POLITICAL UPDATE--Environmentalism

This update focuses on environmentalism. Congress recently passed an energy bill that will increase gas prices, regulations, and car crashes. Liberals continue to perpetuate the global warming myth. Al Gore won an Oscar for his fraudulent documentary. More critics of the global warming myth are speaking out.

John Lott: The High Cost of Higher MPG restrictions
Michael Economides: Biofuels Balderdash
Terry Easton: Moving Deck Chairs on the Titanic
Bob Unruh: Hundreds of scientists reject global warming
James Inhofe: Climate Bill Will Devastate American Families and Jobs
Chris Horner: A Cry for Help, Wanted
Deroy Murdock: Al Gore, Global Warming and Convenient Untruths
John Stossel: The Free Market Does It Better
Mac Johnson: Excess Environmentalists -- The Greatest Threat to Planet Earth
Dennis Behreandt: The Economics of Climate Change
Chris Horner: Algore’s Nobel Prize for Globaloney

POLITICAL UPDATES are archived here.

Understanding Government

The institution of government is central to politics. Its nature, actions, and structure must be understood to make wise political decisions.

THE BASICS OF GOVERNMENT

Force
Government is an organization that has a near monopoly on the use of force in a given geographical region. All of government's actions are fundamentally based on the use or threat of violence.

Responsibility
Private actors bear responsibility for their actions, while government employees do not. Thus the free market consistently outperforms government.

THE ACTIVITIES OF GOVERNMENT

Democide
Democide is government murder of civilians. Government murdered 262 million people in the twentieth century.

War
War is a government program that killed 36 million in the twentieth century. Militarys are needed to defend against aggression.

Taxes
Taxation takes people's money by force. It misallocates resources and creates perverse incentives that make people poorer.

Spending
Government spends money on redistribution, socialism, bureaucracy, and waste. Spending and taxation are two sides of the same coin.

Redistribution
Redistribution is based on theft. It creates perverse incentives that discourage production by all concerned. It can be used by the rich to steal from the poor and it greatly empowers government. Unchecked, it will lead to bankruptcy and economic ruin.

Debt
Democratic governments are likely to accumulate large debts. Unchecked, this will lead to bankruptcy and economic collapse.

Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy is an inevitable feature of government. It is subject to perverse incentives, government employee unions, and red tape. The free market is more efficient.

Regulation
Regulations are a form of taxation and spending. They are promoted to increase safety, but they often have unintended consequences that cause great harm.

Law and Order
Laws, police, and courts are necessary to protect society from criminals. Civil liberties and the rule of law are necessary to constrain their power.

Immigration
Immigration can violate the property rights of taxpayers. It can also hurt society at large. Immigration that is allowed should benefit society.

THE STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT

Democracy
Democratic elections in a republic can help to limit government power, but democracy cannot solve the fundamental problems of government. Much support for democracy is based on a flawed ideology.

Decentralization
Decentralization leads to less government coercion and more satisfaction of people's political desires. It leads to better policies through more political competition. It reduces the danger that a faction could seize power.

Limited Government
It is virtually impossible to have no government, so the best protection of liberty is limited government. There does not appear to be any foolproof mechanism to protect limited government. However, various procedural mechanisms can help to protect liberty.

CONCLUSION

Conclusion
Government is destructive in many ways. The cost of government is very high. There are different theories about the moral justification of government. Support for government stems from personal gain, ideology, propaganda, and misunderstanding.

Cox Versus Illegals

Good for Mike Cox. From AP:

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Cox: Illegal immigrants can't get Michigan driver's license

LANSING -- Michigan's attorney general says illegal immigrants can no longer get a state driver's license.

Mike Cox's legal opinion overrules an opinion written in 1995 by former Attorney General Frank Kelley.

Michigan is one of a handful of states in which illegal immigrants have been able to get driver's licenses.

But Cox says people who aren't lawfully in the U.S. can't be residents of Michigan for the purposes of obtaining a driver's license.

The opinion released Thursday may bolster efforts to create a new Michigan driver's license and state identification card.

Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land has proposed a plan under which only those who are Michigan residents and legally in the U.S. would be able to get the new standard license.

That Awful Energy Bill

Congress recently passed, and the President signed, a terrible energy bill.

