Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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I have been writing in favor of gridlocks for some time, at least as a second-best option to the one where the government is in the hands of an administration committed to limited powers. I wasn’t thrilled with the outcome last week that sent Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer, among others, back to the nation’s capitol to try to continue to shore up the government’s powers. But at least the election had the favorable result of producing a gridlocked regime for a while. I say, let them be bogged own in their partisan bicke...
I have been writing in favor of gridlocks for some time, at least as a second-best option to the one where the government is in the hands of an administration committed to limited powers. I wasn’t thrilled with the outcome last week that sent Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer, among others, back to the nation’s capitol to try to continue to shore up the government’s powers. But at least the election had the favorable result of producing a gridlocked regime for a while. I say, let them be bogged own in their partisan bicke...
When working out what should guide public institutions and policies, those who chime in have advanced various proposals and they have often been divided into two groups. Members of one of these advance certain basic principles that ought to ground the institutions and policies, while those of the other suggest the way to decide is by focusing on anticipated consequences, never mind any purportedly firm principles. In the United States, the former group is called deontologists while the latter consequentialists. Deontologists...
It may have been Will Rogers or Mark Twain. I cannot now recall which of the two great American humorists it was who said all politicians are criminals. But it makes no difference because when something is true, its source is not the main issue. Fact is, politicians are extortionists at heart. Their forte is they will allow you and me to live and work provided we fork out nearly half of what we earn or otherwise obtain honestly so they can then dispose of it as they see fit. In our time, the main appeal politicians hold out...
At this time when most people are clamoring for economic revival, the major debate centers around how it could be achieved. One side, mainly the current administration and its supporters in the academy, believe in some variety of stimulus initiated by the federal government — funneling funds (taken from taxes and borrowed from future generations and foreign governments) to the various state governments that are to use them to pay for public work projects, improving infrastructure, etc. The other side, mainly more or...
At this time when most people are clamoring for economic revival, the major debate centers around how it could be achieved. One side, mainly the current administration and its supporters in the academy, believe in some variety of stimulus initiated by the federal government — funneling funds (taken from taxes and borrowed from future generations and foreign governments) to the various state governments that are to use them to pay for public work projects, improving infrastructure, etc. The other side, mainly more or...
It bothers me to no end that millions of Americans simply don’t get just how dangerous this current administration’s views are, especially about the nature of our basic rights. I suppose I should not be surprised, given the utterly perverted primary and secondary education most people receive now in their government-run schools. After all, those very schools and everyone with a job in the system depend upon the flat-out rejection of the idea of our basic, natural rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. For if...
For most of human history, it used to be standard practice for parents to insist their children live by principles the parents have found to be sound. They also insisted children adopt all sorts of practices of dress, play, work, taste and so forth that they approve. Father was a barber, so son, too, had to be; mother raised four children, so daughter, too, must bear the same number. Parents liked living by the sea, so the kids too must follow suite. Indeed, if a child had another idea, all hell tended to break loose. And...
Do I search for hypocrisies among my adversaries? Only when it is too obvious to miss. And what if anything is wrong with hypocrisy? So what if you are a liar but make a big deal about condemning lying in your neighbor? Why is that a problem? In this era when major political figures denounce ideological thinking, why should one be consistent and show integrity? Those are not the virtues of sophisticates. Those are pedestrian ideals. As our president pointed out, “the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so l...
Do I search for hypocrisies among my adversaries? Only when it is too obvious to miss. And what if anything is wrong with hypocrisy? So what if you are a liar but make a big deal about condemning lying in your neighbor? Why is that a problem? In this era when major political figures denounce ideological thinking, why should one be consistent and show integrity? Those are not the virtues of sophisticates. Those are pedestrian ideals. As our president pointed out, “the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so l...
Of course, I am just a fan of Mose Allison, he’s not really my main hero but now and then I get enthusiastic about his work and nearly idolize him. Mose Allison is a jazz pianist, composer and perhaps the coolest cat on the jazz and blues scene. I’ve had the good fortune of witnessing him play on numerous occasions, from the days when I lived in Santa Barbara, at El Paseo Restaurant back in the 19070s, to Harry’s Bar in Century City, the MOMA and the Bakery Jazz club in Los Angeles, and most recently, on June 30, 2010, at Ma...
My favorite place to live in America is California. But don’t get me wrong — one size does not fit all. And how wonderful that is, that people differ so much that they could be quite happy living in very different places. I love this since it helps to confirm my individualist position about human social life. On a recent visit to Portugal, near Lisbon and right off the Atlantic Coast, I rediscovered that country after having been away from it for 40 years. And it comes across very different now from what it was back t...
