Muda69

http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/01/amelie-wen-zhao-young-adult-blood-heir

Quote

A first-time author of young adult fiction, Amelie Wen Zhao, has decided not to publish her book Blood Heir after progressive critics in the YA community decided that she was guilty of a litany of crimes: racial insensitivity, plagiarism, and more.

According to two accounts of the kerfuffle—one by Jesse Singal in Tablet and another by Kat Rosenfield in Vulture—these were largely unfair smears, levelled in bad faith by social justice zealots. Rosenfield has written previously that the YA community is sometimes subsumed by "toxic drama," and Zhao's fate appears to be a prime example.

The trouble began last week, when a YA influencer claimed that Zhao was "gathering screenshots of people who don't/didn't like her book." Such behavior is far from improper, but some on the progressive left consider any attempt to engage with their tweets to be a form of harassment. (See: Jacobinghazi.)

 

Others accused Zhao of plagiarism because one of her characters implores another not to "go where I can't follow," which is a line from The Lord of the Rings. To my mind, this single line does not constitute plagiarism, and could even be considered an homage.

Some objected to the themes of the book, which is a sort of revisionist fantasy treatment of the legend surrounding Princess Anastasia of Russia. Some thought the book was ham-handedly referencing American chattel slavery, though as Singal writes,

based on the published tweets, no one could explain exactly what it was about Zhao's treatment of the subject that was offensive. "t is also HIGHLY troubling that no one in the process of publishing or editing Blood Heir saw a story about slavery, trafficking, and race relations and thought to bring in a sensitivity reader, or even several," noted one member of the community who didn't level any specific critiques about the book's handling of these subjects. "[T]o put something that resembles chattel slavery SO CLOSELY is distasteful," opined another, the implication being this simply isn't a subject to be written about. Among other critics, there seemed to be a lack of understanding that "slavery" doesn't mean "American slavery" and that the concept has a broader context and history than that. "[R]acist ass writers, like Amélie Wen Zhao, who literally take Black narratives and force it into Russia when that shit NEVER happened in history—you're going to be held accountable," said one contributor to the pile-on. "Period." (Parenthetical after the period: Russia has its own recent history of what is certainly one strain of slavery)....

I didn't have access to an advanced copy of the book and wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything so I emailed Oh, the YA writer whose tweets to Zhao as a fellow author of Asian descent had castigated her for her lack of awareness and cultural context. Oh has read the book, and to her credit, given that we had been arguing about this on Twitter, she sent me a thoughtful and civil response, but one that didn't really contain any new or compelling evidence Blood Heir can be fairly called a racist book.

Of course, some on the progressive left balk at any attempt to blend different cultural settings and traditions, or tell new stories that are inspired by rituals or clothing belonging to an ethnic group of which the author is not a member. Some even complain if any of a book's characters are repugnant—even if the point is to shed light on those characters' odiousness. (Singal and Rosenfield both point to a previous social media outrage concerning the YA book The Black Witch, derided as racist because some of the evil characters did in fact do racist things.)

It's Zhao's book, and she can decide not to publish it if she no longer wants to. This was to be the first volume in a trilogy for which the author received a $500,000 advance, so opting not to publish is going to cost her quite a lot of money. But given how off-base these criticisms were, it seems like a terrible shame to capitulate to them.

Last year my colleague Eric Boehm argued that our society resembles Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Boehm pointed out that the famous science fiction novel is misremembered as a mere warning against government censorship. In fact, it's a treatise against the sort of society where everything that provokes anyone is deemed problematic. Bradbury wasn't worried that the government would start burning books out of nowhere; he worried that people would demand the bonfires. Censorship grow out of political correctness, weaponized by each aggrieved person against everyone else.

"There is more than one way to burn a book, and the world is full of people running about with lit matches," Bradbury wrote. In our age of daily, context-free viral outrages, it's a prescient warning.

Agreed.  It's a shame that Ms. Zhao was browbeat/shamed into not publishing her creation.  'Tis the way the of the SJW's.

Yes, I can pay via a money order or cash.

15 hours ago, DK_Barons said:

I have always looked at OOB as just what it says... 😉

I have a whole collection of stuff I would not post here. Nudity that would get you in trouble in a public place should be avoided. I don't curse much at all myself, so little, in fact, my close friends look at me oddly when I do, but I have no issue with most language. ...there is a time and a place I guess.

 

Separating the OOB area into a club gives it more separation from the main site to allow little bit looser reigns to be applied too. 

Congrats on the promotion (in here). 🙂

Thank you for the explanation.

15 hours ago, Wabash82 said:

Thank you. I needed the material to recreate my signature on GID 2.0. 

I knew you were, hence the unadulterated praise for your vast intellect.

9 minutes ago, swordfish said:

https://wsbt.com/news/local/south-bend-mayor-talks-possible-2020-presidential-bid-on-cbs-this-morning?fbclid=IwAR0bvoNbZcdX7V3gWBVlr1nG9xj9W38TUN2XrJlGUDXn-xp6YQURLq8a7UY

Here is a transcript of the interview:

NORAH O’DONNELL: The Iowa caucuses are 368 days away, and the potential field of democratic candidates is quickly growing. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, launched a presidential exploratory committee last week. The 37-year-old has spent seven years in charge of the city he grew up in. He's a Harvard graduate, he’s a Rhodes Scholar. He’s known as Mayor Pete. He was also deployed to Afghanistan for seven months with the U.S. Navy Reserve. And he’s got a new book out called "Shortest Way Home: one mayor's challenge, and a model for America’s future." we have the interview you'll see first on "CBS This Morning." Mayor Buttigieg, welcome.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Good morning thanks for having me.