The fundamental flawed premise behind the bill is that we need to use less energy. But our standard of living requires energy use. Thus using less energy means increasing poverty.

The bill is full of regulations that increase conservation, or increase efficiency. One will effectively ban traditional light bulbs. This looks like a boondoggle in the making.

The bill mandates more ethanol use. This will increase oil usage, as oil is required for farm equipment, fertilizer, and other parts of the process of making ethanol. It will decrease fuel efficiency, as ethanol is less efficient than gasoline. It will of course increase corn prices. It will also increase prices for most other types of food, since many animals eat corn, and demand for farm land will increase.

The bill also mandates use of cellulosic biofuels, despite the fact that they don't exist.

Last and worst is the mandate to increase fuel efficiency. John Lott confirms what I wrote earlier--that this will kill thousands of drivers by forcing them into smaller, more dangerous cars. It also won't do much to reduce gas consumption, since decreasing demand reduces price, which increases demand. In other words, people will drive more. This will also hurt Detroit automakers and their employees, as they make more SUVs than their foreign competitors.

A positive energy bill would eliminate government regulations and allow the free market to function. This would encourage more oil drilling and nuclear energy production in America, decreasing prices and increasing energy independence.

Previous:
Alternative Energy Inanity
Gouging by Government

Freedomnomics

Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't is a good book of applied economics released recently. Its author is John Lott, an economist perhaps best known as the author of More Guns, Less Crime, a ground-breaking study of concealed carry laws.

Freedomnomics is partially a response to the bestselling book Freakonomics, which takes a more positive view of government regulations. Lott's book refutes several errors of this book.

The most interesting conclusions of the book have been ably summarized in this review by Ann Coulter, which leaves little to add.

Lott also destroys the myth of private monopolies maintaining their positions by selling below cost of production.

Freedomnomics is both easily readable and valuable.

Mike Huckabee Update

Here is some worthwhile reading on Mike Huckabee. His candidate profile has been updated.

UPDATE: A few more:
Club for Growth Releases Updated Huckabee White Paper
Liberals Sing ‘Huckelujah’
Huckabee: Too Soft-on-Illegals

Christians Need To Beware Of Mike Huckabee
More Reasons To Beware Of Mike Huckabee
There’s a Huckabee Born Every Minute
The Unfair Rap Against Mike Huckabee
Huckabee's Baptists
Huckabee: Holy Man and Heretic

Evidence That Demands a Verdict

On Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This is not just a nice story, it is a revolutionary event in human history. It led to the resurrection, which made possible salvation for our sins.

Many people consider Christianity to be unsubstantiated myth or personal preference unrelated to reality. But this is wrong. Christianity is based on real, historical events. Examining and defending the faith is called apologetics.

One excellent work of apologetics is the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. McDowell was an atheist who examined the facts behind Christianity. He discovered that Christianity is true, and this led him to become an evangelist.

Evidence is a long detailed book. It can be tough reading, but it contains much valuable material. It is organized so that it can be used as a reference book.

Evidence makes the case for the Bible. It compellingly shows that the Bible is a unique book in world history. It explains how the Bible was obtained. It demonstrates that the Old and New Testaments are historically reliable. The myth that they were substantially changed through generations of copying is shattered.

In particular, the New Testament dates back to within a generation of the events it describes. Thousands of ancient copies exist, all of which are essentially the same. The New Testament is by far the best documented ancient book.

The Old Testament is also reliable. The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm its accuracy, along with the incredibly elaborate copying process used to preserve it. Numerous archaeological discoveries help to confirm both Testaments.

Evidence presents the case for Jesus. It examines the historical evidence concerning the life of Jesus from sources outside the Bible. It discusses His unique character, and the possible explanations for His life--liar, lunatic, or Lord.

McDowell examines the hundreds of Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. These prophecies include His lineage, birthplace, life, death, resurrection, and even the year of His birth! All of these prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus. It is mathematically impossible for these prophecies to have been fulfilled by chance or human intention.

Evidence examines the evidence for the resurrection. It explains its importance and documents the predictions by Jesus of His resurrection. It examines the evidence contained in sources outside the Bible. It examines in detail the events immediately before and after the resurrection, including Jesus' crucifixion, death, burial, empty tomb, and appearances afterward.

