Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

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Author: Owen

Quick Thoughts on the First GOP Debate

by | 0655, 24 Aug 2323 | | 5 Comments

I watched the GOP debate from start to finish last night. I thought it was one of the most useful and entertaining debates I’ve watched in years. I was prepared to turn it off if it just became all about Trump. He didn’t show up and his roiling issues are not my issues. I wanted to hear about what the candidates thought about the issues that matter to me and my neighbors – inflation, border security, education, foreign policy, etc. With rare exception, that’s what I got. It was good to see an actual debate that displayed the rich spectrum of opinions in the Republican Party on important issues.

Here are my short thoughts on each candidate:

Gov. Doug Burgum – I was impressed with his clarity of thought and conservatism. His message harkening back to the small-town values that we used to cherish was refreshing. He came across as a man of substance who knows his own mind.

Gov. Chris Christie – I had already struck Christie from my list of candidates to consider based on his long history, but he was highly entertaining in the debate. He stole the show at times with his zingers and attacks. We all know that he’s just in to trash Trump and Trumpism and he was effective.

Gov. Ron DeSantis – This debate was DeSantis’ to lose. When one has the kind of successful record he has, his ability to debate is a rather meaningless skill. Still, he had to hold his own and he did. He came across a little wooden at times, but he was forceful and clear in pointing out his record and how he has actually already governed in the way many of us would like to see the President govern.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – I’ve always liked Haley even though I disagree with her on several issues. She rhetorically murdered Vivek on stage over foreign policy and her answer on abortion was thoughtful and compassionate.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson – Hutchinson came off as a bit old and out of touch. He lost me with his characterization of the January 6 incident.

Vice President Mike Pence – I’ve also always liked Pence. He’s a rock-solid conservative who proved it in multiple offices. He came across as the sincere man of substance that he is. His attempt to thread the needle between supporting Trump and reminding people that he was a conservative’s conservative before it was cool is too small an eye for him to win, but he would be a great president.

Vivek Ramaswamy – I was prepared to like Vivek. I’d seen snippets and he’s young, passionate, and forthright with his thoughts. Seeing him in long form is to see an arrogant, flippant ass with thoughts as thin as prison gruel. He’s off my list.

Sen. Tim Scott – Of all the candidates, Scott is my personal favorite. He is sincere, nice, thoughtful, conservative, and tells the story of America that we all want to hear. He is also boring. Again, when it comes to choosing a president, their debating skill is about 1,346,901 on the priority list of important things, but he needed to make hit a bullseye and he missed.

Drunk Teacher Removed From Class on First Day

by | 0743, 23 Aug 2323 | | 2 Comments

Clearly, she has some issues.

A third grade teacher has been arrested for being ‘drunk on the job’ after staff pulled her out of the classroom asking her to explain why she had a cup allegedly filled with wine.

 

Kimberly Coates, 53, was teaching her class at Perkins-Tyron Intermediate School in Oklahoma when she was taken out of her classroom on the first day of term to meet with the school’s superintendent and a police officer.

 

After drawn-out questioning that saw her take a breathalyzer test and continually deny she had consumed alcohol at school, she eventually admitted she had drunk half a box of wine until 3am earlier that morning.

Another school year begins

by | 0625, 22 Aug 2323 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

With the beginning of another school year bursting with hope and promise, it is sobering to pause and reflect on just how bad Wisconsin’s schools are. For generations, Wisconsinites have pointed to the educational system as a point of pride. No doubt there was a time when the state’s schools were great and the pride was justified, but it has not been true for decades. We are lying to ourselves.

 

Yes, there are bright spots, but as a whole, Wisconsin’s education system is failing our children on a monumental scale even as we pat ourselves on the backs, increase the funding, and gaslight ourselves about what a good education our children are getting. If the first step to any recovery is admitting that we have a problem, then Wisconsinites must admit that the schools are failing.

 

[…]

 

For the 2020-2021 school year, the most recent data available, a mere 39.2 percent of students between grades three and eight were at least proficient in math. Over 57 percent of students cannot do math at their grade level. For the same age group, only 37 percent of students were at least proficient in language arts. Almost 60 percent are not able to understand language at the appropriate grade level.

