Archive for the ‘Good of The Order’ Category

Scott Shackford

Detroit’s call-it-anything-but-bankruptcy budget crisis drags on and the city government is unable to provide the most basic of services, residents have discovered an alternative to lawless anarchy: cooperative anarchy! A number of experiments in spontaneous order are popping up in Motor City, and both the rich and the not-so-rich are pitching in. The Associated Press reports:

“When the system fails us, you have to become the system,” said Mitch Logan, a 48-year-old film producer who is part of a self-dubbed “Mower Gang” that mows neighborhood parks after they’ve finished their own yards.

In addition to the landscaping, a church group is boarding up vacant houses in the Brightmoor neighborhood, one of the city’s most distressed, to keep criminals out. And several neighborhoods are now hiring security to patrol their streets, supplementing an undermanned police department.

On the wealthier side, the philanthropic Krege Foundation coordinated with automakers and local businesses to purchase 23 new ambulances and 100 new police cars. Okay, perhaps providing equipment to the municipal government doesn’t fall under cooperative anarchy. But at the rate the city’s going, they’ll probably all be driven by volunteers any day now.

Of course, this is all a drop in the bucket for the city’s problems, but even that much self-management and tiny amount of voluntaryism has Katherine McFate of the Center for Effective Government (read their anti-austerity argument here) worried:

“The idea that we are now outfitting first responders through charitable contributions should be very concerning,” she said. “There are certain functions that you want government to perform that should not be at the whim of individuals or charities.”

Well, let’s see what functions the government of Detroit is engaging in that is so much better than the “whims” of individuals and charities, shall we? It seems Detroit is protecting the citizenry from the scourge of unapproved, community-created bus-stop benches. Thank heavens! Via the Detroit Free Press:

Armed with a sander and reclaimed wood from demolished homes, [Charles] Molnar recruited several students from the Detroit Enterprise Academy to help him create a bench than can seat a half-dozen riders, equipped with a bookshelf to hold reading material to help pass the time for riders as they wait.

Several nails and wooden boards later, the first bench was placed at a Detroit bus stop Thursday afternoon.

But it might not be there for long.

Detroit Department of Transportation officials are saying the bench was not approved. If it is affixed to a bus stop, the bench will have to be removed.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Molnar, 22, who recently finished his junior year at Wayne State University, where he is an urban studies student. “Now there’s not going to be a bench there. Let them take that away from the community. A community that built that bench. A community that put their blood, sweat and tears in it. That’s all they wanted, a bench at the bus stop.”

Benches are the government’s job, Charles! We can’t just have people going around building them willy-nilly!

There was a strong push in the last Arizona election cycle to disenfranchise political parties by turning the Arizona Primary election into a “round one general election” in which there would be a single ballot with all candidates listed on it without regard to party affiliation, but only the top two vote-getters from the Primary would be on the General Election ballot.  Some very good political thinkers were involved at least in conceptualizing this ballot proposition.  The proposition failed by a two to one margin

The main thing the proposition was designed to do was to give independents (voters not affiliated with any party) a greater say in the primary.  There are certain good things about today’s party system; it allows people with common political views to identify their positions on issues (platform) and to select candidates who will run for office in the general election.  The founding fathers were not fond of political parties; but parties in their times were specific special interest factions such as merchants, or lawyers, or veterans, or bankers, or planters.  The political parties spoken of by Washington and his contemporaries were what we would now call lobbyists or political action committees (PACs).

Today’s parties are made up of voters with diverse professions, economic stations, races, educational levels, and lifestyle, and serve primarily as a vetting process for candidate selection. party) more say in Primary elections.  To me that alone doesn’t make any sense because primary elections are elections in which political parties nominate their candidates.  Independents are independents because they don’t support party politics.  Arizona already does something that I think is very bad in that they allow independents to vote in one primary of any party they wish. To me nobody except party members should have a say in who the party nominates..  I’m glad it did because I think it was a very bad idea.

Even minor parties have played a significant role in shaping our politics.  By presenting their views to the public they have caused the two major parties to adjust to attract those voters.  Two examples are the Socialist Party who originated the idea of vast social programs and redistribution of wealth, and the Libertarian Party who has pushed for a more stringent compliance with the constitution and lest government involvement in the lives of citizens.  Both of these minor parties have never reached the number of supporters needed to enact their policies, but the Democrats have adapted many of the aims of the Socialist Party, and the Republicans have adjusted to the right in response to the ideas of the Libertarian Party.

