The Opium of Redistributionists

The Maverick reproduced in toto:

If religion is the opium of the masses, then OPM is the opium of the redistributionist.

Bernie Sanders, the superannuated socialist, "and his wife, Jane, paid an effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, or $27,653 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $205,271." This is for 2014.  That is less than Mitt Romney paid, percentage-wise, in 2011.  But Romney paid more dollars and thus did more good than Bernie, if you assume that Federal taxes do good for 'the people' and not just for state apparatchiki.

For Sanders, a legitimate function of government is wealth redistribution so that the government can do good with other people's money (OPM).  So why did Bernie take so many (legal) deductions?  Why didn't he pay his 'fair share,' say, 28% of his AGI? Why didn't he fork over 50%?  Surely an old man and his wife can live on 100K a year!  Why doesn't Bernie practice what he preaches?

Because he smokes the opium of OPM: it is the other guy's money that is to be confiscated, not his.  By any reasonable standard, Sanders is a 'fat cat.'  But he doesn't see himself as one.  And no doubt he thinks he earned his high senatorial salary when he produced nothing, but merely spouted a lot of socialist nonsense while acting the pied piper to foolish and impressionable youth.

On Gender, Chinese, Grade, Height IDENTITY

"If I wanted to enroll in a first grade class, should I be able to?"

College Student #1: "Uhhh...ummm.......proooobbably not....I guess..."
College Student #2: "If that's where you feel like, mentally, you should be, I feel like there are communities that would accept you."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. So I'll do as a good free-thinking Stoic would do when faced with such options.

Hahahahahaha!

A YUUUGE Reason Not to Vote for Trump

There are many reasons why Trump would make a terrible Republican nominee.  But here is another.  Trump has promised again and again that he will appoint the best and the brightest to solve all of the problems in the U.S. (another area where he proves his Democratic credentials)  Yet against this we have some very good inductive evidence that he will not: ge has failed miserably and embarrassingly in appointing people to ensure that he has loyal delegates voting for him after a first vote in the convention.  On this score Cruz has proved his political brilliance far surpasses Trump's arrogant bravado.  Yet another example of the aphorism that actions speak louder than words.

Arkansas is the latest.

73% of Felons Vote Democratic

Based on a study of three states, but who doubts that these numbers don't hold steady across the U.S.  The Democrats own the felon and dead person vote.

NY: 61% Democrat, 9% Republican
NM: 52% Democrat, 10% Republican
NC: 55% Democrat, 10% Republican

Obviously what we have here is a case of political profiling by the police....

Conservative Call to Arms

Steven Hayward speaking at the David Horowitz Freedom Center:

[E]vents of just the last 10 days should remind us once again that our politics have become all out war—a fact that conservatives, and their weak vessel, the Republican Party, do not like to recognize. Conservatives like order and moderation (in the Aristotelian sense), and recoil from the idea of political warfare, because when things reach that stage, it means things are out of hand. But avoiding the unpleasantness of political life—and avoiding confronting it directly—will not make it go away, but instead guarantee that it grow worse.

One lesson of the Trump phenomenon is that it has revealed that conservatives have been way too timid or conciliatory in confronting the Left—that the latitude for effectively confronting political correctness is much greater than we thought. It ought to be a matter of supreme embarrassment and shame that the most forceful and cogent response to the irresponsible demagoguery of Black Lives Matter has come from Bill Clinton. Never mind that he walked it back yesterday—that’s his problem. Our problem is no public figure on our side has spoken out as forcefully and as plainly as Clinton did.

In this regard, if we can’t win the Bathroom Wars, we might as well load up the lifeboats right now and become the refugees from our own country that the Left longs for us to be. And the most outrageous part of the recent controversy over bathrooms in North Carolina is the role played by big business, which is the most potent force in forcing states like North Carolina to back down from a common sense understanding of human nature. Why have big corporations become adjuncts to leftist identity politics? I suspect a study of corporate HR departments will find they are a hotbed of graduates with degrees in gender and ethnic studies, etc.

[...]

Likewise, our response to the latest outbreak of radicalism on campuses is weak. The new mob of the campus Left says: racism, homophobia, sexism, oppression, and patriarchy. To which we have responded—free speech and academic freedom! This response is wholly inadequate. It concedes the premise of the Left: are we really for free speech on behalf of racism? Of course not, but we need to take the next step and throw back in their faces that their narratives of oppression are completely wrong, contemptible, and not to be taken seriously. That and a few expulsions (and more firings of many more professors like Melissa Click) might do the trick.