So-called theories such as the stolen body and swoon are debunked and shown to be utterly incompatible with the facts. The Disciples, who saw what happened and had everything to lose by being wrong, all were killed or tortured proclaiming the truth of the resurrection.

An examination of the evidence demonstrates the truth of Christianity. Christianity is not myth or superstition, and need not be based on blind faith or personal preference.

This issue is of the utmost importance. Literally everything is at stake. The evidence does demand a verdict. Non-Christians should carefully consider the beliefs of roughly two billion people worldwide. Christians should examine the evidence to deepen their faith, refute skeptics, and witness to others. Both will be aided by Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

Understanding Government: Immigration

Most any nation will face the situation of people who want to enter its territory. It will need some sort of policy towards immigration.

To understand the government's role in immigration, it is helpful to first consider the situation without government. How does immigration work in the case of private property? Quite simply, it is occurs only if the property owner wants it. Having property rights means having the right to allow and restrict the use of the property to whatever people the owner chooses. If someone other than the owner attempts to use the property, the owner can prevent him from doing so.

Since the owner can choose whom to allow onto his property, he will naturally tend to allow those who best comport with his own interests. That is, they will usually be people that he likes and gets along with, or those who advance his economic prosperity.

But what about government-owned property? Government did not get its property from nowhere. Its property has been purchased, maintained, and improved using money taken from taxpayers. Whether or not this taxation is legitimate, it is the taxpayers who have a legitimate claim to the use of this property, since it is their money that has been used to pay for it.

Thus the taxpayers can decide how to use this property, and who to allow or not allow on it. They can decide this through the democratic process. While this is a far from perfect means of making decisions, it is the best available as long as the property is owned by the government.

The supposition that everyone has a right to use government-owned property is wrong. If a policy of unrestricted use of government property is adopted, then everyone will receive a benefit that only some people will pay for. Thus adopting this policy will increase the costs to taxpayers for maintenance while limiting their ability to use what they have paid for.

This means that adopting a policy of "open borders", allowing unrestricted access to government-owned roads, parks, and forests, would not increase freedom. Rather, it would decrease freedom and increase the exploitation of taxpayers.

The costs to taxpayers are exacerbated even further if a country has welfare programs that are not restricted to citizens. These can include public schools, emergency medical care, police services, and other government benefits. Providing these services to non-citizens will encourage immigration, whether legal or illegal, and costs taxpayers even more money. While eliminating such incentives may be ideal, but limiting immigration may still be the best policy to protect freedom in the mean time.

Immigration also has costs for a society. Immigrants may commit crimes at different rates than citizens of a country. The may cause car crashes at different rates than citizens. They may unintentionally bring diseases that are common in their homelands, but uncommon elsewhere. Some proportion of them may engage in terrorism or promote radical ideologies. All of these costs are not borne by those who promote immigration, but are borne by all of society.

Immigration can also cause cultural conflict. People from significantly different cultures will tend to distrust each other. This can easily lead to strife. Also, it will often lead to political conflict, with different groups seeking government benefits and advantages over others.

Emigration, or leaving a country, is also often not a product of the free market. Why would someone leave behind family, country, and everything familiar and move to a foreign land? Usually, it is extreme poverty, hunger, and lack of freedom. But these would not exist in the modern world without oppressive government. Thus immigration depends not only on the government policies of the country receiving immigrants, but on the government policies of foreign countries as well.

Some governments may actively encourage emigration to get rid of politically troublesome or economically unproductive subjects. Others may encourage subjects to settle in other countries to obtain greater influence over their politics, as Russia did in eastern Europe, and Mexico is doing in America.

Taking in these immigrants relieves political dissent and economic pressures in those foreign countries. It thus discourages political reforms that would allow prosperity in these countries. A loose immigration policy can be seen as a subsidy to corrupt foreign governments.

Any country is defined by some geographical region with borders. For the reasons given above, a country must be able to defend its borders and stop unauthorized people from using private and government property. This might require guards, fences, or other such measures.

This does not mean that all immigration is bad. Some immigration can be beneficial. But how should a society decide which immigrants to admit and which to reject?

Just as private individuals will admit those they like, society should admit those who are culturally similar, who can assimilate easily or those who have desirable cultural traits. Thus a good immigration policy would favor those who speak the native language, understand society, and hold similar values.