One problem with a top two primary is that it does not give the voter more choices but limits them to only two in the general election.  A second problem is that in a district in which one party dominates, no other party has a chance to make it on the ballot, both general candidates could be from the same party.  It would virtually illuminate all minor party candidates from ever getting on a general ballot.

Many independents say there is no difference between the two parties; however, even the most cursory review of their stand on issues reveals that as false. The main causes of independent discontent with the two major parties can be categorized as: 1) They are all professional politicians who are mostly concerned with feathering their own nest and being reelected, and 2) They can’t work together to get anything done.

I think Item one is partly true; I do believe that many people in congress have a genuine desire to do what’s right, but their view may differ from that of many of their voters.  They have elevated themselves to a special class that is paid much more than the average voter, has amazing perks and benefits, and gives them special exceptions to things the rest of us live with every day.  When congress was first given an annual salary in 1855 it was $3000; comparing the consumer price index of 1855 to 2012, that equates to under $12,000 per year in today’s dollar.  Then, being in Congress was a part time job, they spent a couple of months a year mostly approving a budget.

This brings us to item two.  As the founders intended, the federal government dealt with relatively few departments and programs, they didn’t enact many new laws every year, they took care of business and got back their farm, store, law officer, parsonage, etc.  For the last 80 years congress has gotten along too well, they have passed way to many laws, creating way too much government, and spending way too much public revenue.  Any congress that refuses to raise expenditures or increase taxes is a good congress.  Democrats want to keep using the public revenue to buy votes, and Republics want to reverse that process.  In a nutshell that is the difference between the two parties.  I will vote for the senator or representative who refuses to go along with government programs, trillion dollar deficits, and forever increasing taxes.  A “do-nothing” congress is better than a “do-something” congress unless the something being done is cutting spending, cutting government, and cutting taxes.

So since the main accusation is that Democrats and Republicans are the same, you better look again.  And if you want to save the country you better hope the “do-nothings” outnumber the “do-everythings”.

Stock rated “junk” status, loses 50% since February, 350 layoffs at home office

July 17, 2012 J.C.Penny rolls over in his grave.

Simply put, people are not shopping at J.C. Penney. AFA and OneMillionMoms are showing success in the effort to educate people to Penney’s aggressive national campaign to promote “gay” marriage.
The company is going downhill fast. Since February, the company stock has lost more than half its value, and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its credit rating on J.C. Penney Co. further into “junk” status.

First-year CEO Ron Johnson’s decisions have led to disastrous results for the company. Rather than build on the faith-based traditions of founder James Cash Penney, Johnson has abandoned family values and taken the company into a financial tailspin by embracing social activism.

Families are the backbone of Penney’s existence. As long as it pushes homosexual marriage, families will go elsewhere.

TAKE ACTION

Make a personal phone call to J.C. Penney’s customer service department. Urge them to return to family values and stop pushing the gay marriage agenda.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/author/joel-gehrke

Newt Gingrich, who negotiated a welfare reform bill with President Bill Clinton when he was Speaker of the House, described President Obama’s new rule undermining that law as “almost certainly illegal.”

“Obama’s suspension of workfare requirements is almost certainly illegal, a sign of the jobs failure, and a reminder how liberal [O]bama is,” Gingrich tweeted this morning following a report from the Heritage Foundation that the Health and Human Services Department had “released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996.”

Gingrich added that “President [C]linton and the [R]epublican [C]ongress created a bipartisan work oriented reform of welfare,” in a second tweet. “Obama has single handedly destroyed it,” Gingrich said.

Obama’s new rule “allows the Department of Health and Human Services to waive the work requirement at the heart of welfare reform,” as The Washington Examiner’s Byron York explains. “That reform, originally vetoed but later signed into law by President Bill Clinton, is widely viewed as the most successful policy initiative in a generation. Under it, the growth in welfare rolls was reversed and millions of people moved from welfare to work.”

Romney attacked Obama over the policy change. “The president’s action is completely misdirected,” the Republican presidential candidate said in a statement to York. “Work is a dignified endeavor, and the linkage of work and welfare is essential to prevent welfare from becoming a way of life.”

The new welfare policy follows reports that the United States Department of Agriculture is trying to expand food stamp enrollment regardless of financial need in order to fight obesity. “USDA’s activities suggest that the program administrators take personal offense when people who technically qualify for their largesse decline to accept—and see it as an obstacle to overcome,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said yesterday.
Sourcehttp://washingtonexaminer.com/gingrich-obamas-welfare-reform-rewrite-almost-certainly-illegal/article/2502084Source

The rules say that from now on, if agents feel compelled to engage in such behavior, they can run for public office like everyone else.