lined shoulder to shoulder, clutching at each other’s wallets, crying, “Take from him and give to me.”

We are a nation overflowing with the right to things paid for with other people’s money. A nation where the government gives you food, housing and education; while Walmart gives you cheap products made in China, that used to be made in America, back when people were able to afford health care, housing and food without having to pick each other’s pockets.

The fireworks that shoot up in a wonderland of blue and red, silver and gold, are a faint echo of the real thing, the gunpowder that blasted back and forth between the lines of government troops, their Hessian mercenaries and the rebel colonists who chose to ride free, rather than bend their necks to the plans of an expanding empire. The faint smell of gunpowder and the dark shapes of the barges only mime the war that was fought here.

Did so many men risk their lives just to end up with a system that made the one they escaped seem positively libertarian by comparison? If they had known that they were going to end up with the NHS, death panels that will eventually adopt some version of the Liverpool Care Pathway’s euthanasia protocol, and a co-dependent system where everyone is looted for the greater good of the looters—they might have stayed home on their farms, sadly watching the fighting from a distance.

JFK’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” was always a hollow lie. Half the country is expected to ask what their country can do for them, while the other half is expected to ask what they can do for their country. This simmering civil war is often pegged as a class war, but it isn’t about class. There are billionaires and paupers on both sides, and the divide cuts across the Middle Class, dividing those who derive their income from private business from those who receive it from government and government-subsidized employment.

The Fourth of July is Independence Day, but every other day is Co-Dependence Day, the days we celebrate our integration, our volunteerism and our compliance with a vast system which makes everyone dependent on the government and which makes the government dependent on everyone who still works for someone other than the government—including the freest of free riders, who work for themselves. Empires function by draining every drop from their possessions to cover their costs. The British Crown tried to drain America to pay down its debt, resulting in growing protests from the population and eventually a revolution. Now the Empire of Co-Dependency is draining its independent subjects for the benefit of its dependent subjects and the dependency infrastructure that employs its numberless bureaucrats who govern it all.

The American Revolution was not a struggle for another nation, one of many, but for a free nation. It was not split off to accommodate the national strivings of an ethnic group or their historical destiny. Its guiding idea, like its national holiday, was independence, but independence means very little unless it reaches the individual.

A nation where everyone is part of one great co-dependent community, a centrally planned marketplace that can only be balanced if everyone is forced to buy what they are told to buy, is not a free nation. It will not even be independent for long. The logic of co-dependence is to expand that dependency beyond the borders and make the region and then every part the world dependent on one another to balance out the numbers.

The new Crown is not a person, it is an idea. The throne at whose foot a formerly free people kneel is the golden seat of the welfare state. While the fireworks light up the sky, a counterrevolution undid the revolution. There is a new king and his face is on every magazine cover in the land. His bounty is a jagged bear trap that turns everyone into a ward of the state at their own expense.

As the last wave of fireworks die out, the shooting stars sinking to earth and vanishing into the darkness, the light of Independence Day fades and the crowds slowly trudge away from the brief spectacle, past the lines of police barricades, through narrow streets, past government buildings, back to their co-dependent lives in a co-dependent nation where the will of the people and the rights of the individual matter less than the latest proposal to solve the problems of their independence by making the country a more dependent place.

A few hundred years ago in these streets, men and women celebrated the end of tyranny, and in its darkest hour, lines of grim men marched along the waterfront up to the highest point on the island to mount a final defense. Sometimes the older buildings still wear their shadows on their brick walls and by the golden light of the fireworks you can almost see them, shadows moving in the darkness, their footsteps taking them north, a faint song on their lips, muskets in their hands, their lives lost and gained in defense of their freedom.

Campaign workers demand minimum wage, progressive culture from 2020 Dems

By Katie Glueck and Alex Roarty January 22, 2019

Unionizing. Paying interns $15 an hour. Ensuring time off. Institutionalizing salary transparency.

To staffers on presidential campaigns past, who were long accustomed to brutal hours and low pay, that was the stuff of liberal fantasies.

 

But this cycle, there is an intensifying conviction among progressive operatives that internal campaign culture should reflect the very values that 2020 Democratic hopefuls passionately tout on the trail.
“Every candidate should practice what they preach,” said Rebecca Katz, a veteran progressive strategist. “If they’re talking about the American Dream, they should provide it for their own staffers as well.”..........To Read More....

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/campaigns/article224923110.html#storylink=cpy

Who Wrote the Book of Fair?

