Category: General
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Personal Independence
I have been wanting to talk about the meaning of personal or individual independence for a while, especially in light of recent discussions – that was even before I got this comment from Charles that captured the debate in a nutshell: If you are a collection of random individuals each committed to making your own…
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The Health Care Issue as a Catalyst for Debate
photo credit: the queen of subtle When I saw that Jim DeMint had written an article titled Our Health Care Mess Is a Symptom of a Much Bigger Problem my interest was piqued partly because I like DeMint as a senator and partly because I had just been saying the same thing in a series…
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Too Rich to Go Bankrupt
photo credit: Stowe Boyd By “too rich to go bankrupt” I don’t mean someone so rich that they never will go bankrupt. What I mean by that is someone so rich that them going bankrupt would destabilize our economy and thus they deserve a bailout if bankruptcy ever threatens them. (Think Bill Gates plus Warren…
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2074 Pages of Loopholes
With Thanksgiving weekend behind us all politically interested people can look forward to the Senate opening work on the healthcare bill. According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: . . . senators {will} work on weekends if necessary to hammer out compromises on thorny issues like a government-run insurance plan, abortion coverage and holding down…
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Of Big Tents and Purity
It’s a busy holiday time so I’ll spend more time quoting and less time expounding. Back in May, Jim DeMint expressed the very opinion I still hold about How Republicans Can Build a Big-Tent Party by holding to one key principle: There is a question Republicans do need to ask: What is it that binds…
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Stretching Our TARP
photo credit: wolfheadfilms When the TARP bill was first being discussed I made a statement that I would like to repeat about the TARP money: [T]his should not be used as a windfall by Congress to fund some pet projects. We have come to the point now where Congress is faced with the question of…
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Phony Federalism
photo credit: estherase Gene Healy wrote about what he called Obama’s phony federalism but what he was really talking about was a relatively universal perspective on federalism: Not yet a year into his administration, Obama’s record on 10th Amendment issues is already clear: He’ll let the states have their way when their policies please blue…
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Legislator as Advocate
Many times during campaigns for legislative offices voters and candidates alike portray officeholders as leaders. I think this is a mistake. A more accurate portrayal would be of officeholders as advocates. Their job is one where they speak out for positions and principles, but it is not possible for a legislature to be made up…
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Legislator as Negotiator
Politics is the art of the possible. So said Otto Von Bismarck in 1867 and he was surely right. One of the challenges for an idealist is that compromise is a necessary and appropriate component of the political process. It happens within parties and it happens within legislative bodies. In both cases compromise is necessary…
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Frying a Red Herring
I wonder if our country would be in better shape if we spent more energy in a war on bad arguments rather than a war on terror (or poverty, or drugs, . . . or prosperity). Just a thought. As an example, we see the often repeated argument by abortion advocates that it is hypocritical…