 

It does not get better as they get older. In the eleventh grade, over 90 percent of Wisconsin’s students take the ACT exam. On that test for the 2020-2021 school year, only 27 percent of students were at least proficient in math. Only 28.1 percent of students are at least proficient in science. 35 percent of students are at least proficient in English language arts.

 

For every three kids who enter a Wisconsin school this year, only one of them will end the year proficient in math or language.

 

Yet, Wisconsin’s schools boast a 90.2 percent graduation rate. Why in the world are we graduating 90 percent of kids when only one in three of them can do math at grade level? How are we looking ourselves in the mirror and telling ourselves that we are equipping our children for the world of tomorrow when we thrust a diploma into their hands despite the fact that over half of them cannot read at an adult level?

Biden Finds His Way to Maui

by | 2022, 21 Aug 2323 | | 4 Comments

You know, sometimes it’s not appropriate to try to one-up people with your story.

President Biden told Maui the nation ‘grieves with you’ in his first visit to the island since wildfires ravaged the area around Lahaina – but was met with protests from some locals angered by his response.

 

‘The devastation is overwhelming, to date 114 dead,’ Biden said, before launching into a lengthy anecdote about his own loss of his first wife Naomi and one-year-old daughter in a car accident in 1972.

 

While the death toll in Maui has topped 114, some 850 remain missing.

 

[…]

 

He has been accompanied on that vacation by his son Hunter, who has been dealing with the collapse of his plea deal on tax charges, and whose probe is now being overseen by U.S. attorney David Weiss in the role of special prosecutor.

Manchin Frustrated Over Application of Massive Spending Bill

by | 2246, 20 Aug 2323 | | 2 Comments

Sorry, Senator, but the Dems don’t need your vote anymore and don’t care what you think anymore.

Manchin was front and center at the White House signing ceremony, where Biden handed Manchin the pen that he used to sign the bill into law.

 

But Manchin has increasingly become critical of the Biden administration over their application of the law.

 

And Biden administration officials feel that Manchin misinterpreted stipulations of the legislation that he crafted, with officials also viewing the West Virginia lawmaker’s demands as opening them up to violating the law, three individuals with ties to the administration told The Washington Post.

 

In February, the senator said he was “raising hell” to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen over battery sourcing rules for electric vehicle tax credits.

 

And during an April interview on the Fox News program “Hannity,” Manchin threatened to repeal the consequential law.

 

“This was about energy security and we have not heard a word about energy security out of their mouths since it was passed. It’s all about the environment,” Manchin said at the time.

 

Manchin has been infuriated with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over its pursuit of longstanding climate goals. And the lawmaker, who has been a key ally of the coal industry throughout his entire career, was especially frustrated by its push to craft regulations that would study climate impact as natural gas projects are developed, according to The Post.

 

So for the time-being, Manchin has basically kept the five-member commission from running with a Democratic majority, as it now has two members from each party and a vacancy. The senator refused to hold a hearing for former chair Richard Glick, whose term on the commission ended in early January.

Democrat Slams Proposed Student Loan Handout

by | 2117, 19 Aug 2323 | | 1 Comment

Indeed.

“I stand by my vote and my opposition to forking out $10,000 to people who freely chose to attend college,” he said. “They were privileged to have the opportunity, and many left college well-situated to make six figure salaries for life. The Twitterati can keep bemoaning their privileged status and demanding handouts all they want, but as far as I’m concerned if they want free money for college, they can join the Marines and serve the country like I, and so many others, have in the past and many more will in the future.”

 

“If they want a career and hard skills without college debt, they should join a union and enter an apprenticeship,” he continued. “But if they choose to attend college, they can pay back their loans just like working class people pay back home mortgages, car loans, and many other expenses that people choose to take out loans for.”

Wisconsin is shrinking

by | 0631, 18 Aug 2323 | | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week. Verily, if Wisconsin does not stop the bleed of people in their working years, many of the other raucous political debates become somewhat moot.

We are going to return to a topic that this column broached several weeks ago because policymakers in Madison fail to appreciate the severity of what is to come. Wisconsin is losing population. This is happening in a time of national population growth and the negative consequences will be unavoidable. The time to act is now.

 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States added 1.8 million, or 0.6%, people between 2020 and 2022. Over the same period, Wisconsin lost 3,372 people, or 0.06%, of its population. After counting all of the people who moved out of the state and subtracting all of the people who moved into the state, Wisconsin’s population is declining despite the fact that the nation, as a whole, is gaining population.