NORAH O’DONNELL: How's—how’s the great state of Indiana?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: A bit chilly, but other than that we are good.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Very cold indeed. I also wanted to start by giving our condolences. I know your father passed away on Sunday.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Thank you. Appreciate that. I know he would have been watching if he could.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Thank you for being here, so you're 37. Uh your town-- you represent a town of 102,000 people. Did I get that right?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: That’s about right. Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What qualifies you to be President of the United States?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well for starters, the experience. I know that I’m the youngest person in this conversation, but I think the experience of leading a city through a transformation is really relevant right now. Look, I’ve got more experience in government than the president of the United States. I’ve got more years of executive experience than the Vice President. I have more military experience than anybody who's arrived behind that desk since George H.W. Bush. I get that it's not a conventional background, but I don't think this is a time for conventional backgrounds in Washington right now.

JOHN DICKERSON: Can you explain to people what that experience means when the rubber meets the road. What -- how's that going to help people in this country?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: See the instinct to do the job. So whether we're talking about the presidency or a job like governor or mayor, you know, there are three parts to it. It’s bringing people together, it's implementing good policies, and it's capably running an administration. All of those have been missing right now in Washington. And I think, you know, American mayors in cities of any size, I think represent one of the levels, maybe the only level of American government left that's generally working well.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Well we all like to say that all politics are local. But the last time that a sitting mayor was nominated for President to a major party was 1812.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Yeah.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Why should you be different? Why should you be the outlier?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: I mean that’s doing better than the last time a reality TV star was elected president, right? Things are changing tectonically in our country. And we can't just keep doing what we've been doing. We can't nibble around the edges of the system that no longer works. The experience of the industrial Midwest is exactly the kind of experience that uh politics, forgive me, but here on the coast uh has been ignoring. And especially in my party, that's come at a terrible cost.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Let's talk about something that you're familiar with and obviously that's time serving overseas in Afghanistan. You spent seven months there. What do you think of the president's potential plan now of moving troops back home?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, we've got to get out of Afghanistan. I mean, there are people we are now old enough almost to be deployed who weren't even born when 9/11 took place. We’ve also got to make sure that the way we do it doesn't leave us vulnerable as some Intel assessments have said we would be, to being attacked again within two years if we allow terrorist networks to develop in a failed state. It’s a good sign that the Taliban is willing to talk, and if they're serious about putting their weapons aside, that could be a pathway to peace. But, I’m a little puzzled that we haven’t had the Afghan government itself that we recognize as a legitimate government at the table. We’ve got to make sure that they're involved because any peace we come up with could very quickly collapse if we don't have them as a party.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Those peace talks have not included that?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: It's shuttle diplomacy, right? They go – they sit down with the Taliban in Doha, then you know, we’re told that Khalilzad was conferring with the Afghan government, giving them, I guess a heads-up. But, we’ve got to find a way to get them to the table.

JOHN DICKERSON: When you talk about nibbling around the edges, if you look at the other Democrats who are running, they're not nibbling around the edges. They’re talking about Medicare for all. Some are talking about getting rid of private insurance. So, that’s the competition you have. So what is your idea that it is so big that it -- nobody would mistake it for nibbling around the edges?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, first of all, we've got to repair our democracy. The Electoral College needs to go because it's made our society less and less democratic. Now we can talk about a lot of different policy ideas, and will on everything from security to health care. But you know, our party has this tendency to lead with the policies, go to the 14-point plan and give you the binders and the power points. First we've got to explain our values and explain why democrats are, are committed to freedom, to democracy, to security. That democracy piece has to be fixed before anything else will go well in this country.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Just to, just to clarify what John was asking about -- do you support Medicare for all?

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: I do. I also think that on the road to get there, there are a lot of things not being talked about enough.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Mayor Bloomberg, who likely joined the race, says it would bankrupt the country.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, it would bankrupt this country if we didn't pay for it. And right now in Washington, a lot of things are being done that aren't paid for. By the way, my generation's the one that's going to face the bill for that. So as somebody who's, god willing, planning to be here in 2054 when I reach the current age of the current president, I care a lot about making sure that anything we do is sustainable. But this is the norm in most developed countries. So the idea that it is radical or impossible to do something that the citizens of most western countries already enjoy, that just doesn't add up to me. If other people can have that, why can't Americans have that, too?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: That’s conversation that many in this country are currently having right now, including potential president hopefuls. Thank you so much. Again, our condolences on the loss of your father.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: Appreciate it, thank you.

He doesn't mention Round-a-bouts and Limebikes for the entire country......But he does mention "the Electoral College" needs to go.......

Uggh.  He wouldn't get my vote.  The only sensible thing he put forth was getting the U.S. military out of Afghanistan.

You know, a GID admin like SR1 would have deleted some of these recent pictures and issued a warning to the one who posted it.    I am not seeing that happening.  Have the rules for content posted to the GID changed?

18 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

And out of the cinematic masterpiece that is The Big Lebowski, that's the scene they came up with?

Which scene would you have chosen, if you could only one choose one?

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/01/25-best-movie-scenes?verso=true

I've seen about 20 of the 25 movies on this list, and can't really argue against any of them.  Great cinema.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/jackboots_in_the_morning_no_one_is_spared_from_this_american_nightmare

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“This is jackboots in the morning. This is an American nightmare that they would arrest somebody like this.”—Judge Andrew Napolitano

The American Police State does not discriminate.

Whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now—whether it’s in the name of national security or protecting America’s borders or making America great again—rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.

We’ve been having this same debate about the perils of government overreach for the past 50-plus years, and still we don’t seem to learn, or if we learn, we learn too late.

For too long now, the American people have allowed their personal prejudices and politics to cloud their judgment and render them incapable of seeing that the treatment being doled out by the government’s lethal enforcers has remained consistent, no matter the threat.

All of the excessive, abusive tactics employed by the government today—warrantless surveillance, stop and frisk searches, SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, asset forfeiture schemes, private prisons, indefinite detention, militarized police, etc.—will eventually be meted out on the general populace.

