Bob's Place

How could anyone be opposed in principle to private investment accounts within Social Security? I could understand Democrats arguing that "private accounts are a wonderful idea but the country can't afford the transition costs right now." But mostly I hear Democrats saying they're a lousy idea, and that President Bush wants to wreck Social Security — because, after all, he wants to let you keep a great big whopping 4% of your payroll taxes in a private account instead of handing over every cent to the government. How on Earth could anyone be opposed in principle to letting taxpayers manage a minuscule fraction of their own money (their own money, dammit!) if they want to? Because private accounts violate the Infantile American Principle, so dear to Democratic hearts. Little kids should turn over their cash to the Big Smart Government for safekeeping.

But of course they can't say that, so instead they say, "Bush wants to privatize Social Security" — as if government were going to wash its hands of the whole mess. The technical term that logicians use for this rhetorical gambit — applying a correct word for one part of a proposal to the proposal as a whole — is "lying."

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 10:19 AM |

Commentary:
Another word for ‘politically correct’ is ‘intolerant’
By JAY AMBROSE
Guest Commentary

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 8:57 AM |

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- A judge sentenced a 19-year-old to four months in jail for not mentioning his arrest record when he was called for jury duty, outraging his family.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 11:20 AM |

Fingar: I don't remember if he pointed. John speaks in such a low voice normally. Was it louder than normal? Probably. I wouldn't characterize it as screaming at me or anything like that. It was more, hands on hips, the body language as I recall it, I knew he was mad.

He was ''standing up'' with ''hands on hips''! Who's he think he is -- Carmen Miranda? Fortunately, before Bolton could let rip with a ''pursed lip'' or escalate to the lethal ''tsk-ing'' maneuver, Fingar was able to back cautiously out of the room and call the FBI anger management team, who surrounded the building and told the deranged diplomat to come out slowly with his hands above his hips.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 6:34 AM |

Bolton's key disagreement with those Democrats who are content to have the U.S. led by the nose by the lowest common denominator of recalcitrant foreign actors. This attitude is the international version of the old definition of a liberal as someone who won't take his own side in a fight.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 9:42 AM |

Over the past several decades, we have gotten used to judges being above the law, so it was perhaps inevitable that we would now be asked to get used to the idea that judges are above criticism.

In the wake of the Terri Schiavo case, where a Florida judge ignored Florida law and Congressional subpoenas, and where federal judges ignored Congressional legislation duly signed by the President, some people dared to suggest that judges had overstepped the bounds.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 6:26 AM |

One has to wonder if Adam Nagourney of the NY Times would have felt compelled to write this piece had the consultant been a Democrat. Apparently Mr. Finkelstein wasn't exactly in the closet and chose a private civil ceremony. Somehow the story doesn't read like the usual Times wedding announcement.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 8:40 AM |

Thoughtful atheists ought to be able to recognise that, whatever one's tastes in these areas, the Pope was on to something - that abortion et al, in separating the "two meanings" of sex and leaving us free to indulge in one while ignoring the other, have severed us almost entirely and possibly irreparably from traditional impulses, such as societal survival. John Paul II championed the "splendour of truth" not because he was rigid and inflexible, but because he understood the alternative was a dead end in every sense.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 9:01 AM |