 

A deeper look into the data reveals an even more dire situation. In the prime working years between 25 and 59 years old, Wisconsin lost nearly 39,000, or 1.5%, of its people. This is the age group that fills jobs, pays the most taxes, and spends the most on things like houses, vehicles, groceries, and the rest that fuels the consumer economy. Even worse, men are leaving the state at a rate faster than women. Given that on average more men participate in the labor force than women, that means that the decline in the available labor force is more pronounced than the overall number suggests.

 

It gets worse. Coming up behind those working adults, Wisconsin’s population is declining even faster. Between the ages of birth and 19 years old, Wisconsin lost almost 41,000, or 2.8%, of its people. That means that there will be fewer people entering the workforce to replace those exiting.

 

The only age group that is increasing in Wisconsin is at the top of the age groups. Wisconsin gained almost 67,000, or a whopping 4.6%, people above the age of 60. This age group tends to be at the end of their working career and are drawing down their consumption as they enjoy their well-earned silver years.

 

All of this is over just a two-year period. As demographics drive destiny, Wisconsin’s destiny is in trouble. As Wisconsin loses its prime labor force, the issue is compounded by the societal shift to a shrinking labor participation rate. Since its peak labor participation rate of 74.7% in December of 1997, more Wisconsinites have been steadily declining to participate in the labor force. As of January 2023, only 64.7% of Wisconsinites were working. There has been a slight uptick in participation in 2023 as people are forced back to work to cope with inflationary prices, but time will tell if that signals the beginning of a trend reversal.

 

If not reversed, the results of Wisconsin’s declining population are inevitable. As businesses struggle to find workers to fill their jobs and produce their goods, they will look to other states to find their workforce. As businesses leave, the population decline will accelerate.

 

Meanwhile, those remaining in Wisconsin will see their taxes continue to increase. Wisconsin’s state and local governments have shown a bipartisan unwillingness to restrain spending and there are fewer and fewer people to tax. Again, the overall numbers mask the severity of the issue. Wisconsin’s progressive income tax and reliance on property taxes means that the tax burden is borne by an even smaller subset of the population. That smaller subset are those leaving the state at the highest rate. As the increasing tax burden concentrates in fewer people, more people will seek relief in other states.

 

Taken to the end of the road, Wisconsin faces economic collapse and government bankruptcy. Fortunately, we are at the beginning of a trend and there is ample time to change direction. That change will take a concerted effort by both parties to change the incentives and disincentives that are driving the trend. Public policy should be focused on easing the burden of government to attract more people to the state while removing the incentives that keep people from participating in the labor force. We must stop punishing people for working hard and raising a family while we reward people for living off of the taxpayers’ misplaced kindness.

 

While politicians bicker in Madison, people are voting with their feet. That trend will not stop until someone chooses to stop it. Stopping it will become increasingly difficult as it gathers momentum. The time to act is now. Small changes now reduce the need for big, painful changes later.

 

FIDE Requires that Only Women Compete in Women’s Chess

by | 1811, 17 Aug 2323 | | 6 Comments

Positive.

GENEVA — The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for women until its officials make an assessment of gender change.

 

The decision by the Switzerland-based federation FIDE, published on Monday, has drawn criticism from advocacy groups and supporters of transgender rights.

 

FIDE said it and its member federations increasingly have received recognition requests from players who identify as transgender, and that the participation of transgender women would depend on an analysis of individual cases that could take up to two years.

 

“Change of gender is a change that has a significant impact on a player’s status and future eligibility to tournaments, therefore it can only be made if there is a relevant proof of the change provided,” the federation said.

 

“In the event that the gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made,” it said.

West Bend School District Changes Course on Inappropriate Books

by | 0656, 16 Aug 2323 | , , | 0 Comments

Or do they?

Wimmer is recommending that “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater be removed as a choice book from the eighth-grade English curriculum at Badger Middle School, and that the use of “The 57 Bus” and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, M.D. in the West Bend High Schools curriculum be suspended until the curriculum committee and school board complete their review of the curriculum guidelines and books on the book club choice lists.

 

“The work of our board and their curriculum and policy committees has yet to be finalized,” said Wimmer in a WBSD release. “The books in question will not be used for book club selections until formally reviewed by the curriculum committee and subsequently the full board.”

