The round-up is fairly longish today, since we didn’t have anything up yesterday.
Our Own Greek Tragedy, by Mark Steyn.
“The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate.”
If you haven’t Steyn’s book America Alone, what are you waiting for?
*The megalomania of Al Gore was on display this weekend at the NYT. A sample:
“Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.
From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.”
Ugh.
RELATED: The Naked Progressive, by Darleen Click.
“Again, like Rule of Law, redemption for the Progressive is a top-down, collective set of behavioral rules. Progressives would have Americans believe that the religious community, with no power but voluntary persuasion, is oppressive and should be abandoned, even legislated against. But the Progressive would have Government step into the void and enact behavioral rules through law, enforced by guns.”
*If you can’t win, change the rules.
*Obama Fatigue, by Victor Davis Hanson.
*Frank Rich: An Embarrassment to the New York Times, by Rod Radosh.
*Challenges of the Two Bill Strategy, by Keith Hennessy. It’s a lengthy post, but well worth the read.
*Congress Tries to Break Hawaii in Two, by Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow.
“First, the Akaka bill privileges what is in fact a race, not a tribe. The very act of transforming a racial group into a tribal group confers a privilege on one race and not others and is thus unconstitutional. Second, while the Constitution implicitly gives the federal government the power to recognize tribes with a long and continuous history of separate self-governance, it does not give the power to confer sovereignty on new tribes, or to reconstitute a tribe whose members have long since become part of the mainstream culture.
If it did, all manner of mischief could be accomplished, as ethnic Hawaiians will not be the last group to demand special status. Some activists argue that Southern California should be set aside as a homeland for Mexican Americans of Indian descent. Right now, that idea looks like pure fantasy. If the Akaka bill becomes law, it will suddenly become more plausible.”
