It’s as if regressives never heard of Bastiat

broken_window‘Mass Destruction of Capital’ as a Liberal Economic Panacea

The United States was a manufacturing powerhouse during that era [1945-1973], the other great making nations — Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan — having been bombed to smithereens and their work forces literally (literally, Mr. Vice President!) decimated in some cases. The numbers are horrifying: 9 million dead Germans, 3 million dead Japanese, more than 20 million dead Soviets. There were only — “only” — a half million dead Britons, but the country’s industrial infrastructure was ruined. Without failing to appreciate the sacrifice of those who gave their lives, the position of the United States — its cities unscathed, its dead amounting to less than three-tenths of 1 percent of the population — was enviable.

One can look back at the immediate postwar era and cherry-pick whatever policy one likes, crediting it with the generally satisfactory state of affairs in those years: the relatively high tax rates and strong unions of the Eisenhower years if you’re a progressive, the relatively small public-sector footprint and stable families if you’re a conservative. The desire to return to that state of affairs is alluring for some. Writing in Salon this week, Conor Lynch is positively wistful: “The mass destruction of capital around the world created a much more even playing field than before, while also placing the United States at the forefront of the world economy.”

“Destruction of capital” is a cute way of describing the slaughter of some 80 million people and the burning of their cities. There were good policy decisions and bad policy decisions in the postwar era, but the fundamental fact of economic life on this planet during that time was that humanity was rebuilding after the single worst event in its history, a conflagration that killed more people than the Mongol conquests and the Chinese civil war combined.

When our old friend Frédéric Bastiat described the broken-window fallacy — the nonsensical belief that we can make ourselves richer by destroying wealth and thereby providing ourselves with the opportunity to replace it — he could not have imagined how many windows would be broken less than a century later. American involvement in that war was necessary, but it did not make us any better off in real terms, despite the persistent myth that the war led us out of the Depression.

“First Amendment? Never heard of it.”

The week that cable news failed free expression

“There’s no justification for violence. But…”

“I’m a First Amendment absolutist. But…”

“You have every right to do what you did. But…”

Though perhaps not verbatim, those are the sentiments that have spilled from cable airwaves — and, for that matter, non-cable airwaves — in the days since Sunday’s violent incident in Garland, Texas. Two gunmen were shot dead by a police officer as they attempted to mount a terrorist attack on a “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest — an event whose by-product is offensive to many Muslims. The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for targeting the contest, which was organized by Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI).

Authorities are investigating ISIS’s claim of responsibility; they’re checking the electronic communication histories of the attackers, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi; the White House has called the episode an “attempted terrorist attack.”

And who’s being treated as the public enemy on cable? The woman who organized a cartoon contest.

Getting what they voted for, good and hard

Picture0003Obama Administration: Times Square Must Remove Iconic Billboards

You can call it a bureaucratic blunder … or a Washington blooper.

But any way you slice it a move by the federal government to make the city remove Times Square’s iconic billboards falls in the category of “whose bright idea is this?”

It is known as the “Crossroads of the World,” the “Center of the Universe” and “the Great White Way,” but Times Square could become like the “Black Hole of Calcutta” if the federal government has its way, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Tuesday.

The feds say many of Times Square’s huge and neon-lit billboards must come down or the city will lose about $90 million in federal highway money.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Want to get away with cheating on your taxes?  Just go to work for the IRS:

IRS gave promotions to tax cheaters

The IRS refused to fire most of its own employees found to be cheating on their taxes — and in some cases even quickly turned around and promoted them within the year, according to an audit released Wednesday.

In about 60 percent of cases of “willful violations,” IRS managers found mitigating circumstances and refused to fire the employees, even though the law calls for that penalty. In some of those cases, the managers didn’t even document why they had overridden the penalty, said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.

IRS Scandal: “I was targeted and I’ve got proof it was a Democratically-led conspiracy”

Onetime Libertarian vice-presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root has the goods:

IRS Scandal: I was targeted and I’ve got proof it was a Democratically-led conspiracy

I was targeted by the IRS in a coordinated attack at the highest levels of government…and we now have the proof.

My IRS files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, clearly implicate the IRS and a Democratic U.S. senator.

Per Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch:

“The Obama IRS obstructed the release of Wayne Root’s tax documents. The abuse of process Judicial Watch and Wayne suffered through to get these documents is scandalous. Now we know why the Obama IRS was hesitant to give Wayne his own IRS files. These documents show the Obama IRS scandal was more than just suppressing the Tea Party, it was also about auditing critics of President Obama. Richard Nixon had to resign from office for less. The first order of business for AG Loretta Lynch should be to appoint a special counsel who can convene a grand jury to look into the Obama IRS outrages.”

As you’ll read below, the fingerprints of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party are all over my case. Until now, no one could prove the IRS was using politics as a basis for vicious attacks against critics of the president. That just changed.

I was audited in 2011, and it started in a way that government officials and IRS spokesmen claimed in a recent Wall Street Journal article can never happen — with a phone call.

Read the rest. Nixon was hounded out of the White House for far less. Impeach and imprison those responsible for these abuses, and abolish the IRS so that this can’t happen again.

Extreme secrecy eroding support for 0bama’s trade pact

Most transparent administration evar.  It’s like 404Care all over again, where they’ll have to pass it before we can see what’s in it:

Extreme secrecy eroding support for Obama’s trade pact

If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door.

If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving.

And no matter what, you can’t discuss the details of what you’ve read.

“It’s like being in kindergarten,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who’s become the leader of the opposition to President Barack Obama’s trade agenda. “You give back the toys at the end.”

For those out to sink Obama’s free trade push, highlighting the lack of public information is becoming central to their opposition strategy: The White House isn’t even telling Congress what it’s asking for, they say, or what it’s already promised foreign governments.

This is getting ominous

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First, it was Leonard Nimoy.  Now comes word that Grace Lee Whitney has passed.  That’s two this year, and not that far apart…here’s hoping there won’t be a third:

Grace Lee Whitney, Yeoman Rand on ‘Star Trek,’ dead at 85

Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Janice Rand in the original “Star Trek” series and a handful of movies based on the series, died Friday at her home in Coarsegold, California. She was 85.

[…]

On the official “Star Trek” website, startrek.com, Whitney was described as “one of ‘Star Trek’s’ greatest cautionary tales and also one of the franchise’s most satisfying renaissance stories.” She was written out of the show in its first season and struggled with alcohol and drug problems before finding recovery, reprising the Rand role in the “Star Trek” films and devoting her life to helping others.