I put up a post titled “What If” over at Heartland’s blog site.
One minute I think we’re going to win this over the next few years, and another minute, I think there’s no hope. But a man can dream.
Month: January 2011
Sympathy for the IRS
(well, just a little bit)
Imagine being in a management position at the IRS. Your job is to implement and enforce the tax laws, as enacted by Congress.
As anyone who has ever run anything knows, actions in the real world involve lead times. In the case of tax law changes: forms must be designed and printed, instructions for those forms must be written and distributed, and computer systems must be programmed and/or reprogrammed.
Due to the irresponsible screwing around of our CongressClowns, tax-law changes were made late in the year, with inadequate provision for the lead-time requirements of the IRS. As a result, many taxpayers will see delays in their ability to file their returns and get expected refunds.
The main issue here, of course, is the inconvenience and financial impact on taxpayers. But also, imagine how much (not) fun it must be to work at the IRS and have your professional life dependent on rulers who show no recognition or appreciation for the realities of your work.
Now just think…as government becomes more and more controlling of all aspects of the American economy, the same kind of problem that afflicts the IRS and taxpayers today will increasingly afflict all industries, their customers, and their suppliers. In a limit case, with a highly socialized economy, you can imagine farmers being delayed in their planting decisions while Congress debates what the appropriate mix of crops should be…widespread hunger soon to follow.
If Congress can’t even show a reasonable level of responsibility in managing the administrative aspects of a traditional government function such as taxation, why would anyone think they are able to intelligently micromanage a vast array of industries, many of which are extremely complicated?
(Link via Instapundit)
Related post: Be afraid
Update: Thanks for the link from Instapundit, who says:
Nobody in their right mind would trust these clowns to babysit their cat. Why on earth would we give them control of the economy?
The Encroaching Oligarchy
A double movement will assure the advancement of human history. The developing world is heading toward democracy — pushed by the movement toward full literacy that tends to create culturally more homogeneous societies. As for the industrialized world, it is being encroached on to varying degrees by a tendency toward oligarchy — a phenomenon that has emerged with the development of educational stratification that has divided societies into layers of “higher,” “lower,” and various kinds of “middle” classes.
However, we must not exaggerate the antidemocratic effects of this unegalitarian educational stratification. Developed countries, even if they become more oligarchical, remain literate countries and will have to deal with the contradictions and conflicts that could arise between a democratically leaning literate mass and university-driven stratification that favors oligarchical elites.
Emmanuel Todd,After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order
Todd’s book, despite its flaws, is full of good insights. This passage was prescient. The Tea Party (“a democratically leaning literate mass”) and its opponents, the “Ruling Class” described by Angelo Codevilla, (“oligarchical elites”) are well-delineated by Todd, several years before other people were focused on this phenomenon.
Beyond Human
Anyone recognize this guy?
That is Thor, comic character from Marvel Comics. Based, of course, on the deity worshiped by the Norse.
What can this object of ancient reverence do to warrant such regard? Like most thunder gods, he can hurl thunderbolts that destroy his enemies as long as he wields a mystical hammer called Mjolnir.
That is the main thing thunder gods do, after all, and it seemed to be something that would be extremely impressive to the Vikings.
Anyone recognize these?
My favorite carry guns. They are smaller and lighter than that hammer thing, and yet I can still create thunder by no more effort than making a fist.
Sure, it isn’t exactly the same thing. I can’t call the storm like Thor supposedly could, for example. But it still is a perfectly common, well known, mature technology that expands my abilities to something that is impossible for an unaided human being to duplicate.
I’m bringing up the fantastically obvious due to this online article. (Hat tip to Glenn.) Some really strange young woman has a hobby where she cuts herself open in order to shove magnets down amongst nerve clusters. Says she can feel magnetic fields that way.
Deniable-Intimidation Echoes
Cross posted at Flit-TM
Wretchard has a good article on the Left’s habit of indulging in deniable intimidation. The use of left-anarchists as street troops to signal that one part or another of the Left is not sufficiently militant is real and well taken. It isn’t the whole story as there’s a mirror image effect on the Right. There, the less militant in the GOP use the threat of waking up the beasts on the Left to reign in more militant factions.
I have personally been warned multiple times to avoid being too strident in my own political activities with tales of past political assassinations of reformers who went “too far”. Of the ones I recall (and can anonymize), two were delivered by town chairmen, one by a committeeman. These are not generally hysterical people yet my little attempts at stirring up small-government activism were viewed with real alarm. Even though they did not show it under most circumstances, these people are terrorized.
The terrorizing of GOP party officials is a generally hidden reason why the GOP often doesn’t take full advantage of its opportunities and generally acts in more of a squishy fashion than you would otherwise expect. If retribution comes, they reason, it will come to them, personally or to their families.