By Rich Kozlovich December 12, 2017

Craig Bannister wrote an article that appeared on the CNS.com News site, entitled, Poll: Fewer Americans Say Life Is – or Even Should Be –‘Fair’ saying:

"Fewer Democrats and Republicans say life "should" be fair. A new survey of American adults finds that the percent who believe “Life is fair” has fallen over the past year – and the share of those who think life even “should” be fair has declined, as well. The nationwide survey by YouGov shows that only 29% of Americans now say life is fair, down from 38% in December of 2016. And, while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to view life as fair, both saw a drop in optimism since last year."

The article then goes on to break it down in the following categories. First, "Life is Fair". The number of those who thought life was fair emerged in the following manner. Republicans: 39%, Down from 47%, Democrats: 26%, Down 34%. Total: 29%, Down from 38%.

Then under the category, "Life SHOULD Be Fair", the numbers were: Republicans: 45%, Down from 58%, Democrats: 63%, Down from 70%. Total: 55%, Down from 63%, with 20% sayi9ng “Life shouldn’t be fair” – and "25% weren’t sure." Naturally income played an important role in all of these views, however - it's clear the one thing this poll didn't do is ask everyone to define the word "fair".

It's been my experience what's fair is based on who's ox is being gored. Who exactly wrote the Book of Fair? There is no Book of Fair and it can't be codified without being unfair to someone, anyone or most for that matter. Who decides what's fair? I certainly don't want some government bureaucrat in Washington DC who went to college and then to work in the government, who never had a real job, never started a business, never put his home on the line with the bank to keep that business running, never had to skip a paycheck in order to meet payroll for his employees, never had to work 14 hour days for weeks on end telling me what's fair.

Is it fair some live in poverty and others live in luxury? Maybe! Fairness isn't about equal outcomes. It's about equal opportunities. If any individual or group of individuals fail to take advantage of that - it's their problem.

For the most part we get out of life what we put in it - at least in America. In so many parts of the world the corruption is so massive the wealth can only go to an elite ruling class. Take Venezuela as a perfect example of that. But this is America, and anyone who wants to have a good life can have that life, and this irrational demand for fairness is nothing more than a false leftist quilt trip on those they wish to rob.

If those who go to school, have a job, start a business, work long hard hours, don't do drugs, deprive themselves of a great many things in the beginning to make it big later in life in order to have luxuries - why isn't that outcome "fair"? Isn't that what's expected?

If someone takes a diametrically opposing view of life refusing to get educated, refuse to get and hold a job, live on welfare, are drunkards or are drug addicted, live irresponsible lives and end up in poverty and misery - why isn't that "fair". Isn't that what we should expect for such behavior?

So then, why is it fair the rest of us have to support lazy or irresponsible people with food stamps, welfare and other social programs that's created a permanent underclass who now refuse to work and live responsible lives?

Now if you want a definition of what's not fair - that's it!

Did You Know that Nearly 50 Percent of Americans Support Slavery?

“I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you’ve earned, but not greed to want to want to take somebody else’s money.” — Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

Gary DeMar

An article I read carried this headline: “Big NY voter majority favors ‘millionaire tax.’” More recently, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio “proposed a tax on the wealthy to pay for repairs to the city’s deteriorating subway system.” It seems to me that the people who use the subway should pay more.........In the Federalist Papers (No. 10), Madison writes that democracies are “spectacles of turbulence and contention.” Pure democracies are “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property…...... or the voting public who benefit from the labor of other people in the name of “fairness.”........To Read More.....

There is No "Book of Fair"!

By Rich Kozlovich

I came across a great article today by John Elder entitled, New protein could rival antibiotics. He writes:

“AUSTRALIAN scientists have made a breakthrough in finding a powerful alternative to antibiotics - at a time when the World Health Organisation is predicting a bleak future in which bug-killing drugs are so ineffective that ''a child's scratched knee or a strep throat could kill again''.  The threat of the world returning to a pre-antibiotic era has been fretted about for at least a decade because of microbes becoming increasingly resistant to drugs.  But Monash University researchers, in collaboration with Rockefeller University and the University of Maryland, have published a paper revealing the structure and workings of PlyC - a flying saucer-shaped protein that kills bacteria that cause infections from sore throats to pneumonia and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.   PlyC is a viral protein, known as a bacteriophage lysin, that specifically infects and kills bacteria. James Whisstock, Ashley Buckle and Sheena McGowan from the School of Biomedical Sciences have spent the past six years deciphering PlyC's atomic structure - a crucial step in developing the protein into a drug therapy.”

I predict that if this actually becomes a workable solution that is marketable; the “Anti’s” will start wailing that “you can’t patent proteins!” This is the same claim that they make about genes; ‘you can’t patent genes’’!  Products that have been patented to increase food production and to save lives in medicine costing billions to produce. Do they really expect people to spend that kind of money and not have an assured return?