At that point, when you find yourself in the government’s crosshairs, it will not matter whether your skin is black or yellow or brown or white; it will not matter whether you’re an immigrant or a citizen; it will not matter whether you’re rich or poor; it will not matter whether you’re Republican or Democrat; and it certainly won’t matter who you voted for in the last presidential election.

At that point—at the point you find yourself subjected to dehumanizing, demoralizing, thuggish behavior by government bureaucrats who are hyped up on the power of their badges and empowered to detain, search, interrogate, threaten and generally harass anyone they see fit—remember you were warned.

Take Roger Stone, one of President Trump’s longtime supporters, for example.

This is a guy accused of witness tampering, obstruction of justice and lying to Congress.

As far as we know, this guy is not the kingpin of a violent mob or drug-laundering scheme. He’s been charged with a political crime. So what does the FBI do? They send 29 heavily armed agents in 17 vehicles to carry out a SWAT-style raid on Stone’s Florida home just before dawn on Jan. 25, 2019.

As the Boston Herald reports:

“After his arraignment on witness tampering, obstruction and lying to Congress, a rattled Stone was quoted as saying 29 agents ‘pounded on the door,’ pointed automatic weapons at him and ‘terrorized’ his wife and dogs. Stone was taken away in handcuffs, the sixth associate of President Trump to be indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. All the charges have been related to either lying or tax evasion, with no evidence of so-called ‘collusion’ with Russia emerging to date.”

Overkill? Sure.

Yet another example of government overreach and brutality? Definitely.

But here’s the thing: while Tucker Carlson and Chris Christie and other Trump apologists appear shocked that law enforcement personnel would stage a military assault against “an unarmed 66-year-old man who has been charged with a nonviolent crime,” this is nothing new.

Indeed, this is blowback, one more vivid example of how the government’s short-sighted use of immoral, illegal and unconstitutional tactics become dangerous weapons turned against the American people.

To be clear, this Stone raid is far from the first time a SWAT team has been employed in non-violent scenarios.

Nationwide, SWAT teams routinely invade homes, break down doors, kill family pets (they always shoot the dogs first), damage furnishings, terrorize families, and wound or kill those unlucky enough to be present during a raid.

....

SWAT teams originated as specialized units dedicated to defusing extremely sensitive, dangerous situations. They were never meant to be used for routine police work such as serving a warrant.

Frequently justified as vital tools necessary to combat terrorism and deal with rare but extremely dangerous criminal situations, such as those involving hostages, SWAT teams—which first appeared on the scene in California in the 1960s—have now become intrinsic parts of federal and local law enforcement operations, thanks in large part to substantial federal assistance and the Pentagon’s 1033 military surplus recycling program, which allows the transfer of military equipment, weapons and training to local police for free or at sharp discounts.

...

There are few communities without a SWAT team today.

In 1980, there were roughly 3,000 SWAT team-style raids in the US.

Incredibly, that number has since grown to more than 80,000 SWAT team raids per year.

Where this becomes a problem of life and death for Americans is when these militarized SWAT teams are assigned to carry out routine law enforcement tasks.

No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters such as serving a search warrant, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day.

...

What we are witnessing is an inversion of the police-civilian relationship.

Rather than compelling police officers to remain within constitutional bounds as servants of the people, ordinary Americans are being placed at the mercy of militarized police units.

This is what happens when paramilitary forces are used to conduct ordinary policing operations, such as executing warrants on nonviolent defendants.

Unfortunately, general incompetence, collateral damage (fatalities, property damage, etc.) and botched raids tend to go hand in hand with an overuse of paramilitary forces.

In some cases, officers misread the address on the warrant.

In others, they simply barge into the wrong house or even the wrong building.

In another subset of cases (such as the Department of Education raid on Anthony Wright’s home), police conduct a search of a building where the suspect no longer resides.

If you’re wondering why the Education Department needs a SWAT team, you’re not alone.

Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the State Department, Department of Education, Department of Energy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, to name just a few. In fact, it says something about our reliance on the military that federal agencies having nothing whatsoever to do with national defense now see the need for their own paramilitary units.

SWAT teams have even on occasion conducted multiple, sequential raids on wrong addresses or executed search warrants despite the fact that the suspect is already in police custody. Police have also raided homes on the basis of mistaking the presence or scent of legal substances for drugs. Incredibly, these substances have included tomatoes, sunflowers, fish, elderberry bushes, kenaf plants, hibiscus, and ragweed.

As you can see, all too often, botched SWAT team raids have resulted in one tragedy after another for the residents with little consequences for law enforcement.

Unfortunately, judges tend to afford extreme levels of deference to police officers who have mistakenly killed innocent civilians but do not afford similar leniency to civilians who have injured police officers in acts of self-defense.

Even homeowners who mistake officers for robbers can be sentenced for assault or murder if they take defensive actions resulting in harm to police.

And as journalist Radley Balko shows in his in-depth study of police militarization, the shock-and-awe tactics utilized by many SWAT teams only increases the likelihood that someone will get hurt.

...

If ever there were a time to de-militarize and de-weaponize local police forces, it’s now.

While we are now grappling with a power-hungry police state at the federal level, the militarization of domestic American law enforcement is largely the result of the militarization of local police forces, which are increasingly militaristic in their uniforms, weaponry, language, training, and tactics and have come to rely on SWAT teams in matters that once could have been satisfactorily performed by traditional civilian officers.

Yet American police forces were never supposed to be a branch of the military, nor were they meant to be private security forces for the reigning political faction.

Instead, they were intended to be an aggregation of countless local police units, composed of citizens like you and me that exist for a sole purpose: to serve and protect the citizens of each and every American community.

As a result of the increasing militarization of the police in recent years, however, the police now not only look like the military—with their foreboding uniforms and phalanx of lethal weapons—but they function like them, as well.

