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…and why we desperately need competition and alternatives.
This from today’s Wall Street Journal (bless those WSJ editorial pages!) where the owner of an employment agency writes in to explain that there are “jobs going begging” because applicants lack extraordinarily basic skills that public schools have failed to inculcate.
Those “skills”? Well, it’s almost ridiculous to use that label, since they’re so fundamental to being a self-responsible, functioning adult…but here they are anyway:
What Democrats suggest they want is not possible. Equality of outcome is irreconcilable with the human condition. As long as there is private property someone will always have something more or something better than someone else. People are and always will be and come from different circumstances, they will think and behave differently. And all the things that make them who they are define the nature in which they will approach labor. And there can be no equality of labor.
Someone will always be better at the same task than someone else. They might be smarter, faster, stronger, more intellectuality agile, have a better eye, a steadier hand, they may try harder to please, or demonstrate some other acuity that separates them and their performance from others. And because you cannot mandate the outcome of labor, you can never regulate equality, except to limit it by force, to the lowest common denominator, where the best anyone is permitted to be is the weakest link in the chain. It is only in this manner that Government can affect an equality of outcome, by force.
To NHGOP Liberty & Freedom Delegates:
I am pleased to have publicly endorsed the proposed NHGOP platform, which I believe to be a document that very eloquently articulates our values as Republicans (particularly in the Statement of Principles portion). I applaud the members of the platform committee for their diligent work and I look forward to meeting with all of you on Saturday to adopt it as our next party platform.
That said, there are still amendments that I would like to see to this platform, and I have submitted those suggestions to members of the platform committee. I hope they will consider these friendly amendments, and I hope you will consider supporting them as well:
Thanks to Grok contributor Mike Rogers, wherever he may be today, for sending this around. I proudly post it in his name. (with a slight mod by me.)
Author Robert Keith Gray has written a book called ‘Presidential Perks gone Royal. In his book he points out that the amount of tax money spent on this First Family,I’ll call it the Obama Dynasty, has risen tremendously.
For perspective, last year, according to Gray, Britain spent 57.8 Million to keep up appearances for entire Royal Family. Americans spent 1.4 Billion on the Obama Presidency. (That’s just for one year.)
Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”
H/T To Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)
Not looking to give that “warm fuzzy feeling”, eh? (H/T: Business Insider)
And then we wonder why the heck the US is dropping in the Economic Freedom rankings (down to 18th – we used to be in the top five a short few years ago)? Could this attitude be one reason? Hillary took off the mask and went past “tax and spend”. Taking a page out of Moochella’s playbook (“sure – eat! But only what we want you to eat”), Hillary makes it rather clear when talking earlier this week at her husband’s Clinton Global Initiative – translation: “You get to keep only what we think you should have – because you aren’t spending it the way we want!” (a take off on “you didn’t build it”):
And one of the issues that I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country. (Laughter.) You know I’m out of American politics, but – (applause) – it is a fact that around the world, the elites of every country are making money. There are rich people everywhere. And yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries. They don’t invest in public schools, in public hospitals, in other kinds of development internally. And so it means for leaders telling powerful people things they don’t want to hear. It means being transparent about budgets and revenues and bringing corruption to light. And when that happens, we shouldn’t punish countries for uncovering corruption. We should reward them for doing so. And it means putting in place regulations designed to attract and protect investment.
Where do I start? There is certainly a move afoot to “harmonize” taxes all over the globe – countries with high taxes have been trying to force those with lower ones to raise them so as not to be at a disadvantage (sorta like on a union job when the “eager beaver” gets shut down for being too quick and good, thereby making all the others look bad). So if someone “of means” wishes to protect his assets from greedy politicians all too willing to spend other peoples’ money, there is no safe harbor.
But Hillary shows her Progressive roots – unless your money is spent on what SHE thinks is important, she is advocating taking it away by shaming others to do her dirty work (i.e., as in “don’t worry, they are like troublesome children that cannot share. Like kindergarten children, we who are better will teach them that you can take it without feeling guilty to share”). After all, those rich folks are screwing everyone else ought of what they need!
I confess I am surprised. The New Hampshire Attorney General will appeal the decision earlier this week, that would have suspended the new voter registration requirements for Domicile to vote in New Hampshire.
One quick note: The articel suggests that the ruling had no affect on the Voter ID law, but I would take issue with that. On paper the ID law is not affected, but if domicile does not matter, then Voter ID does not do everything it is intended to do. The point of Voter ID is to ensure that the person voting is the person they claim to be; a legal, eligible voter, and state resident of the precinct in which they are voting. If it makes no difference where you are from, then all the ID law does is affirm that the out of state voter stealing New Hampshire votes is who they say they are. I have called it a blow to Voter ID law because I believe it is. And I’m not alone.
