Santorum Is Severely Wrong | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Santorum Is Severely Wrong | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'A recent Time magazine symposium asked leading thinkers on the Right, "What Is Conservatism?" Anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist offered this answer: "Conservatives ask only one thing of the government. They wish to be left alone."

'"This idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do," Santorum complained to NPR in 2006, "that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues... that is not how traditional conservatives view the world."'

So which is correct?

Israeli Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities Easier Said than Done | David Isenberg | Cato Institute: Commentary

Israeli Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities Easier Said than Done | David Isenberg | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'It is believed that the Israeli missiles can reach Natanz. However, to travel that far the missiles will have a limited warhead weight, and it is doubtful that these warheads will be able to penetrate far enough underground to achieve the desired level of destruction.'

Isreal has a much more advanced military than North Korea but it only has limited capabilities at 1,000 miles.

A Debate about Contraception Or Religious Freedom? No, a Debate about Economic Choice | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

A Debate about Contraception Or Religious Freedom? No, a Debate about Economic Choice | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'This issue never had anything whatsoever to do with women’s health. There is nothing that prevents any woman who wants contraceptives from purchasing them. No one is threatening to take that right away, and no one should.

The debate does not even have anything to do with whether or not women can get insurance that covers contraceptives. Most insurance plans already do so, and when they don’t, women can purchase a rider that provides the additional coverage.

What this debate was really about is who pays for that coverage. And as much as some would like to obscure it, there is a difference between having the freedom to buy something for yourself and forcing someone else to pay for it.'

'From the beginning, the debate over health care reform has been about power and control. On one side, the Obama administration has sought to centralize control over health care in the federal government. The government decides whether a business must provide insurance or whether an individual must purchase it, and what type of insurance that must be. The government decides what treatments should be available. The government decides how much things should cost and who should pay for them.'

'As long as Obamacare puts the government in charge of our health care decisions, our choices will be dictated by politicians.'

Streetcar Claims Are Deceptive | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary

Streetcar Claims Are Deceptive | Randal O'Toole | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'There is a good reason why all but six of the more than 800 American cities that once had streetcars replaced them with buses: Streetcar infrastructure is expensive to build, expensive to maintain and must be rehabilitated at high cost about every 30 years.

The subsidies supporting streetcars are far greater, per rider or per passenger mile, than subsidies to buses.'

The Illiberality of ObamaCare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Illiberality of ObamaCare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'it is nonsense to argue that the percentage of Americans who believe contraception is forbidden by God is small enough that the First Amendment doesn't apply to them; the whole point of the First Amendment is to protect minorities.'

'Rather than respect each individual's freedom to make their own choice, President Obama demands that even those who will never need contraception — gays, lesbians, the post-menopausal, the celibate, the infertile — must underwrite other people's sex lives.'

'The president seeks to achieve universal health insurance coverage by forcing everyone to purchase it. With a populace sharply divided over what health insurance should include, however, that mission becomes an altar for sacrificing individual rights.'

Obama's Busted Budget | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Obama's Busted Budget | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The president claims that his budget proposal reduces debt by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, combining $2.4 trillion in spending cuts with $1.6 trillion in tax hikes.'

'The president actually counts $681 billion in cuts that were agreed to last year as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling. '

'The president also counts as a cut the $741 billion we will save from not occupying Iraq over the next 10 years, and from not being in Afghanistan a decade from now.'

'And, finally, $595 billion of the claimed budget cuts is actually interest savings resulting from not having to borrow for the other phony cuts.'

That shows that 84% of the cuts are phony.

How Does The Penalty For 'Content Theft' Match Up With Similar 'Crimes'? | Techdirt

How Does The Penalty For 'Content Theft' Match Up With Similar 'Crimes'? | Techdirt: 'Copyright “theft” is a very different story. Copyright infringement statutory damages in civil litigation can be as high as $150,000 for infringement of a single work. Yes, a single work such as a single song with an iTunes download value of $1. A copyright holder can claim such statutory damages without needing to prove a single penny of damage or loss. Think such sky-high damages aren’t realistic? Think again. In the RIAA’s case against single mother Jammie Thomas, a jury awarded $1,500,000 for the download of 24 songs, with no proof that she had transmitted songs to others. The federal judge thought that was ridiculous and reduced the total award to $54,000 – and the RIAA and MPAA are now arguing strenuously on appeal that the jury verdict should return to the original figure, $62,500 per downloaded song.

What if we work backwards, and see how the law might punish those other, similar, infractions with a damages system similar to copyright:


If we take copyright law’s maximum-penalty-to-price ratio as applied to an illegal download, and apply that same penalty-to-price ratio to the New York subway, the maximum penalty for jumping that turnstile and avoiding the $2.50 fare would be $375,000 instead of $100. Copyright industries are on to a really good thing under current law. One could say it’s a steal.

And yet the industry claims that copyright laws are too weak currently? That seems difficult to square with reality.'

Reason Foundation - Out of Control Policy Blog > Can Environmental Advocacy Organizations be Good Stewards of the Environment?

Reason Foundation - Out of Control Policy Blog > Can Environmental Advocacy Organizations be Good Stewards of the Environment?: 'The willingness of the national organizations to bargain away real-world, earth-bound enviornmental stewardship for abstract policy objectives such as climate change should be worrying. How much of the environment are they willing to trade off for climate change, particularly since virtually no meaingful metrics exist for judging the effectiveness of this plant in meeting climate change goals which are global in scale? And the vast majority of greenhouse gases that will be released into the atmosphere over the next 50 years will come from rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India, regardless of what the US can accomplish?'

USPS: The Cursed Carriers - Brian Anderson - Mises Daily

USPS: The Cursed Carriers - Brian Anderson - Mises Daily: 'The 12 cent stamps sold by the USPS were no match for Spooner's 3 cent stamps, so the US government, in order to oppose the inevitable, officially declared that all city streets were to be deemed post roads, available only to the USPS in letter delivery.'

'While labor costs represent only 32 percent and 53 percent of expenses for FedEx and United Parcel Service, respectively, they represent an astounding 80 percent for the USPS.'

Fed Low Interest Rate Policy Distorts the Economy | James A. Dorn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Fed Low Interest Rate Policy Distorts the Economy | James A. Dorn | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Can anyone seriously believe that the runup in bond prices can continue indefinitely, or that the Fed's low interest-rate policy hasn't helped push up other asset prices, including gold and stocks?

Manipulating interest rates via central bank policy distorts the structure of asset prices and penalizes savers. Low nominal interest rates, even at low rates of inflation, can mean negative real rates. Pension plans are also harmed as promised benefits cannot be fulfilled.'

'Monetizing government debt and pegging interest rates are experiments in market socialism, not capitalism. The longer the Fed fails to let market forces determine rates, the more difficult the eventual adjustment will become.'

' the chief architect of the Constitution, James Madison, held that:

"It is sufficiently obvious that persons and property (not aggregate demand management) are the two great subjects on which governments are to act; and that the rights of persons and the rights of property are the objects for the protection of which Government was instituted."'