The people who have an explicit legal obligation to work not on our behalf but on behalf of their shareholders do a pretty good job of giving us what we want; the people who vow to work on our behalf do not. That is a paradox only if you do not think about it too … Read more

You really have to ask why Conservatives have guns? Because Liberals block freeways, burn cities, throw Molotov cocktails, loot, turn over cop cars, and think this behavior is Socially Acceptable. –unknown (memed by user “KeepnitReel” at Northwest Firearms) (H/T: Water Cooler)

[Jesse] Ausubel points out that even as farm output and overall population have increased, use of water in the United States has actually declined since 1970.  That change reflects greater efficiency in farming.  (Ask your friends who proudly “buy local” whether they know how much water their local farmers used compared with the distant farmers … Read more

Many individual fallacies in economics are founded on the larger, and usually implicit, fallacious assumption that economic transactions are a zero-sum process, in which what is gained by someone is lost by someone else. But voluntary economic transactions – whether between employer and employee, tenant and landlord, or international trade – would not continue to … Read more

(H/T: TMEW who saw it on Facebook; image from Reddit)

There are several fundamental concerns with the presumption of a wise, benevolent policy process. It treats the knowledge embedded in an economist’s simplified model as though it were complete knowledge. It ignores the ways that markets adapt to solve problems. And it presumes that when the political process goes to work on problems, it arrives … Read more

Could the reason the Left are so fearful of the resurgence of the Deplorables is because they expect us to treat them the way they had planned to treat us? I believe that is the case, something psychiatrists call projection. Too bad they don’t understand (or don’t care) that most of us just want to … Read more

To borrow from Skip, Shot: UNITY, N.H. (AP) – A historical society in a New Hampshire has preserved a collection of 19th century town voting records for future study. Chaser: Names that may also be on the November 2016 Checklist as same day voters who signed an affidavit, cast a vote, but can no longer … Read more

And so it goes. As windows were smashed, fires were set, and bystanders beaten, our progressive friends tut-tutted that the protests were “mostly peaceful.” “Mostly peaceful” is another way of saying, “Peaceful, if you ignore the violence.” But even if we set aside the arson and vandalism and the assaults, there is plenty to lament … Read more

FLASHBACK: The Manchurian President. It’s a little early in his administration to draw any broad conclusions, but the evidence is clear: As a younger man, Barack Obama was kidnapped and brainwashed by evil Republican operatives, then sent deep undercover to destroy the Democratic Party and perhaps even the entire liberal worldview. That’s the intro of … Read more

(H/T: Liberty Unyielding)

But we have spent the last half-century-plus training Americans not to appreciate accomplishment and pursue it themselves – but to envy others’ success, and want society to punish them for having the audacity to excel. And that’s where government comes in. Populated in far, far too many instances by people steeped not in the pursuit of … Read more

(H/T: Instapundit)

Remember that the real minimum wage is always zero, because that’s the wage that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of workers will receive following an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour, because they will either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. (See Congressional Budget Office … Read more

During the Citizens United arguments, Justice Samuel Alito asked Malcolm Stewart, the deputy solicitor general defending the government’s censorship, whether the law would empower Congress to ban books. Stewart affirmed that books too must be subject to “electioneering communication restrictions.” And thus do our so-called liberals become book-burners. That may be of some interest to … Read more

Socialism doesn’t work because it tries to root out human nature. Capitalism works because it harnesses it. We are capitalists, conservatives and federalists in part because we acknowledge and understand human nature. Its possibilities – and its limitations. They are Socialists because they are Utopian fantasists. They think they can remake humanity and the planet … Read more

Q: What is the chief political function of the news media in the USA? A: To divert the public’s attention from what is important to what is trivial and thereby to ensure that fundamentals receive little or no discussion and hence play no role in political competition. -Bob Higgs, (H/T: Cafe Hayek) From personal experience, … Read more