To quote Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who apparently supports the Domicile law as passed…
“You can be a resident of many places but with domicile, you are establishing one unique place as your home to the exclusion of all others,” Gardner said. “If you establish domicile here, it means something, it means you have certain rights and responsibilities.”
Steve has done good work in covering the fiasco-in-progress (here and here), so I have just a bit to add to the story: One government official tried to put the blame on the students. “One thing I think we need to keep in mind as kids say they’re still hungry is that many children aren’t … Read more
Advice from a 90 year old wise guy. Read them – and yes, very wise advice. This one is my favorite: 41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need. This one is great advice for all – but certainly for a certain Progressive over at … Read more
Glen Reynolds of Instapundit (emphasis mine): DOES THE U.S. “OVERVALUE” FREE SPEECH? No, I think we undervalue kicking the ass of people who oppose it. Indeed – the response of our President, our Secretary of State, and the others in the Obama Administration (and the Democrat Operatives with bylines in the MSM) have been on … Read more
Domicile, Domicile, where for art thou Domicile? Or perhaps, ” A transient Domicile by any other name would be as….whatever.” If you are an out of state college student where you live doesn’t matter, so where you vote does not matter either, and when I say doesn’t matter, I mean it doesn’t matter where in New Hampshire.
Case in point. The ACLU and League of Women Voters petition, the one that Judge John Lewis more or less just signed off on in the blink of an eye, lists the first petitioner as Hannah Rivers. On the petition she lists her ‘residence’ as Durham New Hampshire. But she hails from Raymond Nebraska, has a drivers license issued by the state of Nebraska and, presumably, wants to vote in Durham in November.
Question: So can out of state students just pick and choose which towns or cities they can vote in, based–presumably–on wherever the Democrat party or their liberal professors, need a ballot box stuffed?
[Update: Edited to affect the relevance of my source information and my source.]
[Update: Yes, Virgina, Democrat donor Cindy Lewis, IS Judge Lewis’ wife. I wonder what other left wing connections we will find if we keep looking?]
Judge John ‘The Fixer” Lewis threw the State constitution under the bus when he announced Monday that, ‘Hell yeah out of state students with no plans to remain in New Hampshire can and should vote here…even on amendments to the New Hampshire State Constitution.
Nothing quite like a judge who is probably sworn to protect it, doing their part to make sure anyone from anywhere gets to vote on what goes in it.
In the interest of public disclosure, seeing as this particular judge from Durham, very promptly decided the matter in the favor of left leaning advocacy groups representing a traditionally Democrat voting block, wishing to exert outside influence on local elections, I went looking for some campaign donation history on the Lewis family.
If Cindy Lewis of Durham NH is Judge Lewis’ wife, well we’ve got something to talk about.
Grokster Steve reports about NH Dems and a fascination with baseball bats. We all know about how much NH Dems wish to redistribute other peoples’ private property (rich, middle-class, no matter as it all belongs to us Progressive anyways) to feel that they have forced others to participate in their Utopian ideas of a perfect … Read more
One of the great things about my chosen home of New Hampshire—like a majority of people in the state, it’s not where I grew up—is the extraordinary number of friends and people I get to visit and talk to (thank you RLCNH and GraniteGrok.com and NH GOP).
One such conversation recently was a true eye-opener. Scary even….
False Left Wing Tolerance Narrative Alert! (Yes, I see Skip posted this below…) A Democrat candidate for congress (Ann McLane Kuster), at an out-door public event (Joe Biden speech), grabs a camera away from a tracker who is trying to ask her a question, refuses to give it back, and then swears at him. Signs … Read more
I’m thinking that I may just have to vote Democrat in the upcoming election.
There are many reasons why.
Here are some of them….
1. I may vote Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene…
Strafford County New Hampshire Superior Court Judge John M. Lewis has struck down a requirement that out of state students declare domicile in New Hampshire if they want to vote here and in the process has undercut the purpose of voter ID–to ensure that people who vote on local issues and who elect representatives who … Read more
S.3307 (2010) is the legislation that empowered the Feds to regulate local school lunches. It is the regulation that is driving up the cost of school lunches by law because the law demands parity of price regardless of cost. It is the law that limits the number of calories and other nutritional elements to a national standard, regardless of a student’s size or activity level. It is the law that limits menu choices to those defined by the central government, choices kids are rejecting in large numbers, resulting in food being wasted. (Food that costs more because of the law.)
Kids are hungry. High School Athletes are under-nourished. They don’t like or want the food being forced on them. Black markets are forming to fill the need. And food is being wasted.
Let’s face it, Hungry kids do not make good students. This law is a turd sandwich.
So who among the New Hampshire Delegation voted for this crappy central planning nightmare? How about all of them.