SelwynDuke.com

Tax the Rich? Answering Elizabeth Warren

By Selwyn Duke

Former TARP chairman and Senate hopeful from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren gave a shot in the arm to “progressives” everywhere this past Wednesday, with a rousing (or is it rabble-rousing?) extemporaneous speech on the virtues of taxing the rich. Her commentary quickly made the rounds on the Web and radio talk shows — and for good reason. Whatever this law professor said, she said it pretty darn well. Hey, If President Downgrade could articulate himself like that, he wouldn’t be in a bigamous relationship with a Teleprompter.

Unfortunately, though, style doesn’t connote substance. And Warren’s words, while rousing, were also reality-bending. Here is what she said:

I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you, uh, were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

I guess Warren defines “class warfare” differently than everyone else does, but she is a master of it. Let’s analyze her comments.

Read the rest here.

The Case for Ending the EPA

By Selwyn Duke

In the Republican presidential debate last evening, some of the candidates passionately stated that the Environmental Protection Agency should be eliminated. It’s a position that sounds strange to some ears. As a respondent in a Fox News focus group said after the debate, and this is a paraphrase, “This all sounds good when you fixate on the minutia, but we can’t just end the EPA.”

This attitude is no surprise. The one exception to the law that it’s easier to destroy than create is big government programs and bureaucracies. Once they’re the status quo and people become accustomed to their existence, folks just cannot imagine how they could live without them. But is it really true that we’d get a visit from the Smog Monster if the EPA went extinct? And does it really advance the good on balance? Let’s examine the matter.

Just recently, the EPA decreed that New York City must place a concrete cover over a 90-acre reservoir in nearby Yonkers — to the tune of $1.6 billion. Now, the city, nanny state though it is, strongly objected to the mandate. The Big Apple just didn’t have the money, and, besides, its own department of environmental protection (NYCDEP) stated that such a move would offer the public a negligible benefit at best.

Read the rest here.

Statists Order High School to Change “Indians” Nickname

By Selwyn Duke

It’s time to originate a new joke: “What do you call 10,000 statists at the bottom of the sea?

A good start.”

What prompts me to quip about this watery solution is the latest bit of lunacy from the Tolerance and Diversity Nazis: Wisconsin education officials have ordered Berlin High School near Milwaukee to change its nickname from the “Indians.” The problem, found the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), is that the name is race-based.

The first reaction should be, “So what?” But more on that in a moment.

The Chicago Tribune reports that this move was instigated by a complaint from a Berlin HS alumnus.

That’s right, one complaint.

Talk about the squeaky (and one-screw-loose) wheel getting the grease.

Read the rest here.

The Security Sex

By Selwyn Duke

We have all heard about the sex gap in voting patterns.  This is the phenomenon whereby, in every election, women are far more likely to support liberal candidates than men are.  For instance, in 1996, Bill Clinton captured 54 percent of the women’s vote but only 43 percent of the men’s.  And in subsequent elections, the male-female gap has been as follows: in 2000, Al Gore, 42-54; in 2004, John Kerry, 41-51; and in 2008, Barack Obama, 49-56.  In fact, even in the watershed election of 2010, during which we heard about the rise of the conservative woman, the fairer sex favored Democrats by 1 point, 49 to 48.  The Republican victories were attributable to a sex gap (I don’t use the word “gender”) that was as wide as ever, ranging from 4 to 19 points.

That Presidential Look: The Bad, the Beautiful and Voting-booth Realities

By Selwyn Duke

While there was more than one reason why John McCain was a long shot to win the 2008 general election, a big one was something almost no one talked seriously about: appearance.

That is to say, when was the last time an old-looking, white-haired, half-bald man won the presidency?

If you think this piece will be satire or fluff, think again.  It rather will be very serious commentary about a very silly – but painfully real – phenomenon.

When love was a warm toy gun

By Selwyn Duke

In a way, commercials can tell you more about how we've changed than history books. The other day I came across the following 1960s TV commercial on YouTube; it's for a toy set called the "Gung Ho Commando Outfit" by Marx. And it's a perfect snapshot of the America that, sadly, no longer exists.