Just as private individuals admit those who benefit them economically, society should admit those who are educated, have a good work ethic, and will start businesses. However, admitting low-skilled workers will only benefit some while hurting many others.

Some immigrants will enter or stay in a society illegally. For all the reasons above, they must be deported to their home countries. Enforcing immigration laws will create a disincentive to breaking them. If there are many illegal aliens in a country, enforcing the law and deporting a few will encourage many more to leave on their own.

Because people differ, immigration can be both beneficial and harmful. Some levels may be beneficial and others harmful. A nation's immigration policy should protect the property rights of taxpayers and admit only those who benefit society.

College Communists

Education Reporter has an article on the political beliefs of college professors. Perhaps the most interesting finding: "17.6% of social sciences professors declared a Marxist political identity". Read it all.

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44% of professors who responded to the survey classified themselves as liberal, 46% as moderate, and 9% as conservative. The study's authors, Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, were surprised to find so many moderate professors, but other academics attending the presentation disagreed with their conclusions. Much of the conservatism and moderation in higher education cropped up in certain subcategories: the health science professions, for example, and community colleges and non-elite universities.

At community colleges, 37% of professors identified themselves as liberal, 44% as moderate, and 19% as conservative. Professors at liberal arts colleges were most likely to identify themselves as liberal: 61% were liberal, and just 4% conservative. Elite Ph.D.-granting institutions were fairly close behind, with 57% liberal, 33% moderate and 10% conservative.

Business and health sciences professors helped to boost the representation of moderate and conservative views at both elite and non-elite Ph.D.-granting universities, compared to liberal arts colleges. 20.5% of health sciences professors are liberal, 20.5% are conservative, and 59% are moderate. Business professors are another less liberal group, with 24.5% conservative, 54% moderate, and 21.5% liberal.

Predictably, humanities and social sciences professors were most likely to lean left. 17.6% of social sciences professors declared a Marxist political identity. Marxism also claimed 5% support in the humanities, and negligible support in other disciplines. 88% of social sciences professors voted for John Kerry in 2004, and 84% of humanities professors. Half of the social sciences professors who did not vote for Kerry voted for non-mainstream candidates, leaving the Republican Party with just 6% of their vote. Only health sciences professors supported Bush in 2004, by a narrow margin of 52% of votes for Bush and 48% for Kerry. Overall, 78% of academics voted for Kerry.

POLITICAL UPDATE--Immigration

This update focuses on immigration. There have been important developments in the case of Ramos and Compean. Liberals continue to promote amnesty, and the government refuses to enforce the law.

Joe Guzzardi: 2007 In Review: Immigration Patriots Demolish Treason Lobby “Sewer Rats”
Michelle Malkin: The Incredible Disappearing Border Fence
Michelle Malkin: Meet the GOP's Border Control Cross-Dressers
Phyllis Schlafly: To Assimilate Or Not To Assimilate; That's The Question
Mac Johnson: Criminal Aliens Not Sent Home
Jerome Corsi: Feds admit smuggler lied in Ramos-Compean case
Ron Paul: On Illegal Immigration and Border Security
Jim Boulet: The Salvation Army or the Hispanic Caucus?
Ann Coulter: NYT: An Undocumented Newspaper
Ann Coulter: NYT: Suicide Manual for Dems
Jerome Corsi: Arrest prompts call for release of Ramos, Compean

For more on immigration, see VDARE.com.

Not Cool

If you want to make friends and win clients, sending their private emails to the newspaper isn't a good idea.

From the Gazette:

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If Jack runs for Senate, it will be on the cheap

Dick DeVos spent millions of dollars of his own money, outspent his opponent, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and still lost the governor's race in a landslide last year.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been far outspending opponent Mike Huckabee in advance of the Iowa caucuses, and guess what: Huckabee is leading Romney.

None of this is lost on Jack Hoogendyk, the Republican state representative who is considering seeking the GOP nomination to run against U.S. Sen. Carl Levin next year.

So when a conservative political consulting firm, Maurice Bonamigo and Associates, earlier this week made a pitch to Hoogendyk, offering its services to his campaign, it explained via e-mail how he would need to go out of state to raise enough money to challenge Levin, get on the top national political programs and gather a "strong management team that will be capable of handling ALL aspects necessary for a successful campaign.''

Hoogendyk, true to his direct nature, responded in an e-mail: "I have NO interest in a bunch of high-paid consultants who are going to drain me of valuable and limited resources. I don't want a bunch of `experts' telling me what to say, how to say it, or when to say it. ... I will not be `handled.' ... I am Dutch, cheap, and my wife is even cheaper. I cannot stand wasting money, especially on high-priced out-of-towners who think they can snow me into thinking they are going to make me a winner by throwing my money away.''

You'd think Bonamigo -- who is listed as having a home in Portage and told the Kalamazoo Gazette that he is a constituent of Hoogendyk's -- would be aware of the state rep's blunt nature, but apparently he was a little taken aback by Hoogendyk's response.

Bonamigo senior political consultant Darrel Zeck blasted off this response to Hoogendyk via e-mail: "Since it would take about $20 million for you to have a CHANCE at unseating Levin, I would step away before you waste people's hard-earned money. Based on your lack of understanding of this process, and your complete inability to professionally respond to an e-mail, you may want to consider not running (again) for public office at all.''

Hoogendyk is undeterred by this welcome into statewide campaigning.

And he's adamant he won't go into debt for this campaign.

"It's a reflection on the candidate,'' he said. "If a candidate goes into debt on his campaign, what is he going to do'' with taxpayers' money once in office?

Tancredo Drops Out

Congressman Tom Tancredo has dropped out of the presidential race.

This isn't a big surprise, as his campaign didn't do very well. This is too bad, because of all the candidates, Tancredo's views are closest to those of Reagan. He is a conservative across the board. He has a lifetime 99% rating from the American Conservative Union. He is completely pro-life, pro-gun, and anti-tax. Unlike most of the contenders, he actually regularly votes against government spending bills. Also unlike many of the candidates, he is a staunch defender of American sovereignty against the United Nations and other global entities.

Of course, Tancredo is best known for his views on immigration. He has been relentless in pushing for enforcement of our immigration laws. He founded the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. He has unceasingly advocated the cause of immigration reform in the media. He deserves a big chunk of the credit for the defeat of amnesty in 2006 and 2007.

Tancredo visited Western Michigan University in 2005. He spoke to an audience of about 100 college Republicans. His speech was the best live political speech that I have ever heard. He covered immigration, western civilization, education, and CAFTA. It was a great event, and was not marred by the incredibly biased write-up in the Herald.

Unfortunately, Tancredo's campaign never really took off. Becoming an "electable" candidate requires raising a lot of money early in the race from large money donors. Tancredo's stance on immigration made him unpopular with many such people. Also, his campaign simply wasn't run that well.

Yet in a way it was a success. Tancredo had hinted that his main goal was to make immigration a major issue in the campaign and push the other candidates to the right. With the other candidates trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo" on immigration, as one article put it, this goal has been achieved.

Conservatives owe Tom Tancredo a debt of gratitude.

Michelle Malkin: Tom Tancredo’s exit

Understanding Government: Law and Order

Laws, law enforcement agencies, and courts are nearly universal features of government.

Every society is faced to some extent with the problem of people who violate the rights to life, liberty and property of others and who act so as to undermine order or public morality. If such threats are left unchecked, society will be weakened or even undermined. Thus any society needs some way of mitigating or eliminating these threats.

Crimes must be punished, whether with fines, imprisonment, or even execution. A basic principle of justice is that punishment should be proportional to the crime. When possible, criminals should be made to make restitution to their victims. Imprisonment prevents crimes from occurring by keeping criminals away from the public. Any punishment deters crimes from occurring by providing a disincentive to crime.

It appears that only government can provide law enforcement. This is because law enforcement is inherently coercive, while the free market depends on the absence of force. It appears inevitable that some entity will achieve a near monopoly on force in a given territory. It seems that the best that can be achieved is to limit its powers and try to make it serve the public as much as possible.

The power to coerce and imprison is dangerous, particularly in the hands of the government. Allowing the government to use punish whomever it wants is a recipe for tyranny. Thus there is a need for law. That is, there should be a set of rules that determine which behaviors will be punished and which will not. This will minimize lawbreaking, since people will better know what actions to avoid.

But government must also follow the law. Laws that criminalize actions after the fact, called ex post facto laws, can be used to punish individuals rather than protect society. Laws should be as clear as possible, so that people do not innocently fall afoul of them and they cannot be used to harass innocent people. Laws should apply to all people, not only some. In particular, laws should apply to the government, as well as its subjects. This is called the rule of law.

The rule of law promotes economic prosperity. Government takes money from people through taxation, and private criminals take money from people though theft. But if theft is systematized, then at least people can plan their actions. This greatly reduces risk, and allows greater economic growth. Thus government theft can be better than private theft, even when the government takes more. Even governments that don't care about their subjects have an incentive to promote the rule of law, since then there will be more production for them to tax.

Self-defense can prevent and deter many crimes. But it is not applicable in many cases. Given certain levels of population and crime, police are necessary to enforce laws. However, their powers must be constrained if they are to serve the public. In many foreign countries, police corruption is endemic. Even in America, police in New Orleans participated in illegal seizures of guns in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

If the government wants to punish someone, a court is necessary to determine innocence or guilt. The writ of habeas corpus requires that someone who has been arrested appear before a court. This stops the government from holding someone for an arbitrary length of time without charges. Civil liberties such as protection against unreasonable search and seizure, jury trials, presumption of innocence, protection against self-incrimination, protection against double jeopardy, and more help to protect the innocent from being falsely convicted.

The attitude that if people have nothing to hide, they should not worry about civil liberties reverses the proper attitude. It is the government that seeks the punish people. If the government has nothing to hide, it should not fear protecting civil liberties.

People should never assume that just because someone has been charged with a crime, "he must be guilty of something". There have been far too many cases of people charged with crimes who have been completely innocent. There are even cases in which the prosecutor knew this to be true.

Some judges seek to enforce their own conception of justice by bending or ignoring the law. This can occur in both criminal trials and "judicial review" of laws. But judges have no special competence in lawmaking. There is no reason to believe that their decisions are better than those of legislators. Even if a judge is right in a particular case, ignoring the law does great damage to the rule of law. Thus judicial activism can have very negative consequences.

Laws, police, and courts are necessary to protect society. But they can be dangerous as well. Civil liberties and the rule of law must be protected to minimize the danger.

Understanding Government: Debt

One of the more notable features of government is debt.

When some entity spends more than than it takes in, the result is a deficit. The sum of deficits and surpluses is debt.

Governments are more likely to accumulate debts than private entities. One reason for this is that the people who run the government are not using their own money. Thus they are less likely to act responsibly. Another reason is that government has the power to tax, so it can pay its debts by force.

Democracies are more likely to accumulate large debts than other governments. The reason for this is that in democracies, there is public pressure to redistribute money.

The "national debt" of the United States in 2007 was officially about 9 trillion dollars. However, this figure ignores the unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. With these figures included, the present value of the real national debt is approximately 59 trillion dollars. That's $59,000,000,000,000.

Because of the dynamic of concentrated and dispersed interests, spending on redistribution programs will tend to increase and increase. People who forbear from receiving redistributed money must still pay the same amount in taxes. Thus they have an incentive to organize and create programs that redistribute money to them, or increase spending on such existing programs.

Politicians will tend to create entitlement programs, which promise guaranteed benefits far into the future. This will only accelerate out-of-control spending. The demand for spending on redistribution programs will outstrip people's ability to pay. Cutting spending will be politically dangerous, and directly raising taxes by the amount needed would be unpopular and unfeasible.

Most likely, they will borrow money. Redistribution practically guarantees that a huge government debt will be incurred. But government can only borrow money as long as people are willing to lend it. When the supply of lenders drys up, the most likely course of action will be massive monetary inflation, as the effects of printing more money can less readily be traced to politicians than spending cuts or direct tax increases.

But massive inflation robs people of the value of their money and guarantees massive price increases. This in turn leads to a painful economic collapse. This is exactly what happened in the Wiemar Republic in the 1930s and other countries at other times. This is an extraordinarily painful way to learn the lesson that you can't get something for nothing.

As Kipling put it in The Gods of the Copybook Headings,

In the Carboniferous Epoch
we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter
to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money,
there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings
said: "If you don't work you die."

Government debt is dangerous to prosperity. Government should spend less and avoid accumulating debts.

