Sunday, June 29, 2003

From Thomas Frank's brilliant analysis of the federal budget in the May issue of Harper's: ... The PRA ["Personal Re-employment Account"] is thus supposed to give the worker --- get this --- an incentive to find a job. Evidently that's what's lacking in these recessionary times: the will of the workers to get off their ass and stop being poor. Imagine how an observer who is utterly innocent of American ways might respond to this. "Won't this incentive business simply be negated by the above-described dividend business?" they might ask. "Won't those unemployed workers simply fall back on their newly tax-free dividends and continue their lazy ways?" Imagine how the room would fall silent and everyone would blush at the stranger's naivete, how some thoughtful Bushite would take him aside and explain to him that we have, in America, something called social class...   10:33:51 AM    comment []

Another laff from OpinionJournal So  what is a self-respecting "Get the government off my back" conservative to do when the Supreme Court says that the State of Texas can't look under peoples' bedsheets to check the gender of their sleeping partner? Surely you would have to acknowledge that this is the worst kind of tyranny? Not if you're at the Wall Street Journal. (If you must look, here is the link. ) James Taranto makes the, um, interesting argument that the Supreme Court decision is a blow to our "freedom." Hunh? you ask. What crazy definition of the word freedom is he using? He means the God-given right of the majority to tell other people what to do. If that what freedom means in WSJ-world, I'll stick with servitude. Woody   9:58:14 AM    comment []

I've been waiting for more people to notice this The NRA crowd claims that citizens need guns to secure their liberty. But Iraqis have been armed to the teeth all these years. On the flip side, there are many democracies with strict gun laws. The so-called right to bear arms is neither necessary nor sufficient for a free society. Woody 9:33:24 AM    comment []

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