ActRight

CNN host Carol Costello abruptly ended a segment Tuesday after a guest brought up Hillary Clinton's 1975 legal defense of an accused child rapist. Appearing on "CNN Newsroom With Carol Costello"

Share on Facebook 1 1 SHARES Trump’s bestie Roger Stone is going above and beyond in his effort to be scummy on behalf of The Donald. Stone is the Trump ally who probably planted the fake Ted Cruz sex scandal story in the National Enquirer. He’s also a big piece of crap. And lately, he’s been making threats. Today he took it to a whole | Read More »

Both Michael Strain and Ian Murray have expressed their views about the Universal Basic Income. Like Ian, I like the idea of a UBI. Many libertarians do and have in the past. We shouldn’t forget that before Charles Murray wrote his great book In Our Hands — where he argued for an unconditional $10,000 annual cash payment to all adult Americans, coupled with a repeal of all other welfare transfer programs — many libertarian giants such as as Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and even James Buchanan had praised the idea. Indeed, in a world where government already redistributes income, with all of the inefficiency that comes with overlapping bureaucracies, and the inability to take care of those who are truly destitute, the idea of direct cash payments has an intuitive appeal because of its comparative simplicity and fairness. It is certainly preferable to the current system. Welfare programs are demeaning by design, because they dictate to poor people what they must spend on food, housing, or health care, rather than letting them make those trade-offs themselves. The government even dictates what food poor people may or may not buy with food stamps. The libertarian interest in a basic income proceeds not simply — or even mostly — from the desire to make government smaller and more cost-efficient. It is unclear how much UBI does that. It stems from a belief that all individuals have the capacity to promote their own interests, and in fact are better able to make decisions about their lives than anyone else. And as Ian noted, we are right to trust them. It also proceeds from the belief that people should refrain from telling others what to do and not to do with their lives and money as long as they don’t bother anyone else. In that sense, UBI offers a possibility that maybe just maybe, we could restrain people’s natural and annoying paternalistic instincts, since everyone is getting the same amount of money and everyone is getting something from everyone else. I do agree with Michael and Ian that UBI takes money from some who work to redistribute to people who as a result will decide not to work or will decide to work less as a result. However, if we are going to have something resembling a welfare program, this is not as big a deal breaker to me as it is for Michael since this redistribution exists with most welfare programs, including with conservatives’ darling program the Earned Income Tax Credit. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like it. But the real question is whether UBI is really worse than the current system taken as a whole (not UBI compared to EITC or UBI compared to the minimum wage). But here is where my support ends. Without a strong guarantee that all anti-poverty measures would be terminated and that they won’t be able to be brought back to life later, I simply can’t support it. UBI schemes are expensive, which is okay if we decide that this is where we are going to spend money on welfare — but it is only okay if that’s where it ends. But it won’t. Politicians will always find ways to argue for targeted welfare programs: “Michael’s wife is healthy, I am not, it’s unfair, give me more,” or “it’s more expensive to live in San Francisco than in Sacramento, it’s unfair, give me more based on where I live,” or “I have children, she doesn’t, it’s unfair, give me more based on the number of kids I have.” Any violation of the generality principle (i.e., a rule that applies to all in the same manner) negates the benefits of UBI, including its simplicity. I will conclude by saying that even if we find ways to forever tie the hands of special interests and politicians, UBI is only an improvement over the current system. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that restoring civil society would go an even longer way to address many poverty issues that subsist today. As I wrote a few years ago on this issue: But more importantly, as economists Peter Boettke of George Mason University and Adam G. Martin of Kings College in London remind us in a recent paper, libertarians shouldn’t forget that “the most robust protection against poverty comes from institutions that generate a harmony of interests rather than those that foment distributional conflicts.” A guaranteed income may or may not be an improvement over the current state of affairs, but a massive transfer and regulatory state harms the poor either way. It means that reforming the welfare state should be paired with measures to free civil society from the constraints of government and special interests. I recommend reading this piece if you are interested in civil society and why restoring it is important.

Controversial movie banned just before 2008 Democratic primaries (INTELLIHUB) — After seeing what has taken place on the current Presidential campaign trail, it should come as no surprise that the …

The number of police shootings in Chicago has dropped so far this year, with only four shootings in the first quarter of 2016.  From 2008 to 2014, the average number of police shootings per quarter was 12, according to the Police Review Authority. Last year, the average number of shooting dropped to seven.

Share on Facebook 1 1 SHARES According to a new Mason-Dixon poll released Tuesday, Trump could be responsible for turning the state of Mississippi blue for the first time in 40 years. Although he won the Republican primary in the state last month with 47% of the vote, Donald Trump only hangs onto a 3 point lead in the latest poll against Hillary- 46 percent to | Read More

“"We will disclose the hotels and room numbers of those delegates... We urge you to visit their hotel and find them." https://t.co/VnPsD8rFOy”

Morale sinks as key battleground state staff laid off, including senior data operative.

There's a real possibility he'll be on the general election debate stage!

Donald Trump made the most absolutely stupendously stupid statement about what made Lincoln successful that there is no explanation other than he doesn’t have a damn clue what Lincoln did or …

Did FBI Director James Comey suggest that the Hillary Clinton server scandal was like the San Bernardino terrorist attack? He totally did.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes he’s found the solution to global Islamic terrorism: love and empathy. He has announced that, essentially, all we need to do is hug it out, that perhaps one Giant Hug will overcome the global jihadist network of maniacs who exist only to murder.

Donald Trump is so in love with his own voice, and so enamored with being interviewed by the great Bob Woodward, that Woodward got him to spin himself into a story so unlikely that it makes Brian W…

After almost a century of consistent and ongoing attacks to limited government as envisioned by America’s founding fathers, perhaps it is no surprise that Americans no longer look to the Constitution for answers. Because if Americans did value separation of powers and self-governance, Donald Trump would not be the front-runner for the Republican party. After toying with the [...]

"I wish in hindsight that I'd done a better job of reaching out to a lot of key thought leaders and looping people in..."ds

RealClearPolitics - 2016 Republican Nomination

There’s really not a whole lot of difference between Hillary Clinton's 'economic patriotism' and Donald Trump's 'economic nationalism.'

Rapper Everlast Warns Secret Service: Don't Let Me Near Trump, I'll 'Punch Him in His F—king Face'

A man holding a “Death to America” sign got beat up by a couple in Middleburg, Florida. The man and woman were driving past the curb when they saw Charles Brownett stand with his sign that read “De…

A migrant who claimed to be underage, but wasn't, raped a 15 year old girl on the day after he got to Sweden, and has now been sentenced.

The security team that patrols the billionaire's rallies has a history of rough tactics, allegations of profiling.

http://ourreligiousfreedom.com Ted Cruz Spoke At the Fort Worth Religious Freedom Rally. In January 2011, Ted Cruz filed to run for U.S. Senate based on his ...

patreon.com/freedomtoons Did yall miss Social Contractor? Well, he's back! http://Patreon.com/freedomtoons Thanks to Pat Oberle for animating the lip syncing...

Marquette Professor Won't Apologize and Won't Go Quietly

Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz held their final campaign events before the Wisconsin Primary near Milwaukee Monday night and it didn't go well for Trump: