Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Sunday, July 31. 2011

Three good ones

VDH: Behind the D.C. Slugfest:



Barack Obama will be remembered not so much for being the nation’s first African-American president, or even the man who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, or even for his Obamacare, but as the president who grew government the largest, ran up the largest deficits during any presidential tenure, and laid out most candidly and confidently the argument of why the United States is an intrinsically unfair society and how that must be remedied by government.



George Will: Minds opening to libertarian ideas.


The Compassion Trap:



Governments are bad at compassion, in part because it is a candle to power-seeking moths. The heavy lifting of compassion belongs in the private sector, where it is divorced from the impulse to impose continually greater levels of control.


Posted by The Barrister at 18:09 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Bachmann may like Libertarian ideas for economics, but she sure as hell has no concept of the social aspects of the philosophy.

The two cannot be engaged separately, though it is often attempted.
#1 Rick on 2011-07-31 18:28 (Reply)
Obama's white mother is the only parent who cared about him. His black father abandoned him.
Yet, somehow, Obama is African-American.
That explains much about the man.
#2 PacRim Jim (Link) on 2011-07-31 18:46 (Reply)
Obama's naivete also extended to his desperation to be photographed and listened to endlessly, which led him at times to foolish actions. When the Gulf oil spill happened and he made his way down here to offer faux sympathy, he was silly enough to get coaxed by photographers into squatting on the beach picking up little tarballs with a bewildered expression. Not, definitely not the way the leader of one of the world's most powerful countries wants to appear in the world. No other world leader would do something so foolish and un-leaderlike. Not even Hugo Chavez. Dictators don't squat. Or if they do, they make sure there are no photographers about. It diminishes a person. They say that Jolly Joe Biden needs a handler. But even Joe is too smart to be photographed like that.

Stand up, Obama. At least try to look like you're in charge.

Marianne
#3 Marianne Matthews on 2011-07-31 18:53 (Reply)
The advantage of private charity is that it's not rule bound, and so isn't easily gamed.

You're help fits the particular situation, whatever it is.

Teach them to fish.
#4 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-07-31 19:24 (Reply)
Marianne says, "Dictators don't squat.... It diminishes a person."

Then what would you say about this:

http://tiny.cc/1rxep
#5 Smokey (Link) on 2011-07-31 20:10 (Reply)
Don't know for sure, but I expect Marianne and most of us who read this blog would say "Who voted for this fool?"
#6 Sam L. on 2011-07-31 22:19 (Reply)
I suspect we would have to wonder because it definitely wouldn't occur to any of us. Unfortunately, it occurred to a lot of people. I doubt very seriously that it will occur to many of them again.
#6.1 mudbug on 2011-07-31 22:53 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.