Thus, no more do we have a civilian force of peace officers entrusted with serving and protecting the American people.  Instead, today’s militarized law enforcement officials have shifted their allegiance from the citizenry to the state, acting preemptively to ward off any possible challenges to the government’s power, unrestrained by the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment.

As journalist Herman Schwartz observed, “The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official.”

Heavily armed police officers, the end product of the government—federal, local and state—and law enforcement agencies having merged, have become a “standing” or permanent army, composed of full-time professional soldiers who do not disband.

Yet these permanent armies are exactly what those who drafted the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights feared as tools used by despotic governments to wage war against its citizens.

This phenomenon we are experiencing with the police is what philosopher Abraham Kaplan referred to as the law of the instrument, which essentially says that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

In the scenario that has been playing out in recent years, we the citizenry have become the nails to be hammered by the government’s henchmen, a.k.a. its guns for hire, a.k.a. its standing army, a.k.a. the nation’s law enforcement agencies.

The problem, as one reporter rightly concluded, is “not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone.”

A study by a political scientist at Princeton University concludes that militarizing police and SWAT teams “provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction.”

The study, the first systematic analysis on the use and consequences of militarized force, reveals that “police militarization neither reduces rates of violent crime nor changes the number of officers assaulted or killed.”

In other words, warrior cops aren’t making us or themselves any safer.

Indeed, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it is increasingly evident that militarized police armed with weapons of war who are empowered to carry out pre-dawn raids on our homes, shoot our pets, and terrorize our families have not made America any safer or freer.

The sticking point is not whether Americans must see eye-to-eye on the pressing issues of the day, but whether we can agree that no one should be treated in such a fashion by their own government.

The march of the police state moves on.  And this use of SWAT teams for mundane tasks like serving warrants for an alleged nonviolent crime is just a way for the state to justify their existence.

47 minutes ago, Irishman said:

Not much of a Vodka drinker, so I would likely fry the potato.

Ahh.  I understand.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/moral-case-for-capitalism-fight-progressive-premises/

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Progressives want to accelerate the country’s century-long shift toward socialism with a long list of policies: Medicare-for-all, “free” college, government-run energy production and prescription-drug manufacturing, federal job and housing guarantees, dramatically higher tax rates and new wealth taxes, and a $15 minimum wage.

Conservatives have opposed these socialist proposals by pointing out how much they will cost. For instance, they’ve trumpeted a Mercatus Center study estimating that Medicare-for-all would roughly double the federal budget. They have explained how high tax rates would hurt economic growth. And they’ve demonstrated how a $15 wage floor would hurt small businesses and reduce job opportunities.

These arguments are all correct. But they do not address the root of why these policy proposals are wrong. By merely citing the financial or economic challenges of implementing them, conservatives cede the moral high ground and tacitly accept the Left’s premises.

To win the battle of ideas, conservatives must fight on philosophical grounds, explaining why these policies are immoral. They must make the case based on ethics rather than economics because the latter is downstream from the former. It is only a matter of time before a purely economic or logical argument loses to a moral or emotional one.

In practice this means explaining why the fundamental principle of collectivism underlying these socialist proposals is immoral: It violates the individual rights upon which societal progress and happiness are based. Collectivism is backed by compulsion, where one side wins and the other loses, rather than voluntary trade for mutual benefit.

One of the most compelling moral arguments in favor of the free market is that it is the system most conducive to allowing people to pursue their dreams and creativity, which — for the overwhelming majority of people — manifest themselves through professional work.

In work, this creative pursuit is known as entrepreneurship. It is responsible for raising human society and living standards. Yet it is possible only to the degree that markets are free. Why? Because in order to innovate — by definition — you must be free to disagree.

Consider Medicare-for-all. The Medicare for All Act, which was supported by two-thirds of Democrats in the House of Representatives last Congress, states, “No institution may be a participating provider unless it is a public or not-for-profit institution.” This would mean that doctors and medical entrepreneurs would be required to follow the government’s medical policies and procedures. There would be no room in such a system for entrepreneurs who disagree with the status quo, meaning an end to the medical advancement that is desperately needed to lower costs and lengthen lifespans.

What about less fully socialist policies, such as a $15 minimum wage? Surely these still allow entrepreneurs to innovate? They do. But with one hand tied behind their back. Such regulations and taxes leave entrepreneurs with fewer resources, less time, and less flexibility to innovate and advance society. Think about how much Uber’s self-driving-car program has been set back by the endless taxes, regulations, and bans on its car-sharing service.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are overwhelmingly American phenomena. The rest of the world steals and copies our ideas because their people are either forbidden from or not rewarded for innovating. What’s the point of going to the Herculean effort of devising a better mousetrap if the government will forbid it or strangle it with taxes, regulations, and licenses?

Free markets that foster entrepreneurship also create a population that can earn real self-esteem (defined as confidence that you can succeed living a life of integrity), pride in trading value for value, and happiness in the Aristotelean sense of the word. Ever wonder why government bureaucrats and citizens from socialist countries seem so unhappy? It’s because the socialist economic systems in which they operate make it impossible to pursue their economic ideas, passions, and creativity.

Progressives counter by pointing to studies showing that Scandinavian countries rank as the happiest. Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, pointed to Denmark’s top happiness scores to argue that its socialist policies should be a model for the U.S. Yet these studies conflate happiness with contentment. For instance, the World Happiness Report asks questions such as “Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?” and “Did you experience . . . worry,” “sadness,” or “anger?” The OECD Better Life Index that Sanders cites measures “work–life balance.”

Scandinavians may feel more content than Americans, just as marijuana users, hedonists, or inheritors of a large estate may feel more content than a 22-year-old working nights to get her business off the ground. But this contentment is different from true eudaimonic happiness, which can never be given but must be achieved through self-examination, sleep deprivation, and eyestrain. Though the entrepreneurial struggle is an unhappy period at the time, it is the source of immense pride and pleasure upon reflection. Capitalism is most conducive to such happiness because it provides the most freedom and opportunity to achieve success and fosters this American sense of life.

More broadly, progressives argue that socialist principles of the common good trump American values of individual rights and entrepreneurship. Aside from the fact that the common good has been the Trojan horse of every tyrant throughout history from Stalin to Chávez, such a collectivist focus breeds tribalism, where competing interest groups engage in group warfare to sway government policy toward their vision of the good. In this environment, where people are treated not as ends in themselves but as means to achieving the common good, politicians driven by power lust and envy emerge.

These are the new progressive leaders. The ones who want the awesome responsibility of allocating the resources produced by others. Their policies hamper not only free markets but also free minds. Conservatives must make this case if they want to preserve either.

It is a scary time for America. The progressives must not be allowed to implement their socialist agenda upon the American populace.

Polar vortex victims include University of Iowa student, ex-city councilman, police officer and wife: https://www.foxnews.com/us/polar-vortex-victims-include-university-of-iowa-student-ex-city-councilman-police-officer-and-wife

Quote

....

Man found dead in Detroit wearing only underwear

The frozen body of a 70-year-old man was discovered Wednesday morning in Detroit, where temperatures dipped to negative 6 degrees.

Detroit Police had received a call around 2 a.m. Wednesday on a missing person, but were unable to find the man at the time, FOX2 reported. The man, who was only wearing underwear at the time and was not identified, was discovered about six hours later, police said.

....

Not sure this one has anything to do with the Polar Vortex;  this is pretty much a standard occurrence in Detroit and Wayne County.

And Fox News forgot to mention the dead zebra: https://www.jconline.com/story/news/local/lafayette/2019/01/30/zebra-dies-freak-accident-near-delphi/2723838002/

30 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

I'm pretty sure you actually called this didn't you Muda? Pointing out it was their MO.

 

I believe I did.  Too bad we don't have the "old GID" to search.

Corporate welfare is just a mechanism to fleece the taxpayers in order to enrich the corporations.  

33 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

Fake Dilemma 

? How so?

I thought of the GID's own esteemed Irishman when I saw this:

http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/30/foxconn-is-not-building-a-factory-in-wis

Quote

Wisconsin promised more than $3 billion in subsidies to Foxconn, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of smart phone parts, to lure the tech giant to suburban Milwaukee. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker promised that "working families would reap the benefits" of the giveaway, and President Donald Trump flew to Wisconsin last June to participate in a ceremonial groundbreaking for the plant. The project was an example of "reclaiming our country's proud manufacturing legacy," Trump said.

Now? There may not be a Foxconn factory built in Wisconsin at all.

"In Wisconsin we're not building a factory," Louis Woo, a high ranking assistant to Terry Gou, Foxconn's chairman, tells Reuters. Instead of a manufacturing facility that was supposed to create 13,000 blue collar jobs, Foxconn is reconsidering its plans and is likely to turn the Wisconsin facility into a "technology hub" that would include research facilities and the production of specialized tech products. The jobs created are likely to be "knowledge" positions—in other words, not blue collar jobs—Woo tells Reuters. That's something Foxconn had already acknowledged was likely in November when The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was planning to import workers from Taiwan and China to meet its hiring goals in Wisconsin.

Foxconn is already lagging well behind its job-creation promises. While the company originally promised to create 5,200 jobs by the end of 2020, Foxconn said earlier this month that the actual number would be about 1,000.

Woo says that Foxconn is shifting its strategy because the company can't make television screens in the U.S. and remain competitive in the global marketplace. But if that's true now, then it was certainly true a few years ago when the company was making promises to Walker's government—and when Walker was promising that "LCD displays will be made in America for the very first time, right here in the state of Wisconsin."

As TechCrunch explains, the problems with the Foxconn factory were not difficult to see. Building television screens with relatively expensive American labor was always a major question mark, and it was never clear how Foxconn planned to operate a huge manufacturing center "in what was essentially the middle of nowhere, without the sort of dense ecosystem of suppliers and sub-suppliers required for making a major factory hum."

....

Even if everything had worked out, the Foxconn giveaway was a bad idea. Wisconsin's Legislative Fiscal Bureau, a number-crunching agency similar to the federal Congressional Budget Office, calculated that it would take the state until 2043 to recoup the $3 billion handout, which was the largest such subsidy in Wisconsin history. Even if all 13,000 promised jobs went to Wisconsinites, the tab would be more than $230,000 per job created.

Another lousy part of the deal is the fact that eminent domain will be used to remove residents of Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin, where the new facility is to be built. As Reason has previously reported, Foxconn will receive more than 1,000 acres of land for free, the logic being that the subsequent increase in land value will pay for itself eventually in the form of higher property taxes.

It was always pretty unlikely that the Foxconn deal with live up to the promises made by the company, Walker, and Trump. That it is failing so spectacularly, and so early, should serve as a stern warning to the next politician who considers a similar scheme.

A big Corporate Welfare failure.  And yet the practice will continue.

10 hours ago, Wabash82 said:

I don't this guy is using the word "abrogating" correctly here.  The gist of his argument seems to be that Trump would be exceeding his Constitutional authority if he did this, and I don't think "abrogating" is a synonym for "exceeding." 

Who am I to argue with a lawyer, a wordsmith, and the smartest guy on the GID?  I suggest you contact the author of said commentary and inform him of his incorrect usage of this word.  Here is Mr. Dickinson's contact info: https://www.law.pitt.edu/people/gerald-s-dickinson.  I'm sure he would welcome helpful criticism from a fellow legal professional.

