May 15, 2006

The BIG Picture
By L. Reichard White
Exclusive to The Price of Liberty

Steiger's Law:

Sam Steiger is a former six-term US Congressman from Arizona. He ran for Arizona governor on the Libertarian ticket in 1984. At a talk given in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 31, 1982, he suggested what he modestly called "Steiger's Law:"

"People involved in a structure spend more time and energy maintaining that structure than in working toward its goals."

Massachusetts' Mandatory Health Insurance Bill Is Unconstitutional
By Robert Greenslade © Nitwit Press

The State of Massachusetts recently became the first State to require its residents to be covered by health insurance. Under this law, all uninsured adults will be compelled to purchase some kind of health insurance by July 1, 2007, or face legal penalties. This buy insurance or else legislation is patterned after the State's auto insurance law that requires all operators of a motor vehicle to be covered by insurance.

Beginning in 2008, residents will be required to provide a detailed overview of their health insurance coverage on their state income tax return. Any one who does not have insurance would lose their personal state tax exemption and be hit with a penalty equal to half of the cheapest policy available in the State. Preliminary estimates put that amount at approximately $1,200.00 per year. (Read the rest here)

How Quickly We Forget
By Lady Liberty

When promotional trailers for the first of the big studio 9/11 movies began to roll in New York City theatres, audiences protested. "Too soon!" they shouted at the screen. Theatre managers responded by pulling previews for United 93. The film premiered on schedule on April 26; reviews have been largely positive as far as the movie goes, though have almost universally warned of its visceral emotional impact (click here) for my own take on the film).

One review that struck me in particular came from Robert Wilonsky at the Dallas Observer who wrote: "United 93 wants you to do more than remember - it wants you to remember how you felt." I took that comment to heart in large part because, although I suspect that few of us need any prompting to remember what happened that horrible day, it seems too many have already forgotten their feelings in the aftermath of the terror attacks. (Read the rest here)

A Feel-Good Strategy Gone Wrong
By Trudy W. Schuett

The idea of some kind of social responsibility for big business is not only fashionable, but profitable these days. Pick any corporate website, and you'll see a link somewhere to either a foundation the company itself has, or a list of causes they're involved with, or both. Because there's a wide range of issues, and an equally wide range of companies, if you really wanted to boycott every company whose issues you disagree with, you'd probably end up not being able to buy anything.

Most activists recognize there hasn't been a truly effective boycott of a company or product on a national scale since the table grape boycott of the 1970s, (and even that's still open for discussion) but there's always somebody online willing to suggest one. (Read the rest here)

Liz Claiborne Inc. (Part II)
Power, Control and Emotional Abuse
By Richard L. Davis

Liz Claiborne Inc. commissioned a Teen Relationship Abuse Survey (TRAS) that was conducted in March of 2006. You may use this URL to view the TRAS survey online.

On the first page of the survey it claims that, “[F]or many teens who have boyfriends or girlfriends, dating pressures aren’t simple adolescent angst; they’re power and control issues that commonly underpin abusive relationships.” In fact the issue of power and control runs through child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse. (Read the rest here)

Foreign Policy, Monetary Policy, and Gas Prices
by Congressman Ron Paul - R - TX

The burning issue in Washington today is high gas prices, and it won’t go away anytime soon. Americans are not happy about paying $3 per gallon at the pump, and they want something done about it.

But price controls won’t work, and allegations of price gouging and “windfall profits” amount to nothing more than congressional grandstanding. No government official or politician is fit to define a “fair” price for gas or a “fair” profit for oil companies. This is not the Soviet Union. The last thing we need is centralized government planning when it comes to our precious energy supplies. (Read the rest here)

The Doha Joke
By Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Does anyone remember that at the last meeting of the World Trade Organization the trade representatives of the participating countries made a formal commitment to reach a final deal on cutting agricultural and industrial tariffs and subsidies by April 30th of this year? Well, the deadline just passed and the Doha Round of global trade talks—as the multilateral negotiations are called—is not making any progress.

In fact, the Doha Round, created to advance global growth and development by lowering trade barriers, has not made any meaningful progress since its launch in the traumatic, post-9/11 days of November of 2001. Whatever (little) progress there has been in trade liberalization since the talks began has come from bilateral agreements. For the past five years, the Doha Round negotiations have continued all over the world, including four major international gatherings in Cancun, Geneva, Paris, and Hong-Kong. Yet, the best one can say about these meetings is that both rich and poor countries (if I may use this simplistic division) have become pretty sophisticated at appearing to be making concessions they are not really making at all. (Read the rest here)

Speaking Spanish and Assimilating
by Jacob G. Hornberger

I'm always intrigued by people who complain that Latino immigrants who don't learn English aren't "assimilating" within American society.

Consider my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I was practicing law in the 1970s. The jury pool for judicial trials consisted of citizens whose names had been taken from the voter rolls. Before jury selection, the judge would ask the jury pool (through a Spanish interpreter) whether there was anyone who could not speak or write English. Inevitably about 20 percent of the group would raise their hands. They would be excused from jury service. (Read the rest here)

ABC Pulls The Plug on Hillary's Prez Plans
By Carey Roberts

Last week ABC announced it was yanking Commander in Chief, the highly-touted series about the first American female president. It had fallen to No. 64 in the Nielsen ratings, so taking the show off life-support was only a matter of time.

Commander in Chief was not a TV series in the usual sense. Rather it was a nationally-televised focus group, designed to test out issues, talking points, and applause lines for Hillary Clinton's stealth presidential campaign.

The lead script writer was Steve Cohen, whose ties to the Clinton family go back to 1991. After a stint in president Bill Clinton's press office, Mr. Cohen was named Hillary's deputy communications director, a position he held for over three years. (Read the rest here)

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