 

The two books will remain in the West Bend High School Library “until any further board work or action provides direction for removal,” according to a release from the WBSD.

 

Wimmer said the reason for her recommendation to remove “The 57 Bus” from Badger Middle School was due to the book being duplicative in WBSD curriculum, since it was included in both the eighth grade and junior year English book club choice book lists.

 

“Not even looking at content, not even looking at those kinds of pieces, it’s duplicated,” said Wimmer. “It’s a piece in curriculum that’s dually stated, that was not present in the library at Badger, it’s just not necessary as a book club [book].”

Everyone is dancing around the content and trying to litigate on the secondary or tertiary issues. The stated reason by the superintendent is that it is being removed from part of the curriculum because it’s duplicative. Put another way, they push these social issues SO MUCH that they can tolerate backing off a little in this one instance.

Still… it’s a move in the right direction, I guess.

Wisconsin is shrinking

by | 0735, 15 Aug 2323 | , , | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a slice:

We are going to return to a topic that this column broached several weeks ago because policymakers in Madison fail to appreciate the severity of what is to come. Wisconsin is losing population. This is happening in a time of national population growth and the negative consequences will be unavoidable. The time to act is now.

 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States added 1.8 million, or 0.6%, people between 2020 and 2022. Over the same period, Wisconsin lost 3,372 people, or 0.06%, of its population. After counting all of the people who moved out of the state and subtracting all of the people who moved into the state, Wisconsin’s population is declining despite the fact that the nation, as a whole, is gaining population.

 

A deeper look into the data reveals an even more dire situation. In the prime working years between 25 and 59 years old, Wisconsin lost nearly 39,000, or 1.5%, of its people. This is the age group that fills jobs, pays the most taxes, and spends the most on things like houses, vehicles, groceries, and the rest that fuels the consumer economy. Even worse, men are leaving the state at a rate faster than women. Given that on average more men participate in the labor force than women, that means that the decline in the available labor force is more pronounced than the overall number suggests.

 

It gets worse. Coming up behind those working adults, Wisconsin’s population is declining even faster. Between the ages of birth and 19 years old, Wisconsin lost almost 41,000, or 2.8%, of its people. That means that there will be fewer people entering the workforce to replace those exiting.

 

The only age group that is increasing in Wisconsin is at the top of the age groups. Wisconsin gained almost 67,000, or a whopping 4.6%, people above the age of 60. This age group tends to be at the end of their working career and are drawing down their consumption as they enjoy their well-earned silver years.

Biden Brushes off Question about Deadly Fire in Hawaii

by | 0656, 14 Aug 2323 | | 2 Comments

C’mon, man.

The 80-year-old was seen reclining on a sun lounger on Rehoboth Beach, near his holiday home in the state. Earlier, he attended mass at St. Edmond’s Catholic Church in the resort town.

 

As Biden left the beach, the White House correspondent for Bloomberg asked for his response to the wildfires that have killed 96 people.

 

‘No comment,’ the president replied.

Climbers Sprint Past Dying Man While Setting Ascent Speed Record

by | 0722, 13 Aug 2323 | | 0 Comments

It almost seems like this is a metaphor for my column about why Socialism fails.

A well-known Norwegian mountaineer has denied accusations that her team climbed over an injured guide during a bid to break a world record.

The porter, named as Mohammed Hassan, had fallen off a ledge on Pakistan’s K2 – the world’s second-highest mountain.

 

Video on social media appears to show a group walking by Mr Hassan, who reportedly died a few hours later.

 

But Kristin Harila told the BBC she and her team tried everything to help him in dangerous conditions.

“It’s a tragic accident… here is a father and son and a husband who lost his life that day on K2. I think that’s very, very sad that it ended this way,” she said.

The Norwegian was heading for K2’s summit to secure a world record and become the fastest climber to scale all peaks above 8,000m (26,000ft).

 

[…]

 

“We saw a guy alive, lying in the traverse in the bottleneck. And people were stepping over him on the way to the summit. And there was no rescue mission.,” Mr Steindl told the BBC.

