Good morning to our 2 Paragraphs Family. At the end of this coming July the Libertarian Party of California will be having its annual convention when I anticipate submitting a proposal for its new party platform. A draft of it is now being submitted to you for your thoughts and comments. All feedback is appreciated! Here is the draft:
A friend and neighbor of mine has a bumper sticker on his car that says: “Trump/Vance 2024 Never Surrender.” Flat out, I have no problem with people publicly supporting their political candidates, and in fact appreciate it when they do. But I have a large problem with saying “Never Surrender,” because it strongly implies that we are at war with each other! And this directly contributes to the polarization
What every successful civilization needs is leaders. “Leadership is defined as the ability of an individual or group to influence and guide others towards achieving shared goals. It involves aligning people in a collective direction and enabling them to work together effectively. Key characteristics of good leaders include vision, communication, integrity and the ability to inspire others.” So what does it take to be a leader?
The “Common Wisdom” is that when a President appoints a Justice to the US Supreme Court that the President can count upon that Justice pursuing the President’s agenda. But a close friend of mine, who is truly aware of realities in today’s world, actually sent me a list of Justices in significant cases since 1940 who voted against the Presidents who had appointed them.
There was an editorial in the May 2, 2024 edition of the Orange County Register about which we all should be concerned. It called attention to the fact that a graduate student at Tufts University who is here on a student visa was recently arrested and taken to a Louisiana jail and is being threatened with deportation for doing nothing more than writing a Pro-Palestinian op-ed piece for a local newspaper. The thrust of her column was to protest American support for the war in Gaza. It did not recommend violence or otherwise taking inappropriate action. But if that is not a violation of our Free Speech Rights under our Constitution, I have trouble thinking about what could be a greater threat. So I believe we all should be concerned about this result.
It really is not so hard. In my view, our nation’s immigration policy should be based upon the following five maxims:
1. It is our decision who comes into our country either to visit or to live, and not the visitor’s;
2. One strong reason our country is Great is because over the years so many people from around the world have immigrated here so they can roll up their sleaves and pursue the American Dream. Those who have shown they are a boon to themselves, their families and our country who have not already become citizens should their paths be streamlined to become citizens;
The idea that “Laws Reflect Society’s Values? is basically true. But it is also true that, in many ways, “We Can’t Legislate Morality.” So in writing last week’s edition of our 2 paragraphs about Costa Rica requiring school uniforms, it started me thinking about other programs in Costa Rica. And one of those is prostitution which, when I was there in the Peace Corps from 1966 to 1968, was totally legal for adults.
People are beginning to think about and discuss incentives! Good! At last! Why is that? Because, as one of my true heroes Dr. Milton Friedman often said, “Incentives matter!” To explain further, he also said, “You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax.” And today we are subsidizing victimization and taxing performance.
When I went into the Peace Corps in Costa Rica to teach Physical Education to high school students I requested to be placed in the smallest town in the country that had a high school. And that’s where I was sent. So I spent two years in Palmar Norte, which is in the southern part of the country on the Pacific side. Palmar Norte was a small rural town with most people just getting by financially.
British Journalist Miles Kington purportedly said “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” That probably defines the difference between knowledge and wisdom as well as can be done. But how does one obtain wisdom? Mentoring by us older folk “who have been there” is one of the best ways.
We have all been aware of the New York trial court judge’s threat to impose a Gag Order on former President Donald Trump. But we should also be aware of the complicated issues surrounding this situation! From the beginning of my judicial career back in judges’ college in 1984 the instructors told us not to issue orders that we could not enforce.
Here is a great idea that I have lifted from Wayne Allyn Root, who was the Libertarian candidate for Vice President in 2008: Candidates should run on a platform of ending all taxes on Social Security. Why? Focus upon this: workers have been required, often for many decades, to pay into Social Security without getting any tax deductions for their contributions.
Like many of you, recently I have been reading about a federal judge declaring illegal a revised version of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which prevents the deportation of thousands of immigrants who were brought to this country at an early age. I believe that People of Good Will would not want to deport young people in this situation, many of whom can’t even remember living in their foreign countries of birth.
As most of you are probably aware, today is the 22nd anniversary of the violent attack upon our country by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group – truly an act of war. What you may not be familiar with is the book Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, by Scott Horton (The Libertarian Institute, 2017). In this book Mr. Horton states that our CIA lured the then Soviet Union into Afghanistan in an effort to destabilize the Soviet Union.
According to Reason Magazine this year is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith, who is considered by many to be history’s strongest spokesperson for the Free Market. For example, Adam Smith wrote in his famous book entitled Wealth of Nations: “By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hotwalls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too can be made of them at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from Foreign countries.
According to the Pacific Legal Foundation, when American poet Robert Frost was being interviewed on a 1952 television show, he said that he preferred to spend time with people who have “a definite personality.” In fact the best trait in people, Frost went on, “is taut boldness.” This is consistent with my research about the views of all 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where they bickered, debated and even fought about almost every issue.
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