Let’s take a look at their actions on genetically modified foods.  Alan Caruba wrote an article entitled, Genetically Modified Foods: Ending Famine Forever , 

“Throughout Europe, the effort is on to ban the import of GM foods. Here in the United States, legislation requiring that GM products be labeled has been introduced in Congress. Some major corporations have already caved into the Greenpeace demands that they not purchase GM crops in the manufacture of their food products. In Lansing, Michigan, a visiting associate professor had her office set on fire by radical environmentalists on New Year's Eve because she is engaged in research to increase food production and making food more nutritious.

Do you see a pattern here? The only people that want to insure that Famine remains one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are the Greens.”

I have thought a great deal about this over the years and I have concluded that the reason they do this isn’t because of unfairness issues. That is an intellectual and emotional distraction from the real issue.  I believe they present these arguments to confuse the minds of the uninformed to create an issue between ‘big business’ and their unfair treatment of the ‘little guy’ in order to prevent good things for humanity.  I know on the surface this seems strange, but look back as see their views on many advances that have made mankind safer from diseases.  They believe that the only way to save the Earth is for humanity to cease to exist.  Here are some quotes from another article by Alan entitled, Genocidal Green Quotes.

“We have wished, we eco-freaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion—guilt-free at last!” – Steward Brand, writing in the Earth Catalog.

“Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.” - Dave Forman, founder of Earth First

“I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.” - John Davis, editor of the Earth First Journal

“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing….This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run.” - An editorial in The Economist.

Although I will agree that it seems right that no company can patent anything they didn’t invent, especially since genes and proteins are naturally occurring.  The reality is that if there is no patent protection there will be no product.  If there is no product there will no solution to the problems they are spending billion to solve, albeit for profit.  But that isn’t a bad thing, and it isn’t necessarily greed, it is ‘enlightened self interest’, the greatest force for advancement and innovation in the world.   And I don’t particularly care how much money the people who work on these thing make. 

A couple of years ago I attended a world premiere of a film dealing with DDT and had the opportunity to talk to a number of people involved in the prevention of malaria from other areas of the world.  The conversation turned to antibiotics and medical drugs in general and their costs.  I said that I understood their concerns, but if there is no profit there would be no drugs.  I also said I understood that the poorer nations would have trouble providing their citizens these drugs because of the cost.  However, I pointed out that eventually these products would go out of patent and become part of the public domain and they would then be available much more cheaply. 

Is it "fair" that some would continue to suffer because of costs? No! 

But would it be fair if all humanity suffered unendingly because the products were never produced? 

Let’s get this.  Fair cannot be defined and there is no divinely inspired “Book of Fair” to define it for us.  The end result is that as fallible human beings we are often left with picking the answer that is seemingly the most fair to the most people....and it will be done for profit or it won't happen.  

So often people demand perfection, but perfection is a beautiful fantasy!  In the real world the best we can hope for is the most acceptable imperfection.  And this is it!

Please view this page on Bacteriophage therapy.   

###

Observations From the Back Row

De Omnibus Dubitandum!

Don't do business with progressive appeasers
By Michelle Malkin

Let's stipulate: Activists on the left are free to exercise their rights of speech and assembly to boycott businesses whose politics they oppose. Conversely, activists on the right are free to exercise the power of their pocketbooks and refrain from supporting businesses that shun their values.

So, what are you waiting for, conservatives? There are coordinated shakedowns taking place right now that involve some of America's most prominent companies who've chosen to surrender to progressive bullying and race-card opportunism. Silence is complicity.

On Tuesday, McDonald's told liberal magazine Mother Jones that the company had "decided to cut ties with ALEC, the corporate-backed group that drafts pro-free-market legislation for state lawmakers around the country." The fast-food conglomerate follows in the feckless footsteps of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit (maker of Quick and Quicken Books software) and Kraft Foods -- which have all withdrawn support for ALEC after drum-banging from Color of Change…..Among the group's greatest heresies in the eyes of the left: support for voter ID laws to protect election integrity, immigration enforcement measures and self-defense legislation to strengthen Second Amendment rights…..McDonald's, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit, Kraft, Arby's and Walgreens have shown their true colors: appeasement yellow. It's time for conservatives to stand their ground and stop showing these corporate cowards their money.

Uncommon Knowledge interview with Charles Murray
This week on Uncommon Knowledge, longtime American Enterprise Institute fellow Charles Murray discusses his controversial new book, Coming Apart, about what American was, is, and will become. He also reveals his personal score on his now famous "bubble

Health Scare! - According to statistics, we're a Third World country.
by David Harsanyi

A new study by the Institute of Medicine, which is getting plenty of media attention, claims the United States public health care system is critically underfunded and thus -- surprise -- in need of new "investments." Serious new investments. Recommendations include taxing medical care and doubling public health spending -- and, no doubt, more top-down government intervention.