In summary, the central point of my remarks is to vindicate what I’m going to call the Horowitz Heuristic, or “David’s Desideratum.” For as long as I have known David, he has been saying that conservatives, and their defective organizational vehicle—the Republican Party—has not been vigorous enough in recognizing that the Left is conducting political warfare, and that it can only be beaten back by engaging in political warfare in return. Maybe a few more people are starting to figure out what David has understood all along. Is it too late? As Lincoln said about a real war, “Wars are not won by blowing rosewater through cornstalks.”

Read the rest.

Another Key Demographic for Cruz

Cigar smokers.

Obama AGAIN on the Gender Wage Gap

The Feckless One tweets:

There's no evidence that unjust discrimination explains the so-called gender wage gap.  This is well documented on this blog and elsewhere.  Of course, Obama has enough education to be aware of this.  It makes one wonder why he keeps saying things like he does above.  Even "Freakonomics" (comprised of a Democratic journalist and libertarian economist) recently did an episode on the issue. 

Going to a Trump Rally!

A reader reports about his trip to a Donald Trump rally:

At around midnight on Friday, I RSVP'd for a ticket to today's Trump rally in _______at the airport. I drove down to the airport, and it was pretty wild. There were tons of state police and sheriff officers, and the road was lined with people selling Trump merchandise (many of the sellers were black, I noticed).

I was parked and at the gate over a half hour before the event started, and they were already turning people away. I never made it inside. One of the sheriff officers said that the Trump campaign made 25,000 tickets available, but the airplane hanger could only fit about 6,000 people. What a douchey thing to do!

So, I hung outside the gate for a while with disappointed Trumpsters. Some of them hoped that Trump would hear word of his people getting turned away and would get them in. Across the street, protesters lined up and shouted at those of us on the Trump side of the street. I took a bunch of videos on [my wife's] old de-commissioned iPhone, but, I haven't figured out a way to get those videos uploaded to anything yet.

Basically, the protesters were almost all college aged kids, 2/3 of them were white, 1/3 were black, and they were morons. Many of them had signs that said, "Trump's a fascist", with pictures of Hitler, "Bigots", and "Fuck Trump" etc. They were fairly aggressive with the verbal insults toward the Trumpsters, who were mostly there just to see the rally, and weren't interested in being made into news items. But at the same time, they were Trumpsters, and some of them could not suffer the protesters calling them racists. I heard several shout things like "This is the only real job you've ever had!" [TB: Nice one!]  "Fuck you!" "Go to a socialist country ya buncha socialists!" All entertaining stuff.

At one point, the crowd started chanting "Trump, Trump Trump!" and the protesters chanted back "Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!" Many of them held Bernie signs. The Trumpsters then started the "USA!" chant, and the protesters chanted "USA!" back across the street. I stuck around for a few more minutes and then left. I'll definitely watch the local news tonight. A guy a couple feet away from me was interviewed by a local channel.

One observation I made, however, was that these protesters were definitely the instigators. I'm now more sure that most of these fights happening at Trump rallies were probably started by aggressive protesters.

Negative Income Tax

City-Journal has a nice article on Milton Friedman's "Negative Income Tax," NIT.  It makes too much sense, thus it'll never happen.  Excerpt:

The NIT is easy to describe. “The basic idea,” Friedman wrote in a 1968 Newsweek column, “is to use the mechanism by which we now collect tax revenue from people with incomes above some minimum level to provide financial assistance to people with incomes below that level.” Already, he pointed out, no one pays taxes on the first few thousand dollars of income, thanks to personal exemptions and deductions. Most earners pay a fraction of their “positive taxable income”—that is, the amount by which their earnings exceed that first few thousand dollars. In Friedman’s plan, the poor would similarly receive a fraction of their “negative taxable income”—the amount by which their earnings fell short of that level. This direct cash grant would replace all other welfare programs for the poor, which, Friedman rightly observed, were generating a huge bureaucracy and extensive welfare dependency.

But wouldn’t the NIT—in effect, a government-guaranteed income—still be a disincentive to work, just as no-questions-asked welfare benefits were before being reformed in the 1990s? “Any state intervention, any income redistribution, creates disincentives and distortions,” admits Gary Becker, a University of Chicago economist and Friedman disciple. “But if society decides that a certain level of redistribution must take place, the NIT is the best, the most minimally distorting, solution ever devised.” To limit the disincentive, Friedman argued, the NIT should be progressive. Say the government drew the income line at $10,000 for a family of four and the NIT was 50 percent, as most economists recommend. If the family had no income at all, it would receive $5,000—that is, 50 percent of the amount by which its income fell short of $10,000. If the family earned $2,000, it would get $4,000 from the government—again, 50 percent of its income shortfall—for a total post-tax income of $6,000. Bring in $4,000, and it would receive $3,000, for a total of $7,000. So as the family’s earnings rise, its post-tax income rises, too, preserving the work incentive. This is very different from many social welfare programs, in which a household either receives all of a benefit or, if it ceases to qualify, nothing at all. The all-or-nothing model encourages what social scientists call “poverty traps,” tempting the poor not to improve their situations.

