Monthly Archives: November 2017

German Democracy

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Germany’s President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose position is less than that of the Chancellor’s (the current incumbent is Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union) but currently has a critical role, has let the cat out of the bag regarding the attitude of that nation’s political elite toward democracy and the people of the nation.

Recall that Germany held an election a few weeks ago in which the governing CDU/SPD coalition was heavily defeated.  The Social Democrat Party, a center left party, lost most heavily, and it has announced that it will not ally with the CDU in any new government.  The CDU also lost heavily, although it retains the most seats in the German parliament, the Bundestag.  That most seats, though, is a bare plurality, not enough to govern effectively.  Merkel entered talks with The Greens Party and the Free Democrats Party, whose numbers combined with the CDU’s would have given such a coalition a (bare) majority in the Bundestag.  These were difficult talks since the three parties are polar opposites socially, economically, politically, pick a dimension (and yes, I’m aware of the difficulty of a three-way opposite construction—as were Merkel and the heads of those two parties, but they went for it, anyway).

The talks broke down, and with the SPD in firm opposition, Merkel is left with the choice of a minority government or new elections.  She prefers new elections.

Here’s where Steinmeier has exposed the elite’s Know Better attitude.  The Wall Street Journal has quoted his position:

The parties have campaigned for responsibility in the Sept 24 elections, a responsib[ility] that Germany’s constitution says can’t simply be handed back to voters.  This responsibility goes far beyond someone’s own interests.

Except that the German Constitution says exactly that, were the newly elected Bundestag unable to agree on a new coalition or a Chancellor.  However, the elites Know Better, and they insist that the people—the voters, Germany’s citizens—can’t be trusted with governance.  After all, they screwed up their just concluded chance, right?

Hmm….

Responsibility and Morality

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LaVar Ball on the magnitude of his son’s shoplifting crime in the People’s Republic of China:

I’ve seen a lot worse things happen than a guy taking some glasses.

Son LiAngelo is a star basketball player, after all, and he only stole some shades.  So, no big deal.  Not for the privileged athlete, who chose not to check his privilege at the store’s entrance.  But for the workaday merchant or manufacturer from whom the glasses were stolen—yeah, it was a big deal.

Aside from that, though, the plain fact is, any theft is wrong. Full stop.

Or at least it should be a plain fact, but we don’t teach morality in grade school anymore, do we?  That would be an imposition of one person’s views on another, and we cannot have any of that.  We must allow moral relativism because no culture is better than another—especially is a culture that allows, if not actively condones, “petty” theft the equal of a culture that holds any theft to be wrong.

The shoplifting crime, minimalized as it is by this imitation father, is just one symptom of the lack of morality in our education system, however.

So, too, after all, is a culture that subjects women to second-class status the equal of a culture that insists that all men are created equal (the pseudo-confusion of that term “men” is itself instructive).  So, also, is a culture that says it’s OK for men in power to abuse those women who approach them for any reason (a photo with a famous person, perhaps), or those women who work for them, or those women who just happen to be nearby the equal of a culture that says such abuses are wrong and those men in power should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us—and by dint of their position of power, should be held to a higher standard.

But all of that is secondary. Of far greater importance than the failure of our education system is what the elder Ball is demonstrating: too many parents today do not make even the least effort, in the home, to teach their kids about responsibility and morality.

Because, moral relativism.

Is a Clinton Supporter

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…going to lease the Progressive-Democratic Party the way the Clintons did for the 2016 elections?

At a gathering of Progressive-Democrat NeverTrumpers, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Billionaire George Soros were the headliners.  And this:

The four-day event in Carlsbad, titled “Beyond #Resistance: Reclaiming our Progressive Future,” asked that guests refrain from contacting the media or posting to social media, the agenda shows.

Soros has already transferred most of his $18 billion to his anti-Trump activist organization.  The question arises in my pea brain: what are Soros and Pelosi planning in this behind-the-scenes gala?

Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with secretive strategy planning meetings, but in light of current scandals and misbehaviors, perhaps more openness might be more productive.

Most likely, though, this is just another off-the-wall conspiracy theory….

The VA Still Fails

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The Veterans Administration is still creating waitlists and secret waitlists, even after all this time of reporting on and calling the VA out for its dishonesty and its disservice to our veterans.  Now a Colorado VA facility is—still—doing secret waitlists.

Investigators with the VA Office of Inspector General confirmed whistleblower and former VA employee Brian Smother’s claim that staff kept unauthorized lists instead of using the department’s official wait list system.

That made it impossible to know if veterans who needed referrals for group therapy and other mental health care were getting timely assistance, according to the report. The internal investigation also criticized record-keeping in PTSD cases at the VA’s facility in Colorado Springs.

Senator Cory Gardener (R, CO):

It [the secret waitlists] highlights even more VA mismanagement and lack of accountability in Colorado. This cannot happen again, and it’s time for the VA to finally wake up and ensure our men and women are getting the best care possible.

No.  The VA is not going to clean itself up.  Outside agencies cannot clean this sewage pit.  The VA must be disbanded and its budget and nominal future budgets passed to our veterans as vouchers so they can get the medical help they deserve—and in too many cases, desperately need—from the doctors of their choice and the medical facilities of their choice.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

Missing the Point

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In a Letter to the Editor last Thursday, one letter writer had this to say about a Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Great Progressive Tax Escape:

[T]he problem of interstate tax competition, like the continuing bids to draw Amazon to pick a favorable second headquarters, isn’t strictly speaking a problem of high progressive taxes, as your editorial asserts. Better to view it the other way, as a problem of low-tax jurisdictions using these devices to compete in a way that erodes the tax bases of other states. That is exactly what is happening globally as well, when Ireland, Panama, Malta, etc. make rock-bottom offers to global companies to do business there. Developed states and countries cannot run governments at the discounted prices offered by these tax havens….

And yet these States and countries—developed all—do run their governments at “discounted” prices.  The resulting economic activity is how they can afford these additional “discounts.”

The plain fact is high-tax governments do not need the tax rates they have—as demonstrated by the fact that the “winning” States already have low rates and high enough revenue to pay for what those governments have been hired to do.  And they do so despite the plethora of special interest give-backs that so heavily populate even these States’ tax codes.  The high-tax States and the high-tax countries would do well to learn from these examples, and instead of whining about losing an entirely fair competition, reformed their tax codes.  Ireland—and Luxembourg, which the letter writer omitted to mention—have some of the lowest tax rates in the world, and their people are prospering.

A related and equally plain fact is that with low, flat tax rates there’d be no need to compete on who can offer the biggest tax breaks.  Such breaks have considerably less value coming on a base rate of, say, 10%, than they have at usurious rates like 35%.  Further, the base rates, applicable to all and already low, would allow businesses to locate themselves on the basis of sound business and not at all on who’s offering the most goodies.