Lessons from the data: Those peoples that trust their government, tend to have more economic liberty, which generally keeps gov’t size and power in check.
Source: Why Libertarians Should Want *More* Trust in Government – Reason.com
Rule of Law
Choose Sides? You Bet. But Antifa and Fascism Are the Same Side. – Reason.com
“That side is in opposition to the violent, authoritarian thugs of the right and of the left. If we regain our faith in what we already have, there’s no reason to choose between rival siblings competing to rule over the ruins of everything that’s worthwhile on behalf of their illiberal family.”
“Sooner or later… one has to take sides—if one is to remain human,” Haider writes, quoting a character from Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. “The liberal center has to heed the same warning,” Haider adds. But the character Haider quotes is a member of Vietnam’s Communist party—which killed “probably about 1,040,000″ people in the post-Vietnam War period, after it came to power over the united country, as estimated by the late Prof. R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii…That’s an unpalatable side to pick in any situation.”
Source: Choose Sides? You Bet. But Antifa and Fascism Are the Same Side. – Reason.com
Dr. Bob Nelson speaks to the Palmetto Panel about importance of Healthcare Freedom in our Republic
Georgia Chapter Free Market Medical Association spokesperson, Dr. Bob Nelson, had the honor of addressing the 3rd annual Citizens in Action, Palmetto Panel held at Clemson University on February 25th about healthcare freedom and the importance of liberating markets with price honesty in healthcare.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/205822572″>Palmetto Panel: Dr. Bob Nelson, Free Market Medical Association</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user1416051″>Thomas Hanson</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
The Electoral College Still Makes Sense Because We’re Not A Democracy
What appears to deprive the populace of its power to decide a president is the very mechanism that preserves its power. The Electoral College works that way because the United States isn’t a pure democracy.
Source: The Electoral College Still Makes Sense Because We’re Not A Democracy
Immigration Controversies – Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell
Despite controversies that rage over immigration, it is hard to see how anyone could be either for or against immigrants in general.
Both in the present and in the past, some immigrant groups have made great contributions to American society, and others have contributed mainly to the welfare rolls and the prisons. Nor is this situation unique to the United States. The same has been true of Sweden and of other countries in Europe and elsewhere.
Sweden was, for a long time, one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world. As of 1940, only about one percent of the Swedish population were immigrants. Even as the proportion of immigrants increased over the years, as late as 1970 90 percent of foreign-born persons in Sweden had been born in other Scandinavian countries or in Western Europe.
These immigrants were usually well-educated, and often had higher labor force participation rates and lower unemployment rates than the native Swedes. That all began to change as the growing number of immigrants came increasingly from the Middle East, with Iraqis becoming the largest immigrant group in Sweden.
This changing trend was accompanied by a sharply increased use of the government’s “social assistance” program, from 6 percent in the pre-1976 era to 41 percent in the 1996-1999 period. But, even in this later period, fewer than 7 percent of the immigrants from Scandinavia and Western Europe used “social assistance,” while 44 percent of the immigrants from the Middle East used that welfare state benefit.
Immigrants, who were by this time 16 percent of Sweden’s population, had become 51 percent of the long-term unemployed and 57 percent of the people receiving welfare payments. The proportion of foreigners in prison was 5 times their proportion in the population of the country.
The Rule of Law
Professor Tom W. Bell
Chapman University
Academic Research Shows Minorities Get Hurt When Government Tries to Help | International Liberty
Two economists, one from the University of Virginia and the other from the University of Oregon, conducted a study of “ban the box” laws that restrict employers from figuring out whether job applicants have criminal records.
So it sounds very compassionate to impose these laws, right? Who could object to helping ex-cons get in the door for interviews, at which point they can hopefully show potential employers that they have value.
Well, the study shows that these laws hurt more than they help. Here are some passages from the abstract.
We find that BTB policies decrease the probability of being employed by 3.4 percentage points (5.1%) for young, low-skilled black men, and by 2.3 percentage points (2.9%) for young, low-skilled Hispanic men. These findings support the hypothesis that when an applicant’s criminal history is unavailable, employers statistically discriminate against demographic groups that are likely to have a criminal record.
Source: Academic Research Shows Minorities Get Hurt When Government Tries to Help | International Liberty
