Category Archives: morality

Friends, Americans, Countrymen

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With apologies to William Shakespeare, who knew more about politics and economics than generally is appreciated, here is a possible eulogy if we’re not very careful.

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury liberty, not to praise it.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with individual liberty. The noble Obama
Hath told you it was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath it answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Obama and the rest—
For Obama is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men—
Come I to speak in liberty’s funeral.
It was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Obama says liberty is ambitious;
And Obama is an honourable man.
It hath brought morality home to America
Whose prosperity did the general coffers fill:
Did this in liberty seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, liberty wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Obama says it was ambitious;
And Obama is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the taxing
Men thrice reduced them,
Whence men did thrice prosper: was this ambition?
Yet Obama says “investment” is less ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Obama spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love liberty once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for it?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with liberty,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

…

But yesterday the word of liberty might
Have stood against the world; now lies it there.
And none so poor to do it reverence.
O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Obama wrong, and Reid wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here’s a parchment with the seal of liberty;
I found it in its closet, ’tis its will:
Let but the commons hear this testament—
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read—
And they would go and kiss dead liberty’s wounds
And dip their napkins in its sacred blood,
Yea, beg a hair of it for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

Some Remarks on Budget Negotiations

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Can the Progressives in this Congress and White House really be this…lacking in understanding?

The White House had suggested GOP willingness to let sweeping defense cuts take effect was the culprit [for the fourth quarter economic contraction just reported].

However, House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) spokesman Brendan Buck had this:

These arbitrary, automatic cuts were a creation and demand of the White House in 2011.  Twice the House has passed legislation to replace them with common sense cuts and reforms.  If there was any uncertainty late last year about the sequester, it was because the Democratic-controlled Senate, per usual, never lifted a finger to pass a plan to replace it.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) chimed in:

…today’s disappointing GDP report [of fourth quarter 2012 contraction] is a direct result of the economic uncertainty created by House Republicans’ strategy of obstruction and manufactured crises.

An exploding deficit, a destructive debt, stagnant and too-high unemployment, and a failed recovery from the Panic of 2008 aren’t crises at all—these are normal.  Congressman Sam Graves (R, MO), Chairman of the House Small Business Committee, noted

Is this stunt in economic growth really a surprise?  Anti-growth policies and an anti-business White House produce just that—a lack of growth[.]

Congressman Kevin Brady (R, TX), incoming Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee added

The bottom line is that America’s economy continues to struggle primarily due to President Obama’s penchant for political brinkmanship and the pervasive uncertainty caused by his focus on higher taxes, regulation and ObamaCare.

Unfortunately, yes.  And that’s to the severe detriment of our country.

Self Defense and the Police

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The following is part of a larger beef between a sheriff and a mayor, and between a sheriff’s department and a state government, but the principle he espouses is a sound one, for all that.

In the aftermath of personnel cutbacks driven at least in part by recent changes in state law effected by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) and the Republican led state house, and against the backdrop of a personal animus felt toward him by the city of Milwaukee’s Mayor, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr has some advice for those he’s sworn to serve and protect.

I need you in the game.
…
With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option.  You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back.
…
Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there.
…
You have a duty to protect yourself and your family.  We’re partners now.

The only disagreement I have with him is in that last bit: “We’re partners now.”  In fact, we’ve always been partners with our sheriffs and police, and with all of our first responders.  The duty of which he speaks is older than the concept of government—it’s at the foundation of any social compact: we come together to form a government to help us satisfy our duty of protection.  But that duty to do so existed prior in order to be the motive.

This cop is taking a lot of heat, all of it unfairly because he’s simply stating a truth.

When the bad man comes, and seconds count, the police will be only minutes away.
-Neptunus Lex

Collective Action

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While the failed trick itself is interesting, what’s relevant here is the interesting event at around 1:00 in the video.

See the folks acting collectively and on their own initiative, without need of government…help…to intervene in the incident to disable the snowmobile to prevent it resuming its runaway journey and then to help the injured spectator.

Do we allow that anymore?  Where was the government?

On Being More Like Europe

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Or at least more like British Europe.  Here is one area in which we could learn and from which we would profit by copying.

The Telegraph had this last weekend.  From their brief article about Great Britain’s Immigration Exam, their citizenship test, it’s clear that the Brits are going back to expecting prospective citizens to know what it is that is British culture and going away from politically correct froo-froo.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has torn up the 2007 edition’s section on New Labour, swept away guides to immigrants’ rights and put a new focus on what it means to be British.

The Life in the UK handbook, described by the Home Office as “essential reading” for migrants sitting the new test from March, will focus on British values, culture and history, as well as the success of Olympic heroes at London 2012.

Out go politically correct sections on how to complain about being arrested and “mundane information about water meters”, and in come “the events and people who have helped make Britain a great place to live”, ministers said.

Our schools would do well to make this adjustment, also.  (Take the sample test, too.  It’s fun.)