Record Low Temperatures Threaten Year-Round Shorts-Guy Population: https://thehardtimes.net/culture/record-low-temperatures-threaten-year-round-shorts-guy-population/

The Trouble With Child Labor Laws: https://mises.org/library/trouble-child-labor-laws

Quote

Let's say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can't hire — a typical teenager, or even a preteen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to that of most people over the age of 30. From the point of view of online technology, it is the young who rule. And yet they are professionally powerless: they are forbidden by law from earning wages from their expertise.

Might these folks have something to offer the workplace? And might the young benefit from a bit of early work experience, too? Perhaps — but we'll never know, thanks to antiquated federal, state, and local laws that make it a crime to hire a kid.

Pop culture accepts these laws as a normal part of national life, a means to forestall a Dickensian nightmare of sweat shops and the capitalist exploitation of children. It's time we rid ourselves of images of children tied to rug looms in the developing world. The kids I'm talking about are one of the most courted of all consumer sectors. Society wants them to consume, but law forbids them to produce.

You might be surprised to know that the laws against "child labor" do not date from the 18th century. Indeed, the national law against child labor didn't pass until the Great Depression — in 1938, with the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was the same law that gave us a minimum wage and defined what constitutes full-time and part-time work. It was a handy way to raise wages and lower the unemployment rate: simply define whole sectors of the potential workforce as unemployable.

By the time this legislation passed, however, it was mostly a symbol, a classic case of Washington chasing a trend in order to take credit for it. Youth labor was expected in the 17th and 18th centuries — even welcome, since remunerative work opportunities were newly present. But as prosperity grew with the advance of commerce, more kids left the workforce. By 1930, only 6.4 percent of kids between the ages of 10 and 15 were actually employed, and 3 out of 4 of those were in agriculture.1

In wealthier, urban, industrialized areas, child labor was largely gone, as more and more kids were being schooled. Cultural factors were important here, but the most important consideration was economic. More developed economies permit parents to "purchase" their children's education out of the family's surplus income — if only by foregoing what would otherwise be their earnings.

The law itself, then, forestalled no nightmare, nor did it impose one. In those days, there was rising confidence that education was the key to saving the youth of America. Stay in school, get a degree or two, and you would be fixed up for life. Of course, that was before academic standards slipped further and further, and schools themselves began to function as a national child-sitting service. Today, we are far more likely to recognize the contribution that disciplined work makes to the formation of character.

And yet we are stuck with these laws, which are incredibly complicated once you factor in all state and local variations. Kids under the age of 16 are forbidden to earn income in remunerative employment outside a family business. If dad is a blacksmith, you can learn to pound iron with the best of 'em. But if dad works for a law firm, you are out of luck.

From the outset, federal law made exceptions for kid movie stars and performers. Why? It probably has something to do with how Shirley Temple led box-office receipts from 1934–1938. She was one of the highest earning stars of the period.

If you are 14 or 15, you can ask your public school for a waiver and work a limited number of hours when school is not in session. And if you are in private school or home school, you must go ask your local Social Service Agency — not exactly the most welcoming bunch. The public school itself is also permitted to run work programs.

This point about approved labor is an interesting one, if you think about it. The government doesn't seem to mind so much if a kid spends all nonschool hours away from the home, family, and church, but it forbids them from engaging in private-sector work during the time when they would otherwise be in public schools drinking from the well of civic culture.

The legal exemption is also made for delivering newspapers, as if bicycles rather than cars were still the norm for this activity.

Here is another strange exemption: "youth working at home in the making of wreaths composed of natural holly, pine, cedar, or other evergreens (including the harvesting of the evergreens)." Perhaps the wreath lobby was more powerful during the Great Depression than in our own time?

Oh, and there is one final exemption, as incredible as this may be: federal law allows states to allow kids to work for a state or local government at any age, and there are no hourly restrictions. Virginia, for example, allows this.

The exceptions cut against the dominant theory of the laws that it is somehow evil to "commodify" the labor of kids. If it is wonderful to be a child movie star, congressional page, or home-based wreath maker, why it is wrong to be a teenage software fixer, a grocery bagger, or ice-cream scooper? It makes no sense.

Once you get past the exceptions, the bottom line is clear: full-time work in the private sector, for hours of their own choosing, is permitted only to those "children" who are 18 and older — by which time a child has already passed the age when he can be influenced toward a solid work ethic.

What is lost in the bargain? Kids no longer have the choice to work for money. Parents who believe that their children would benefit from the experience are at a loss. Consumers who would today benefit from our teens' technological knowhow have no commercial way to do so. They have been forcibly excluded from the matrix of exchange.

There is a social-cultural point, too. Employers will tell you that most kids coming out of college are radically unprepared for a regular job. It's not so much that they lack skills or that they can't be trained; it's that they don't understand what it means to serve others in a workplace setting. They resent being told what to do, tend not to follow through, and work by the clock instead of the task. In other words, they are not socialized into how the labor market works. Indeed, if we perceive a culture of sloth, irresponsibility, and entitlement among today's young, perhaps we ought to look here for a contributing factor.

The law is rarely questioned today. But it is a fact that child-labor laws didn't come about easily. It took more than a hundred years of wrangling.2The first advocates of keeping kids out of factories were women's labor unions, who didn't appreciate the low-wage competition. And true to form, labor unions have been reliable exclusionists ever since. Opposition did not consist of mining companies looking for cheap labor, but rather parents and clergy alarmed that a law against child labor would be a blow against freedom. They predicted that it would amount to the nationalization of children, which is to say that the government rather than the parents or the child would emerge as the final authority and locus of decision-making.

....

In every way, the opponents were right. Child-labor laws were and are a blow against the freedom to work and a boost in government authority over the family. The political class thinks nothing of legislating on behalf of "the children," as if they are the first owners of all kids. Child-labor laws were the first big step in this direction, and the rest follows. If the state can dictate to parents and kids the terms under which teens can be paid, there is essentially nothing they cannot control. There is no sense in arguing about the details of the law. The critical question concerns the locus of decision-making: family or state? Private markets or the public sector?