The Fatal Charm of National Repentance

Men fail so often to repent their real sins that the occasional repentance of an imaginary sin might appear almost desirable.  But what actually happens...to the youthful national penitent is a little more complicated than that.  England is not a natural agent, but a civil society.  When we speak of England's actions we mean the actions of the British Government.  The young man who is called upon to repent of England's foreign policy is really being called upon to repent the acts of his neighbour; for a Foreign Secretary or a Cabinet Minister is certainly a neighbour.  And repentance presupposes condemnation.  The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing--but, first, of denouncing--the conduct of others.  If it were clear to the young penitent that this is what he is doing, no doubt he would remember the law of charity.  Unfortunately the very terms in which national repentance is recommended to him conceal its true nature.  By a dangerous figure of speech, he calls the Government not 'they' but 'we'.  And since, as penitents, we are not encouraged to be charitable to our own sins, nor to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, a Government which is called 'we' is ipso facto placed beyond the sphere of charity or even of justice.  You can say anything you please about it.  You can indulge in the popular vice of detraction without restraint, and yet feel all the time that you are practicing contrition.  ~C.S. Lewis, "Dangers of National Repentance"  

Bernie Sanders Against Charity

Here.

''I don't believe in charities,'' said Mayor Sanders, bringing a shocked silence to a packed hotel banquet room. The Mayor, who is a Socialist, went on to question the ''fundamental concepts on which charities are based'' and contended that government, rather than charity organizations, should take over responsibility for social programs.

It's not surprising.  Republicans are very generous and give more money away at all levels of income than Democrats.

My Philosophical Family Tree

Below is a chain of dissertation directors/advisers starting with my own, Jeff Brower, his, Scott MacDonald, etc.  Source.

Turns out Copernicus is my Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather of philosophy.  I decided to stop at Copernicus.  I also only tracked a single familial line; that is, I omitted other branches where there were co-directors/advisers.

1. Jeffrey Brower
2. Scott MacDonald
3. Norman Kretzmann
4. Albert Hammond
5. Arthur Lovejoy
6. Josiah Royce
7. George Sylvester Morris
8. Friedrich Adolph Trendelenburg
9. Karl Reinhold
10. Immanuel Kant













11. Martin Knutzen
12. Christian Wolff
13. Gottfried Leibniz

14. Erhard Weigel
15. Philip Muller
16. Christoph Meurer
17. Moritz Valentin Steinmetz
18. Georg Joachim von Leuchen Rheticus
19. Nicolaus Copernicus

Who is supporting Donald Drumpf?

It can't be conservatives.  The latest in this bizarre primary from the CNN town hall meeting:

When asked what the three most important functions of the federal government are, he didn't say to legislate, judge, and execute the laws.  He did not say to protect the borders, enforce justice, and administer regulations on commerce between states and foreign nations.  He said the greatest is security (so far so good).  Then he added, "I would also say healthcare, education."  So according to Trump, the federal government has failed miserably in two-thirds of its functions for most of its history since healthcare and education have mainly been functions of state and local governments. 

He went on to say that abortion should be illegal and women punished for having abortions.  But what conservative organizations have been taking that position?  The conservative position has been that Roe should be overturned and the prerogative to legalize or illegalize abortions returned to the states.  Abortion providers in some states would then be subject to punishment if they broke the relevant laws.  (Trump later redacted his idiotic remark presumably after someone with a brain told him it was not the politically correct thing to say....)

Gaunilo's Perfect Island

Dinner question: What would be your perfect birthday?

Sam (7): Hotel at Disney with a pool. Free rides. (Avalee (10) concurs. Malea (12) is absent at dance.  James Leonidas is too young and Spartan to answer).

Johno (5): A make-anything-machine as a present. (Good choice. He'll go far in life).

Me: Unfortunately I have none. Impossible. For any great birthday, I can conceive of one better.

Students at Emory "University"

This is not an Onion story.  This is not made up.  Emory students have been traumatized by seeing the word "Trump" written in chalk on the sidewalks.  I kid you not.  

The students viewed the messages as intimidation, and they voiced "genuine concern and pain" as a result, Emory President Jim Wagner wrote Tuesday, one day after meeting with 40 to 50 student demonstrators.

Students at Monday's protest chanted, "You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!" 

