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Immigration Enforcement

Jacob Hornberger discusses evils of immigration enforcement.

At first, enforcement is weak, which means that people circumvent it. That then induces the government to adopt an ever-increasing array of harsh, brutal, ruthless, and tyrannical measures. Yet, owing to the great disparities of economic opportunity between the United States and their countries of origin, immigrants are willing to risk getting caught or even losing their lives. They keep coming, which causes federal officials to crack down even more brutally, ruthlessly, and tyrannically.

That’s why that father and daughter drowned in the Rio Grande recently. The video of their dead bodies on shore was widely published by the mainstream media. The victims were circumventing the tremendous immigration enforcement crackdown along the border. The same holds true for the people who are dying of thirst trying to enter the United States via deserts in the Southwest. The same for those people who die in the backs of 18-wheelers. They are all trying to evade the increasingly harsh enforcement measures designed to keep them out of the United States.

Limit all government data collection

Those who support big government think that government policy can be improved by collecting data. This is just another fatal conceit. The census should only collect data necessary to allocate congressional seats.

All the data collection done for the purpose of generating aggregate statistics by the

Department of State

Department of Treasury

Department of Defense

Department of Justice

Department of Interior

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Labor

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of Transportation

Department of Energy

Department of Education

Department of Veterans Affairs

Department of Homeland Security

Should be stopped

Tusli Gabbard Gets It Right

“For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end.”
Reported by Pat Buchanan

more from Buchanan
Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage.

Gabbard proceeded to rip both the “president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran.”

In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage from Afghanistan: “When we weren’t in there they started flying planes into our buildings.”

Don’t Let Nasty Win

Nasty people chase off people only because the nice people expect everyone to be pleasant. The nice give up when they find someone they think is unreasonable.

Ignore the nasty people.

Don’t waste your time trying to convince them, just work to have a majority and out vote them.

When you find someone unpleasant, just tell yourself, I need to find another nice person.

Amoral does not mean Immoral

Gary M. Galles restates some remarks from Leonard Reed in a recent essay published by FEE

Here are some excerpts

” The market is a mechanism, and thus it is wholly lacking in moral and spiritual suasion…it embodies no coercive force whatsoever. “

“Instead of cursing evil, stay out of the market for it; the evil will cease to the extent we cease patronizing it. Trying to rid ourselves of trash by running to government for morality laws is like trying to minimize the effects of inflation by wage, price, and other controls. Both destroy the market, that is, the reflection of ourselves…attempts not to see ourselves as we are.”

Advice for Marco Rubio

I saw your opinion/commentary article published in the Wall Street Journal 6/5/2019. It properly brought to light that investors should not trust accounting statements from Chinese businesses. Your solution to this problem, calling for more government regulation is foolish.

A free market will less regulations, where “let the buyer beware” is more likely to have long term benefits, then establishing regulations attempting to cure yesterday and today’s problems.

Federal regulations are not without costs, Costs that most often accrue to businesses who have no evil intent. These costs then get passed on to all investors, even those who have no interest in Chinese investments. 

The fact that the SEC could not discover a multi-million ponzi scheme by Bernie Madoff that went on for years demonstrates just one example where regulations accomplished little, and provided the moral hazard that investors assumed the government was protecting them.  Your proposal will only increase the demand by the SEC for more federal budget, and more bureaucracy.

We have laws in place to punish wrong doers. Advocating more regulations to try to prevent fraud is an example of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.

Reparations

If you are unhappy with where you got your start in life, then you must take it up with your parents since they are responsible for bringing you into this world. The sins of your parents are not your sins. Likewise, the injustices suffered by your ancestors give you no right to reparations from anyone other than your parents.

I am thankful for what my parents did for me, and will not seek reparations.

Alternative way to say the same thing.

Anyone suffering from an injustice that occurred before they were born has ethical claims only against their parents. Their parents are the proximate cause for them being alive and therefore are responsible for how they started in life.

In my theory of justice there can be no crimes or aggression against you before you were born. All theories of justice have problems with initial distribution of property. My theory attempts to persuade people to live a peaceful and happy life without envy.

Life is a journey, not a destination. People can have joy and a good life no matter where they start.

A Wealth Tax is not the same as a Property Tax

In this video at: 1:51, Robert Reich, justifies Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for a federal Wealth Tax by claiming it is no different from cities imposing property taxes.

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos/485656445305109/UzpfSTE4MjQwMjI1MTk6MTAyMTEwMDM1NzY0ODUwNjE

Property Tax is designed to pay the specific costs of maintaining a city. Current systems use assessments to determine how the total property tax is distributed to each land owner. The total tax collected, T, is the sum of each property’s assessment, Ai, times the tax rate, R. T = R*sum(Ai). If politicians were honest, the tax rate would be determined by dividing the amount of money needed, T, by the Total Assessment, sum(Ai). If the assessment process is applied uniformly, it does not matter what the assessment is, each person would end up paying the same share of the total.

With a wealth tax, there is no target amount of money that is trying to be collected. Rather it is proposed as a way to reduce wealth inequality. Thus the appraised value of assets will play an important role. The value of an asset depends solely on what others are willing to pay for it. Without a market for a certain class of assets, it is only opinion that can set a value. Technology or changes in tastes can markedly change the value of an asset. The bureaucracy needed to determine the value of each asset subject to a wealth tax will be vast, and the appeal process will be difficult and expensive.