The United States spent $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009 according to the report, but scored lower on life expectancy, infant survival and "other indicators of population health than other wealthy nations report." The groups also says that the "U.S. health system has a 'fixation' on clinical care, or treating people when they get sick, rather than preventing them from getting ill in the first place."  Right now the U.S. spends far more per capita than any other country. We're about to spend a lot more. Maybe we do need to raise taxes to create a more effective health care system. I have no way of knowing for sure. What I do know, though, is that statistics are often used to scaremonger and politicize this issue.

The Myth of Americans' Poor Life Expectancy
By Avik Roy
It’s one of the most oft-repeated justifications for socialized medicine: Americans spend more money than other developed countries on health care, but don’t live as long. If we would just hop on the European health-care bandwagon, we’d live longer and healthier lives. The only problem is it’s not true. Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister under Queen Victoria, once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Nowhere is this more true than in the debates about health-care policy.

Obama's 'Fairness' Fiction
by David Harsanyi
President Barack Obama kicked off his re-election campaign in earnest this week with a stirring message of hope and unity for the American people: Eat the rich!..... "fairness" will be one of the central messages of the entire Obama campaign. …..Sure, the United States may own $15 trillion of debt and a stagnant, underemployed economy, but nothing says leadership like coordinating your populist message with a sham congressional vote to propel fundraising in Florida….. If implemented, anyone earning $1 million a year or more would be required to pay at least 30 percent of his income in taxes. That would help reduce the deficit by raising $31 billion over 11 years, according to congressional tax analysts -- 2.8 billion a year, or less than a day's worth of new debt incurred by Washington… Most economists agree that the most effective tax system avoids taxing income, dividends and capital gains and focuses instead on promoting savings and investment. Not sure whether it's fair, but it would probably be smarter to reward, rather than punish … wealthy already pay more than a fair share (the top 1 percent of income earners make 16 percent of income but pay nearly 40 percent of federal income taxes)…. every category of the wealthy pays higher tax rates than the non-rich.…the wealthy did not create our debt; government did.


Karl Marx Preached "Fairness" Too
By Alan Caruba

My father was a Certified Public Accountant and dinner time throughout my youth was filled with horror stories about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as he struggled to keep up with a tax code that just kept growing.   According to Nina Olsen, the National Taxpayer Advocate for the IRS who heads a staff of 2,000, the American tax system is “a huge convoluted mess.” Despite efforts to determine its length, it is variously estimated to be between 65,000 and 70,000 pages. “We looked at how many changes in the tax law (that) had occurred in the last year alone,” said Olsen, “it was something like 579 changes.” No one can keep up with that volume of changes, not even Ms. Olsen’s office......By framing the tax debate in terms of fairness and attacking Mitt Romney’s wealth, President Obama is pandering to his greatest constituency—the stupid among us.....The federal government is broke. The states are broke. And with the advent of $4 and $5 gas pump prices—thanks to Obama’s anti-energy policies—the rest of us are getting more broke. President Obama’s blather about “fairness” is straight out of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” and the Communist Manifesto with their emphasis the redistribution of wealth and the end of private property.

How To Rank Risks
By Bernard L. Cohen
February 27, 2002

My favorite way of putting risks into perspective is to consider the average loss of life expectancy they cause, LLE (indicated in parentheses throughout this article). I present here a brief catalog of these, taken from my paper published in the September 1991 issue of Health Physics Journal.

Patrick Moore takes on another Greenpeace Guru
Patrick Moore was a co-founder of Greenpeace way back in 1971. He abandoned them in 1986 so he could pursue his environmental passions. As you would. Last November he published a tempting book: Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist. And not surprisingly stretched a few of his old friendships. The Vancouver Sun has a rare debate between Moore and Rex Weyler, another co-Founder (see below for a snippet). Predictably, Greenpeace is firing their best ad hom, and referring to him as a “paid spokesman for the Nuclear Industry” and are busy rewriting history. They used to list Moore as a co-Founder on their website in the past (copy here), but now they say that they were formed in 1970, and he joined it in 1971, “see the letter”. I did see the letter, and it seems “Greenpeace” didn’t quite mean the same thing in 1970. What Moore joined in 1971 was a committee called, engagingly, “Don’t Make A Wave Committee” (I can see why that didn’t catch on) and it seems they had a boat called Greenpeace. He was also president of Greenpeace from 1977, and was even on the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed in 1985. You’d think that would count for something. Patrick Moore is very much a skeptic.




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