Category: politics

Rand Paul accidentally proposed legalizing murder

Rand Paul accidentally proposed legalizing murder

Paul said that in his vision for America, “Any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color is repealed.” The problem is that that describes pretty much every law that incarcerates a lot of people in America — the nonviolent drug offenses Paul often rails against, sure, but also violent crimes and property crimes.

For those playing at home, Mr. Paul just called for adjusting the law based on the race of the accused. Let’s see if libertarians call him out on this. My guess is no.

Rand Paul Joins Crowded Field of People Who Will Never Be President – The New Yorker

Rand Paul Joins Crowded Field of People Who Will Never Be President – The New Yorker

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson are just a few of the men thought to be considering squandering time and money pursuing an office that they will never occupy in a billion years.

Why Is Indiana’s Religious Freedom Law Different From All Other Religious Freedom Laws?

Why Is Indiana’s Religious Freedom Law Different From All Other Religious Freedom Laws?

the Indiana law explicitly allows any for-profit business to assert a right to “the free exercise of religion.” The federal RFRA doesn’t contain such language, and neither does any of the state RFRAs except South Carolina’s; in fact, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, explicitly exclude for-profit businesses from the protection of their RFRAs.

Welcome to a world where peices of paper are granted Religious Freedom.

What Conservatives Willfully Ignore When They Cry ‘Tyranny’

What Conservatives Willfully Ignore When They Cry ‘Tyranny’

One of the regular features of our contemporary political life is conservative complaints about being victims of “government oppression.” You know what I mean: having to pay taxes to help “losers” is an outrage. Having to buy health insurance is tyranny. Not being allowed to discriminate against gay people is a denial of religious liberty. …

The 50th anniversary of the violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, should have served as a graphic reminder of what real “government oppression” looks like: police dogs; fire hoses; truncheons; deputized thugs. An entire state mobilized to deny the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly, in the broader aim of denying the right to vote.

This came to mind after reading some of the polemics directed at the Ferguson protests.

Liberals, Conservatives, and Jobs

Liberals, Conservatives, and Jobs

If creating “millions” of jobs means adding 2 million or more in a given year, then we did that in three of Jimmy Carter’s four years in office, and 13 times since Reagan left the White House — 8 times under Bill Clinton, twice under George W. Bush, and three times so far under Barack Obama. Actually, the only times we haven’t added millions of jobs under Democrats have been in the aftermath of severe shocks — the oil shock of 1979 and the financial crisis of 2008. Am I claiming that Democratic presidents were responsible for all this job creation? No, not at all, nor do I need to. The point, instead, is that their policies didn’t prevent a lot of employment growth. That is, what you learn from both national experience and the California story is that you can raise taxes on the rich and expand access to health care without killing the economy.

Sometimes the Self-Made Can Be Worse Than the Blue Bloods

Sometimes the Self-Made Can Be Worse Than the Blue Bloods

when “meritocracy” is simply plutocracy, it often devolves into a kakistocracy: rule by the worst elements of society, the ones whose single-minded pursuit of profit leads them to believe that those who don’t share their twisted vision of human value shouldn’t have the dignity of a decent social safety net.