In so many ways, child-labor laws are an anachronism. There is no sense of speaking of exploitation as if this were the early years of the industrial revolution. Kids as young as 10 can surely contribute their labors in some tasks in ways that would help them come to grips with the relationship between work and reward. They will better learn to respect private forms of social authority outside the home. They will come to understand that some things are expected of them in life. And after they finish college and enter the workforce, it won't come as such a shock the first time they are asked to do something that may not be their first choice.

We know the glorious lessons that are imparted from productive work. What lesson do we impart with child-labor laws? We establish early on who is in charge: not individuals, not parents, but the state. We tell the youth that they are better off being mall rats than fruitful workers. We tell them that they have nothing to offer society until they are 18 or so. We convey the impression that work is a form of exploitation from which they must be protected. We drive a huge social wedge between parents and children and lead kids to believe that they have nothing to learn from their parents' experience. We rob them of what might otherwise be the most valuable early experiences of their young adulthood.

In the end, the most compelling case for getting rid of child-labor laws comes down to one central issue: the freedom to make a choice. Those who think young teens should do nothing but languish in classrooms in the day and play Wii at night will be no worse off. But those who see that remunerative work is great experience for everyone will cheer to see this antique regulation toppled. Maybe then the kids of America can put their computer skills to use doing more than playing World of Warcraft.

I agree.

Conflict of interest?  Yes, probably.

Good legislation on repealing restrictive, unneeded regulations?  Yes.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/washington-state-policitian-says-dwarf-tossing-offensive/

Quote

A Washington state lawmaker has proposed legislation that would outlaw dwarf tossing, claiming that “it ridicules and demeans people with dwarfism.”

Dwarf tossing, by the way, is when a person with dwarfism volunteers to have someone throw him or her against a padded surface or Velcro wall, usually while wearing protective gear. Let me be clear: No one is forcing these dwarves to be thrown anywhere. Participation is completely and totally voluntary, and the dwarves who choose to participate are even usually paid for their performances, but the lawmaker — Republican state senator Mike Padden — wants to take this option to make a little extra cash away from them.

“There’s nothing funny about dwarf-tossing,” Padden said in a statement. “It ridicules and demeans people with dwarfism, and causes others to think of them as objects of public amusement.”

“Even when participants are willing, it exposes them to the possibility of lifetime spinal injury,” the statement continues. “Dwarf-tossing is an offense to our sensibilities.”

Padden co-sponsored SB 5486 along with two other state senators. It states that businesses with liquor licenses or “adult entertainment venues,” such as strip clubs, may not “allow or permit any contest or promotion or other form of recreational activity involving exploitation that endangers the health, safety, and welfare of any person with dwarfism.”

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PC CULTURE

Washington Lawmaker Wants to Outlaw Dwarf Tossing Because It’s ‘Offensive to Dwarves’

By KATHERINE TIMPF

January 30, 2019 6:30 AM

Washington State Senator Mike Padden (Screengrab via WashingtonSRC/YouTube)

They’re capable deciding for themselves whether to participate in such activities to earn a little extra cash.

A  Washington state lawmaker has proposed legislation that would outlaw dwarf tossing, claiming that “it ridicules and demeans people with dwarfism.”

Dwarf tossing, by the way, is when a person with dwarfism volunteers to have someone throw him or her against a padded surface or Velcro wall, usually while wearing protective gear. Let me be clear: No one is forcing these dwarves to be thrown anywhere. Participation is completely and totally voluntary, and the dwarves who choose to participate are even usually paid for their performances, but the lawmaker — Republican state senator Mike Padden — wants to take this option to make a little extra cash away from them.

“There’s nothing funny about dwarf-tossing,” Padden said in a statement. “It ridicules and demeans people with dwarfism, and causes others to think of them as objects of public amusement.”

“Even when participants are willing, it exposes them to the possibility of lifetime spinal injury,” the statement continues. “Dwarf-tossing is an offense to our sensibilities.”

Padden co-sponsored SB 5486 along with two other state senators. It states that businesses with liquor licenses or “adult entertainment venues,” such as strip clubs, may not “allow or permit any contest or promotion or other form of recreational activity involving exploitation that endangers the health, safety, and welfare of any person with dwarfism.”

There will be a hearing on the bill in the state senate’s law and justice committee on January 31. Representatives from Little People of America — which is generally against dwarf tossing — will testify at the hearing, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

But not all dwarves are happy about the bill. As Reason’s Joe Setyon notes, one performer — “Mighty Mike Murga,” who was tossed at the Deja Vu Showgirls club in October — says he considers his participation in dwarf tossing to be just like anyone’s participation in any sport.

“It’s a sport that started in England in the 1800s,” he said, according to the Spokesman-Review. “This is not for every little person.”

“If you’re not cut out for it, don’t do it,” he continued.

Personally, I tend to agree with Murga. I know that the aim of this bill is supposed to be to help dwarves, but I think it’s actually kind of offensive to them, if anything. After all, saying that such a bill would be necessary is basically suggesting that dwarves are not capable of making the decision about whether or not to participate in these sorts of activities for themselves. It’s also taking away from dwarves the opportunity to make a little extra cash — an opportunity that some dwarves might really want to take advantage of.

...

As for the potential injury risks? Well, as Setyon points out, those risks certainly exist with other sports as well, and yet there hasn’t been some huge legislative push to ban those. Like most things, this should be a matter of personal choice.

Agreed.  When dwarf tossing is outlawed only outlaws will toss dwarfs?

http://reason.com/archives/2019/01/30/have-gun-cant-travel

Quote

The first time the Supreme Court defended the Second Amendment, it overturned a Washington, D.C., law that made it a crime to keep any sort of accessible and operable firearm in the home for self-defense. Two years later, the Court struck down a Chicago law that went almost as far, banning possession of handguns within the city limits.