The Son Bears It

From my brother who has lost his child:

Three years, ten months, and two days. The time that Maria was given on earth. A life cut short. So much left undone. So many dreams unfulfilled. Each day we are haunted by the anticipation of plans that will never be completed. She was saving money to buy a doll. Her coins rest silently and unused in her piggy bank. She was so excited to hold her new baby sister. Lucy was born one week to the day after Maria's death. I was cleaning up my garage a few days ago, putting away Christmas decorations, and cleaning up clutter. I had to store away the bike that I was teaching her to ride four days before her death. She never got past training wheels. There was a show on television last night. A father was walking his daughter down the aisle. He said she was beautiful and that he was so proud of her. I wept. Maria loved one dance outfit more than all of her other clothes, but it was hard for her to take off quickly and that causes problems for a little girl not long potty trained. She had a couple of accidents while wearing the outfit, so we took it away from her for a few weeks. She began to do much better going to the potty, and we promised her that she could wear her dance outfit again soon. We buried her in it the next week. So much left undone. So many dreams unfulfilled.
Thirty-seven years, five months, and fourteen days. That's my current mark. Oh, how much of that I have wasted? Far too many days spent on selfish pursuits. How many days remain to love my wife, to raise my four living daughters, to carry my cross? Whatever my final number, I'm sure some will say “a life cut short.” Are all lives cut short? Does everyone leave uncompleted plans and unfulfilled dreams?

Thirty-three years, they say he lived. His life too was cut short. So much seemingly left undone. A kingdom unestablished. Cowardly friends hiding from his suffering. A body scourged. A mission left incomplete. Can redemption really come to a life cut short?

Yet this is unendurable. And then one babbles -- "If only I could bear it, or the worst of it, or any of it, instead of her." But one can't tell how serious that bid is, for nothing is staked on it. If it suddenly became a real possibility, then, for the first time, we should discover how seriously we had meant it. But is it ever allowed?

It was allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be so done. He replies to our babble, "You cannot and you dare not. I could and dared." -C.S. Lews on the death of his wife

Funny Story About a Conservative Catholic Priest

Unlike a number of my posts, this will take a conversational tone.  All names have been edited so that the people involved will remain anonymous.

There’s a guy I’ve known quite for over a decade but only over the internet.  He used to be Nazarene—thus our original connection since I attended a Nazarene school as an undergraduate—but converted to Catholicism.  Moderate-Conservative, catholic, philosophy professor (less conservative than I on economics but not by a ton), E.M.  Anyhow, I began seeing all of these hilariously funny, and sometimes completely politically incorrect memes that this guy shared [more un-PC than even I WOULD SHARE!] on E.M.'s Facebook wall and "friended" him a while ago, Father L from NY.  E.M. messaged me today about something else and somehow this guy comes up, Father L, because in the 70’s he went to Franciscan U. of Steubenville near where I grew up.  Here’s what E.M. said about Father L:

Fr. L went to Franciscan as an undergrad.

Very funny guy--he said once he was there at the beginning of the charismatic renewal.  He said everyone there was either part of that movement or there to belong to a drinking fraternity--he then paused and said, "I belonged to two fraternities myself."

He was a prison chaplain for a while.

I asked Fr. L if he had ever dated---he said, “Oh yeah--in fact, I think I was engaged for about 20 minutes at a bar one time."

Fr. L grew up in NYC, I think Brooklyn or the Bronx.  His dad and a few of his uncles/brothers/cousins (I can't remember the combo) were cops.  He said he was kind of pushed toward the priesthood because he was the runt of the litter, even though he is 6'5 and about 270. He says most of the cops in his family were 6'6 or taller.

One time after Mass [where he was the priest], in the basement for donuts and coffee, this somewhat unstable guy who attended from time to time (now deceased) started going into a liberal political diatribe with some old ladies who were trying to avoid him.

Fr. L asked him to cool it.

The guy refused and then starting saying, "No one here cares about the Holy saints!  They only care about Fox News and St. Bill O'Reilly!"

Fr. L said, "That's not true--we also commemorate St. Sean Hannity [who I [E.M.] actually don't like, but whatever]."

Then the guy kept going off and Fr. L walked up to him, purple in the face, and screamed,  “I said, 'Enough!!!!'  You will not come in and terrorize my sheep this way!"

When the guy started to back up, Fr. L said, "I HAVE COMMANDED YOU--SHUT UP OR LEAVE THIS HOLY CHURCH!"

Then the guy stomped off, and Fr. L turned back to a young couple with a now terrified child in their arms, to whom he had been talking originally, and said very calmly, "Now, where were we?"

Then he saw the mortified child and said, "What’s the matter, little one, haven't you ever heard mommy and daddy yell before?"  To which they said, "Well, not quite like that."

My wife was there and was very impressed, though.