 

“I was really shocked. And I was really sad. I started to cry about the situation that people just passed him and there was no rescue mission

Mr Hassan was being treated by one person “while everyone else” moved towards the summit in a “heated, competitive summit rush”, Mr Flämig told Austria’s Der Standard newspaper.

Last Grocery Store Being Driven Out By Crime

by | 0658, 13 Aug 2323 | , | 0 Comments

Eyeroll

The Giant on Alabama Avenue is the only major grocery store in the entire ward, serving more than 85,000 people, and White had the sense its future could be at risk. The management reported an uptick in shoplifting and crime at the Ward 8 location. The managers had, according to White, spent hundreds of thousands on security upgrades and yet, White said, were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per month because of theft. They didn’t say they were planning on closing the store. But still, White was worried, and now so were some of the residents who relied on it.

“If we don’t have this one, there will be nowhere else,” said Traci Pratt, a 58-year-old Ward 8 resident who has been shopping at the Giant ever since it opened in 2007.

[…]

“However, we need to be able to run our stores safely and profitably,” read the statement, sent by spokesperson Felis Andrade. “The reality is that theft and violence at this store is significant, and getting worse, not better. As a result, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to operate under these conditions.”

Theory will only take you so far

by | 0646, 11 Aug 2323 | , | 11 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News on Tuesday.

If you have not seen the Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer,” you should. It is a visually exquisite, beautiful piece of storytelling with fantastic acting. The movie deals thoughtfully with immense topics like nuclear proliferation, antisemitism, McCarthyism, communism, patriotism, and the horrors of war interlaced with the personal story lines of love, hate, betrayal, vengeance, egotism, mental illness, and the wobbling trajectory of a life of purpose.

 

All good art sparks thoughts and emotions that are often in search of a language to express them. One of the many thoughts that continued to percolate in my brain long after the movie ended was the intersection of theory and practice.

 

Relatively early in the movie, Dr. Oppenheimer moves into his classroom at Berkeley that is next to the classroom of Dr. Ernest Lawrence. Oppenheimer meets Lawrence as the latter is constructing what I presume to be a version of the cyclotron for which Lawrence won the Nobel Prize. In conversation, Lawrence opines to Oppenheimer that, “theory will only take you so far.”

 

This thread returns several times throughout the movie as the scientists are confronted with the limitations of theory in the development of the atomic bomb. In one scene, Oppenheimer and other scientists at Berkeley are excited by the news that physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch had discovered nuclear fission in the experiments of nuclear chemist Otto Hahn. Fission was previously thought to be impossible, but Hahn managed to do it by bombarding uranium with neutrons.

 

In the movie, when Oppenheimer read the news, he reiterated that the feat was impossible and descended on his chalkboard to run the math to prove it again. Oppenheimer stood by his assertion that fission was impossible until Lawrence returned to tell Oppenheimer that they had duplicated the experiment. What was “proven” impossible by theory was proven possible by practice.

 

Is it not so with socialism? In theory, socialism should work. It is an economic system in which scarce resources are allocated by priority of need. The theory is that if everyone contributes according to their ability, and everybody consumes according to their need, then the society as a whole will achieve maximum efficiency and aggregate success, or, at least, aggregate satisfaction.

 

Socialism makes sense in theory, so why does it always fail in practice?

 

Socialism fails because it mistakes the fundamental nature of people. Socialism assumes that people are naturally altruistic and will act in good faith. In reality, altruism beyond one’s own family or community is a modern phenomenon. It has only been in recent decades, when food scarcity has abated (thanks to capitalism), that some people have lifted their eyes beyond their personal needs to care about the broader world. But even now, the vast majority of people are far more concerned about their personal self-interest and will behave accordingly.

 

So it is that in a socialist economy, people do not contribute according to their ability. They contribute as little as they must. And they do not consume according to their need. They consume as much as they can. To combat this, the system must be enforced by an ever more forceful central authority. The flawed, and often evil, humans who gravitate into the center of a socialist system tend to be those who are seeking to consume the most. The inevitable result is cruelty, cronyism, and collapse.

 

To preserve liberty in a political and economic sense is to not allow power to concentrate, because whenever power is concentrated, there will be cruel and corrupt people seeking to use that power for their own benefit. Our national founders fundamentally understood this, which is why they designed our federal government to divide and check power.