Stossel Blogging

The GRCC Conservative has some thoughts on John Stossel's speech.

Democrats versus Christians

Michigan Democrats are promoting a plan called the Michigan Promise. It is based on the Kalamazoo Promise, but unlike the latter, it would be government funded.

The plan would give college scholarships to students who live in poor school districts. Bizarrely, the bill would give scholarships to both rich and poor students in poor districts, but it would not give scholarships to poor students in rich districts.

Even worse, the bill discriminates against charter, private, and home schools. It doesn't offer any scholarships to students of these schools. Thus it effectively discriminates against Christians, who often cannot attend public schools for religious reasons.

It also won't make college more affordable. The more government subsidizes college, the more that colleges can increase prices. This is why college costs so much.

This proposal won't help students, but it will help teacher unions, which is who democrats really care about.

CAFE Carnage

One great example of regulations with horrible unintended consequences is CAFE standards. Congress and the President recently agreed to increase them.

The stated goal of Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, to improve gas mileage, is laudable. But Congress cannot magically change the laws of Physics. They could pass a law requiring that all cars run on magic pixie dust, but that doesn't mean that it would happen.

So in the real world, what will be the effects of this law? Small vehicles have lower gas mileages than large vehicles. To meet the standards, automakers will have to sell relatively more small vehicles than large ones. To do this, they will have to raise the prices of large vehicles until many people cannot afford them.

This is what happened when these standards were first passed. This is why there are no large cars on the roads like there were in the 1950's and '60's, except for luxury cars. SUVs have become popular because they are considered trucks, and so are exempt from the standards.

The problem with small cars is that they are less safe than large cars. In fact, some studies suggest that more than a thousand people are killed in car crashes each year because of them. More people will die because of this agreement.

Government kills again.

Hating Christians

While the media obsesses over phony hate crimes against the left's favorite demographic groups, attacks against Christians are both real and deadly. Gary Bauer gives some examples.

As shocking as Murray’s repugnant acts were, even more shocking was the deep-seated hatred of Christians that seems to have motivated his actions. Between shooting sprees, Murray, who had been home-schooled in a highly religious family, made an online post explaining what drove him to commit his unspeakable crimes.

“…God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you…as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

If Murray’s anti-Christian animus seems familiar, it’s because it closely resembles that of a number of other recent mass murderers, including the Columbine High School shooters, the Virginia Tech shooter and even the monster who massacred five young Amish girls at the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania. The common denominator of anti-Christian bigotry is difficult to miss. But what’s more difficult to overlook is that the intense hatred of Christianity that often fuels these violent acts is the same hatred of Christianity so often cultivated and promoted in the media by America’s cultural Left.

There was also a spree of church-burnings in the South perpetrated by Atheists earlier this year.

Could the atheist rhetoric about Christians yearning to impose a theocracy and burn nonbelievers be having an effect? In one memorable incident this year, the opinion editor of the Western Herald blamed Christians for everything from the Holocaust to slavery. Should it be any surprise that someone who takes such rhetoric literally would commit murder? Of course, the perpetrators are responsible for their crimes. But the purveyors of anti-Christian rhetoric should think long and hard about what they are doing.

Jack's Number One!

Guess who's the most conservative member of the Michigan House of Representatives?

Deemed most conservative is Jack Hoogendyk, R-Portage, who cast one liberal vote in 29 roll calls. He missed one roll call.

Is Greed Good?

"Greed is Good!"

This was a good slogan to get people interested in John Stossel's recent speech. But three words are not enough to express complex ideas. So what ideas lie behind this catchy slogan?

This slogan was popularized by the 1987 movie Wall Street. But this movie was an attack on capitalism, which portrays a character advocating a distorted version of free market economics before committing white collar crimes.

The truth is that greed has good effects in the free market. It has good effects because in the free market, people who want more for themselves cannot rob, steal, or cheat. Thus they must convince people to give them money by providing them with valuable goods and services. Both sides benefit, since value is subjective and people value goods differently.

Greed has terrible effects in an unfree market. Specifically, government greed is destructive because government can take people's money by force. This greed can bankrupt a country.

Greed isn't good by itself. But greed will exist no matter what economic system a nation has. the free market is the system that best channels it to constructive purposes.