The Naked Truth and Public Nudity in San Francisco

By Selwyn Duke

There currently is a debate raging over public nudity in San Francisco.

It’s not what you think.

It’s already entirely legal to parade about in the buff on the city’s streets, and no one is discussing the resurrection of indecent-exposure laws. Rather, the question is whether sanitary behavior — namely, posterior protection for public seating — should be required of nudists by law.

Reports the Los Angeles Times:

Retired math teacher David Goldman and his husband, Michael Koehn, were sharing a pleasant alfresco moment at a public plaza in the heart of the Castro district this week, passing a slender joint between them (medicinal, of course), as Eric Anderson sunbathed one table over. Naked.

Resplendent in flip-flops, hoop earrings and a sheen of Coppertone, the out-of work retail manager, 44, had draped a lime-green sarong between flesh and public seating.

Naturists call such posterior protection “normal etiquette.” But San Franciscans soon may call it the law.

Read the rest here.

How to Restore Freedom of Association and End Government Tyranny

By Selwyn Duke

Unfortunately, many Americans have become inured to the trampling of freedom of association. You can work your fingers to the bone starting a business, and the government becomes a partner that contributes nothing but extracts much. It not only shares your profits and regulates you to death, but, more to the point here, dictates whom you must serve and the bases on which you may hire and fire people. And woe betide he who doesn’t bow before Leviathan.

Cherokee Nation Revokes Citizenship Rights of Black Slave Descendants

By Selwyn Duke

Just a week ago this Monday, the Cherokee Nation’s Supreme Court ruled that the tribe may revoke the citizenship rights of black members. The case stemmed from a 2007 vote in which the Nation amended its constitution to allow the expulsion of the descendants of Cherokee-held slaves; this inspired a lawsuit by the “Freedmen,” as the black Cherokee are known. A district court found in favor of the Freedmen, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling, arguing that the Cherokee alone have a right to determine who is and is not a fellow tribesman. The result is that these erstwhile Cherokees, approximately 3,000 strong, will now be denied benefits that inclusion in the tribe affords, such as free healthcare and education, and voting and housing rights.

The Freedman had enjoyed Cherokee citizenship status ever since it was granted through a treaty with the U.S. government after the War Between the States. Previous to this, the Cherokees, along with tribes such as the Choctaw and Creeks, kept thousands of African slaves (additionally, some Indians allied themselves with the Confederacy during the war).

While these facts aren’t generally found in school textbooks, they should surprise no one. Slavery was once ubiquitous throughout the world, and North America’s indigenous people were no exception. For their embrace of the institution predated the white settlers’ arrival; moreover, this event presented new slaveholding opportunities: Some Indians made slaves of Europeans as well as Africans. 

Read the rest here.

Statists Want to Force Priests to Reveal Confessions

By Selwyn Duke

First there were efforts to compel Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now statists in some nations want to force priests to violate the confidentiality of confession for, ostensibly, the purpose of uncovering sexual abuse. Adam Shaw at American Thinker provides some background and then explains the recent proposals, writing:

[O]ne of the most important aspects of confession is what is known as the seal of confession. The seal means that the priest who hears confessions is bound by church law on pain of both mortal sin and latae sententiae excommunication (a type of excommunication that can be removed only by the Holy See) not to reveal by word or action any of your confession. This basically means that any priest revealing any part of any confession is essentially committing spiritual hara-kari [sic].

…The seal of confession is something that has been attacked in many ways for centuries, from monarchs claiming it to be a cover for treason to communists claiming it can be a cover for spies to the modern-day trend of trying to blame it for the spread of child abuse within the Church. In Australia, parts of mainland Europe and most recently in Ireland, there have been strong moves to pass laws that would force priests to reveal confessions they may have heard from accused sex abusers.

While a sincere person certainly could believe that some secrets are so dark that light must be shone upon them, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the proposed laws are motivated by anti-Christian bias. After all, therapists and attorneys also maintain confidentiality — even after hearing the confession of crimes — in their cases with their clients. So why is the priest-penitent relationship the only one targeted?

Read the rest here.