 

Every system of government is found along a continuum from complete decentralization of power to complete concentration of power. On one end we find anarchy. On the other end we find communism, monarchy, fascism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Socialism is the younger, more handsome, brother of communism while democracy is the older, less reckless, brother of anarchy. The United States has a republic, which seeks to protect individual liberties from the oppression from the majority (democracy) or the minority (totalitarianism).

 

No system is static. There are too many forces at play for it to be so. The tendency, in both economies and governments, is for power to concentrate. This is so because people of ill intent are pushing it in that direction for their own gain. As power concentrates, the progression accelerates until critical mass is reached, and destructive energy is released.

 

There is a reason why socialism is so often advocated by academics and opposed by those who have lived under socialism. Theory will only take you so far.

Districts Shift to 4 Day Week to Attract Lazier Teachers

by | 1905, 10 Aug 2323 | | 0 Comments

I’m not sure that the people who apply because they only have to work 4 days a week are the people you want teaching your kids. 

Nearly 900 school districts in the United States currently use a four-day weekly academic schedule. That number rose from 650 districts in 2020 to 876 districts, across 26 states, in 2023. While smaller, rural districts have been more likely to favor the schedule, larger districts are now shortening their school weeks in an effort to recruit and retain teachers. It’s a selling point in an era when schools are facing a national teacher shortage.

 

“The number of teaching applications that we’ve received have gone up more than four-fold,” Herl said.

 

Schools in other parts of the country have noticed similar patterns. In Chico, Texas, where the public school district also announced a shift to four-day academic schedules this year, officials said positions that used to receive five applications were suddenly receiving more than 20, CBS News Texas reported in May.

Legacy Admissions Come Under Fire

by | 0648, 9 Aug 2323 | , | 0 Comments

Meh. I don’t have any problem with preference for legacy families. It’s no different than a store offering a coupon or perks for frequent shoppers.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to ban the consideration of race in college admissions has put pressure on institutions to end another controversial practice: preferences for children of alumni.

 

In Wisconsin, few colleges and universities consider “legacy” status in admissions decisions, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review. And because most Wisconsin schools accept far more students than they reject, it’s likely many legacy students would have gotten in regardless of their family’s history of attendance.

 

But there’s another way in which legacy can benefit already advantaged students: Some schools offer scholarships specifically for students with a family member who graduated from there. At least 13 Wisconsin institutions do, according to the news organization’s review of 28 school scholarship websites.

Theory will only take you so far

by | 0648, 8 Aug 2323 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

In theory, socialism should work. It is an economic system in which scarce resources are allocated by priority of need. The theory is that if everyone contributes according to their ability, and everybody consumes according to their need, then the society as a whole will achieve maximum efficiency and aggregate success, or, at least, aggregate satisfaction.

 

Socialism makes sense in theory, so why does it always fail in practice?

 

Socialism fails because it mistakes the fundamental nature of people. Socialism assumes that people are naturally altruistic and will act in good faith. In reality, altruism beyond one’s own family or community is a modern phenomenon. It has only been in recent decades, when food scarcity has abated (thanks to capitalism), that some people have lifted their eyes beyond their personal needs to care about the broader world. But even now, the vast majority of people are far more concerned about their personal self-interest and will behave accordingly.

 

So it is that in a socialist economy, people do not contribute according to their ability. They contribute as little as they must. And they do not consume according to their need. They consume as much as they can. To combat this, the system must be enforced by an ever more forceful central authority. The flawed, and often evil, humans who gravitate into the center of a socialist system tend to be those who are seeking to consume the most. The inevitable result is cruelty, cronyism, and collapse.

 

To preserve liberty in a political and economic sense is to not allow power to concentrate, because whenever power is concentrated, there will be cruel and corrupt people seeking to use that power for their own benefit. Our national founders fundamentally understood this, which is why they designed our federal government to divide and check power.

 

Every system of government is found along a continuum from complete decentralization of power to complete concentration of power. On one end we find anarchy. On the other end we find communism, monarchy, fascism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Socialism is the younger, more handsome, brother of communism while democracy is the older, less reckless, brother of anarchy. The United States has a republic, which seeks to protect individual liberties from the oppression from the majority (democracy) or the minority (totalitarianism).

 

No system is static. There are too many forces at play for it to be so. The tendency, in both economies and governments, is for power to concentrate. This is so because people of ill intent are pushing it in that direction for their own gain. As power concentrates, the progression accelerates until critical mass is reached, and destructive energy is released.