Last week the Court accepted a case involving another extreme example of gun control: a law that prohibits New Yorkers from taking their legally owned handguns with them when they travel outside the city. This is only the third time in more than a decade that the justices have grappled with the question of which firearm restrictions are consistent with the Second Amendment, and the history of the case shows why that reckoning is overdue.

Most New York City residents can legally own handguns only by obtaining a license that requires them to keep the weapons at home. The sole exception is for trips to one of the seven target shooting ranges within the city, when the firearms have to be unloaded and locked in a container separate from the ammunition.

 

Three New Yorkers, joined by the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, are challenging that rule, which they say unconstitutionally interferes with their right to keep guns for self-defense and to hone the skills required for that purpose. One of the plaintiffs would like to take his handgun to a second home in Delaware County, and all three want the freedom to bring their firearms to ranges and shooting competitions outside the city.

The only public safety rationale the city has offered for stopping them is that they might be tempted to use the guns in "stressful situations." As the gun owners note in their brief seeking Supreme Court review, "the City put forth no empirical evidence that transporting an unloaded handgun, locked in a container separate from its ammunition, poses a meaningful risk to public safety."

Even if it did, New York's restrictions tend to magnify the supposed danger by forcing gun owners to use ranges within the city when alternatives in other jurisdictions are closer and more accessible. They therefore spend more time traveling with their guns on New York's streets than they otherwise would.

The government's half-baked excuse nevertheless was enough to persuade a federal judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that the ban on taking handguns out of the city is consistent with the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Both concluded that New York's transparently irrational restrictions survived "intermediate scrutiny," meaning they are "substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest."

That sort of reasoning epitomizes the inappropriately deferential approach that many federal courts continue to take in Second Amendment cases. If the government can articulate a reason for restricting gun rights, no matter how implausible, that is usually enough to sustain the law.

"The City's transport ban lacks even a rational basis, much less the heightened showing necessary to justify burdens on constitutional rights," the plaintiffs note. The need to curtail this rampant disrespect for the Second Amendment is the reason this case is important, even though it involves a law that the plaintiffs describe as "an extreme outlier" and a "one-of a kind prohibition."

For too long the Supreme Court has tolerated a form of casual judicial review in gun cases that would never fly in the context of other constitutional rights. The justices have passed up one opportunity after another to clarify the level of scrutiny that should be applied to gun control laws, the constitutionality of bans on arbitrary categories of firearms or magazines, and the extent to which the Second Amendment applies outside the home.

This case will not resolve all of those issues. But it is a first step toward enforcing the Court's belated recognition that the Second Amendment imposes meaningful limits on legislators.

Here is hoping the SCOTUS makes the right decision,  a decision for personal freedom.

Ms. Harris is on the socialism bandwagon right from the start of her campaign: Under Medicare for All, If You Like Your Insurance Plan, You Can’t Keep It: http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/29/kamala-harris-medicare-for-all-private

Quote

Under Medicare for All, if you like your private insurance plan, you can't keep it.

When President Obama made the case for the Affordable Care Act, he said on dozens of occasions that anyone who likes their doctor or their insurance plan would be able to keep it under the new law. That proved untrue when the law resulted in several million people losing access to their existing plans. But the promise was made because Obama and his advisers believed it was necessary to maintain public support for the law. Two decades earlier, President Bill Clinton's effort to remake the U.S. health care system failed after industry-funded advertisements drove public opposition by warning that some people would lose their existing insurance plans.

Obamacare's backers thus believed that promising to avoid disruption was a key—arguably the key—to ensuring the law's initial political success. Without it, the whole effort would collapse.

 

Heading into 2020, single-payer proponents appear to be adopting essentially the opposite strategy. The national health care plan put forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would eliminate all current private insurance over a four-year time frame. And at a town hall event last night, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Ca.), who recently launched her presidential campaign, said she wants to eliminate private insurance entirely, which would mean that about 177 million people would lose their existing plan.

After noting that the Sanders-sponsored Medicare for All legislation that Harris supports would totally eliminate all private insurance, moderator Jake Tapper asked, "So for people out there who like their insurance—they don't get to keep it?"

Harris responded with a somewhat winding answer that amounts to a yes.

"The idea," she said, "is that everyone gets access to medical care and you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through all the paperwork, all of the delay that may require. Who of us have not had that situation where you have to wait for approval and the doctor says, 'I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on." (Emphasis mine.)

It's worth taking a moment to think about what Harris is saying here, and just how condescending it is.

She is not just saying that dealing with private insurance is sometimes annoying, which most people would agree is true, and that this should be fixed. Nor is she saying that private insurance has limitations or is insufficient, that it sometimes leaves people and conditions untreated. She is not making a case against private health insurance that is dysfunctional or disliked; she is arguing for the complete elimination of insurance plans that people have had positive experiences with—plans that, as Tapper says, people like.

In other words, if you like your private health insurance plan, you can't keep it, because the plan that you like is bad, and politicians like Harris will decide what you really need instead. A majority of Americans with employer-sponsored plans are satisfied with their insurance coverage, according to an industry survey. Harris is starting her 2020 campaign by telling them they are wrong.

Perhaps the politics of health care have changed since Obama made his pledge; I suspect not. Just last week, a surveyfound that that only 37 percent of the public supported Medicare for All when told it would eliminate private health insurance. The disruption of existing coverage remains broadly unpopular.

Harris is not only promising disruption (and on a far larger scale than what occurred under Obamacare), she is promising to fully eliminate coverage arrangements that millions of people are happy with in order to radically expand political control of the provision of health care. What she is saying is that it doesn't matter if you like your health care plan if she doesn't.

Scary.