The president of the AAUP — American Association of University Professors — issued a lengthy declaration warning the membership against getting involved with BP, the giant oil company whose operations have gone awry in the Gulf of Mexico and whose management is suspected of numerous failures and malpractices that have lead to the disaster in the Gulf. Of course, this has provoked innumerable people, pundits, government officials, bureaucrats, and cheerleaders of extensive government regulation of business to...
Many moons ago I directed a conference on government regulation, out of which the book edited by me and the late M. Bruce Johnson, “Rights and Regulation,” was created. In this book some of those who supported government regulation — and most mainstream contributors did so — maintained that being opposed to government regulations is like being opposed to laws. And since laws are necessary for a just society, the inference was drawn that so are government regulations. The logic is not impeccable but there is som...
Many moons ago I directed a conference on government regulation, out of which the book edited by me and the late M. Bruce Johnson, “Rights and Regulation,” was created. In this book some of those who supported government regulation — and most mainstream contributors did so — maintained that being opposed to government regulations is like being opposed to laws. And since laws are necessary for a just society, the inference was drawn that so are government regulations. The logic is not impeccable but there is som...
In his heartfelt eulogy for his mother, Jean Biden, Vice President Joe Biden quoted some words from her, very approvingly. These included the idea that “Everyone is your equal, and everyone is equal to you.” Furthermore, in his autobiography the vice president recalls something else he learned from his mother: “’Remember Joey,’ she would say ... ‘You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you. You’re not better than anybody else, but nobody is better than you.’” These may appear to be nice sentiments from a mother who wants to...
In his heartfelt eulogy for his mother, Jean Biden, Vice President Joe Biden quoted some words from her, very approvingly. These included the idea that “Everyone is your equal, and everyone is equal to you.” Furthermore, in his autobiography the vice president recalls something else he learned from his mother: “’Remember Joey,’ she would say ... ‘You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you. You’re not better than anybody else, but nobody is better than you.’” These may appear to be nice sentiments from a mother who wants to...
It looks like the way the Right despises ACORN, the Left does the Tea Party. It may not even be so much about their political stances, although that is part of it for sure. It is sad, though, that supporters of Obama had no problem with — indeed were proud of — his history of community organization but forget about this completely as they deride the Tea Party. And I am not just talking about Leftist talk show hosts and hostesses but snooty publications like The New Republic and The New York Review of Books....
It looks like the way the Right despises ACORN, the Left does the Tea Party. It may not even be so much about their political stances, although that is part of it for sure. It is sad, though, that supporters of Obama had no problem with — indeed were proud of — his history of community organization but forget about this completely as they deride the Tea Party. And I am not just talking about Leftist talk show hosts and hostesses but snooty publications like The New Republic and The New York Review of Books....
Everyone who is awake discriminates — it is what people do with their minds. The kind of discrimination that’s objectionable is when people use irrelevant attributes of others to classify them — like their race when hiring them for jobs where race is irrelevant. The race of a CPA has no bearing on the work of a CPA, so taking it into account in the hiring or promotion process is morally wrong, a kind of professional malpractice. In a free country, such discrimination may not be forbidden however offensive it i...
Everyone who is awake discriminates — it is what people do with their minds. The kind of discrimination that’s objectionable is when people use irrelevant attributes of others to classify them — like their race when hiring them for jobs where race is irrelevant. The race of a CPA has no bearing on the work of a CPA, so taking it into account in the hiring or promotion process is morally wrong, a kind of professional malpractice. In a free country, such discrimination may not be forbidden however offensive it i...
On Sunday, The New York Times Magazine ran what amounts to a puff piece about Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s longtime friend, former colleague, and current regulation czar. It was penned by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who is identified as “a contributing writer for the magazine and a contributing editor for Rolling Stone” magazine. The essay is a decent enough account of Sunstein’s career and personal life but the only idea it focuses upon in his repertoire of significant and controversial ideas is “nud...
On Sunday, The New York Times Magazine ran what amounts to a puff piece about Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s longtime friend, former colleague, and current regulation czar. It was penned by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who is identified as “a contributing writer for the magazine and a contributing editor for Rolling Stone” magazine. The essay is a decent enough account of Sunstein’s career and personal life but the only idea it focuses upon in his repertoire of significant and controversial ideas is “nud...
Is this stuff with Greece and, soon, with Portugal, Spain and Italy, and the rest of us all that surprising? Has it not been clear for ages that when people draw their support from a common pool, the resources will soon vanish? Aristotle already noted this phenomenon when he said, “For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other c...
So Bill Gates sold me some software when he was still in that business. He was then immensely rich, compared to me. How unfair, you say? But Bill took his gains from this trade and used it to feed starving African children, while I used the software I bought from him to do something utterly trivial on my computer, like writing a dull column. Now was this a fair trade? Impossible to tell. Trade is never fair — the entire notion of fairness is very difficult to apply to trade as would be the idea of blue or funny. When I...