 

There is a reason why socialism is so often advocated by academics and opposed by those who have lived under socialism. Theory will only take you so far.

Income Tax Increase Looms

by | 2054, 7 Aug 2323 | | 0 Comments

Get ready to pay more in taxes.

Although it kept seven income brackets, the TCJA lowered tax rates across the board and restructured bracket spans, making them more agreeable under the TCJA. With the exception of those who were at 10% (those making $11,000 or less) and 35% (those earning $231,251 to $578,125) tax rate levels prior to 2018, all income tax rates decreased when the new laws came into effect.

 

The top individual tax rate dropped from 39.6% to 37% under the terms of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (single filers making $578,126 and over), the 33% bracket fell to 32% ($182,101-$231,250), the 28% bracket to 24% ($95,376-$182,100), the 25% bracket to 22% ($44,726-$95,375) and the 15% bracket to 12% ($11,001-$44,725).

 

These bracket backslides will mean that every American will need to reassess their spending and tax returns to pay 1% to 4% more in personal taxes unless provisions are extended, revised or made permanent over the next 28 months.

Separate but Equal?

by | 1421, 6 Aug 2323 | , | 2 Comments

This is a mess.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a lower court ruling that invalidated a speeding ticket against a Native American man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because the city is located within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.

 

The justices rejected an emergency appeal by Tulsa to block the ruling while the legal case continues. The order is the latest consequence of the high court’s landmark 2020 decision that found that much of eastern Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remains an Indian reservation.

 

Justin Hooper, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, was cited for speeding in 2018 by Tulsa police in a part of the city within the historic boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He paid a $150 fine for the ticket, but filed a lawsuit after the Supreme Court’s ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. He argued that the city did not have jurisdiction because his offense was committed by a Native American in Indian Country. A municipal court and a federal district court judge both sided with the city, but a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision.

 

There were no noted dissents among the justices Friday, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a short separate opinion, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, in which he said that Tulsa’s appeal raised an important question about whether the city can enforce municipal laws against Native Americans.

I’ve been in Tulsa a couple of times this year for various reasons. It’s a mess. In speaking with friends who live there, the Native Americans are flaunting laws and the police are powerless to prevent it. What is most noticeable are the vehicles that should not be on the road but have Reservation plates. But behind the scenes, it is impacting the dual healthcare systems, neighborhoods, property values, crime, and so much more.

Leftist Justices Begin Rule With Authoritarianism

by | 1300, 6 Aug 2323 | , | 0 Comments

The Leftists majority on the Supreme Court is off to a spectacular start.

Stunningly, it took them only about 48 hours to be credibly accused of violating the state Constitution, state law, and Supreme Court rules – TWICE. First, they fired Randy Koschnick, the respected State Courts Director, and wouldn’t tell him or anyone else why. Everyone’s best guess is it’s because he ran against liberal Shirley Abrahamson in 2009. This even earned them criticism from some liberals, like the former MADISON MAYOR (not an easy feat), who accused them of a partisan witch hunt, since Koschnick was a low-profile, effective innovator who didn’t inject politics into the job (and he just got an award!).

 

They appear to have hatched his unexplained and totally out-of-protocol firing before Janet Protasiewicz was even sworn in, didn’t tell the conservatives on the court about it (are we a middle school clique? Paging Lindsay Lohan…), and cut out the chief justice, even though the state Constitution gave HER authority to call administrative conferences. This led the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee Chair, Van Wanggaard, to accuse them of violating the law, their oaths, and the Constitution, all in one day!

 

They are so petty that they didn’t even wait until Thursday for Koschnick to return from out-of-state, ordering a staffer to box up his family photos. He responded by calling them (correctly) a “wrecking ball” in the press.

Remember a couple of things… first, this was predictable, predicted, and utterly preventable. Wisconsin’s voters chose this. Second, there is very little recourse. The Court is a coequal branch of government and can, with limited exception, manage their internal affairs as they see fit. There’s not a helluva lot anyone can do about it – much less when another coequal branch of government, the Executive Branch lorded over by Governor Evers, is cheering them on.

This court will leave a swath of damage through Wisconsin that will last for decades. Indeed, elections have consequences.

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