How the Word is Passed with Clint Smith
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-the-word-is-passed-with-clint-smith/id1382983397?i=1000523753415
Did Prohibition Teach Us Nothing?
Hong Kong’s Experiment in Freedom Nears a Brutal End
“Hong Kong’s freedom once provided a shining example for others to follow. While that freedom was never perfect, it enabled residents of the resource-poor territory to prosper. Residents enjoyed respect for their liberties that was rare in the region and unknown in neighboring China. But administration of Hong Kong was surrendered to China in 1997 and, as the recent raid on a pro-democracy newspaper demonstrates, the territory is losing its liberty as the world looks on in what the Chinese government clearly assumes is a mixture of disinterest and impotence.”
The Biden Administration’s Model ‘Red Flag’ Law Belies the Justice Department’s Avowed Commitment to Due Process
“Due process protections are especially important when the government contemplates taking away someone’s constitutional rights based on inherently iffy predictions about what he might otherwise do. The risk that someone will use a firearm to kill himself or others, however small, is apt to loom larger in the minds of judges than the risk that he will unjustly but temporarily lose his Second Amendment rights. Given that reality, legislators have an obligation to make sure that red flag respondents have ample opportunity to challenge the claim that they cannot be trusted with firearms.”
People Love To Criticize Capitalism. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.
“Free markets increase total wealth. Competition encourages entrepreneurs to find new ways to release more value from both people and resources.
Because capitalism is voluntary and consumers have choices, the only way capitalists can get rich is to offer us something that we believe is better than we had before.
That creates new wealth.
Steve Jobs became a billionaire. But by creating Apple, he gave us more: millions of jobs and billions of dollars added to our economy.
Research shows that entrepreneurs only keep 2.2 percent of the additional wealth they generate. “In other words, the rest of us captured almost 98 percent of the benefits,” says economist Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
“I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires,” he adds, “Because that means 100 new people have figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off.””
Using Facebook Actually Reduces Ethnic Tension, New Study Finds
“”People’s habits do incline somewhat toward their preferred political positions, but a study of Web browser, survey, and consumer data from 2004 to 2009 found that people’s media diets online were modestly divided by ideology but far more diverse than, for instance, the networks of people with whom they talked about politics in person,” wrote Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, in a review of the data for The Washington Post. “This finding of limited information polarization has been repeatedly replicated. Most recently, a new study found that mobile news consumption is even less segregated by ideology than desktop/laptop data used in previous research.”
Many people want to believe that social media, and Facebook in particular, makes everyone more racist, politically paranoid, addicted, and anxious. It’s a narrative that’s equally popular with very conservative Republicans (who somewhat bafflingly view Facebook as an enemy), progressive Democrats (who are ideologically predisposed to dislike large corporations), and the mainstream media (which views social media as a rival). But there is solid evidence undermining many of these claims, and it’s important to remember that taking away technology and shutting off conversations—even fraught and divisive conversations—often increases ignorance and prejudice.”
How an Equal Pay Law in Colorado Is Backfiring
“A new employee compensation bill in Colorado was supposed to help close gender gaps in worker pay. But the so-called Equal Pay for Equal Work Act could be making it harder for Colorado residents—regardless of gender—to find jobs.
The law—which was passed in 2019 and took effect at the start of this year—ushered in a range of rules regarding employee compensation, including new procedures for adjudicating sex-based wage discrimination complaints and new record-keeping, notice, and transparency requirements. Among these are a stipulation that employers must directly state a position’s pay (or a realistic pay range), benefits, and “any bonuses, commissions, or other compensation” as part of every job listing. Furthermore, companies are barred from asking prospective hires about their salary histories.
Thus, not only does the law open companies with Colorado workers up to new legal liabilities and administrative burdens, it also takes away some employer flexibility when it comes to attracting and setting pay for new hires. Many companies would prefer to keep compensation talk more private and, in such private discussions, to use previous salary as a guide to negotiations.
Understandably, some employers who can help it are opting out.
“This is a remote job except that it is not eligible to be performed in Colorado,” says an Airbnb listing for an accounting manager.
“This work is to be performed entirely outside of Colorado,” says an Ally Financial posting about a developer position.
“Work location is flexible if approved by the Company except that position may not be performed remotely from Colorado,” says one managerial job listing at Johnson & Johnson.
Century 21, Cigna, Drizly, Eventbrite, GoDaddy, Hilton, IBM, Nike, the PETA Foundation, Samsung, and a number of other big companies have posted similar notices.
Colorado resident Aaron Batilo compiled a list of them at the website ColoradoExcluded.com. So far, it includes job postings by 98 companies.”
Brickbat: Little White Lie
“The family of Porter Feller says that a lie told by a Seattle police officer led to Feller’s suicide, according to a lawsuit they have filed against the city. Feller was involved in what the lawsuit describes as a “minor” car accident. No one reported injuries, and Feller left the scene. Later that day, Officer Matthew Kerby went to Feller’s house to get his ID and insurance information. Kerby told a fellow officer he “planned on using a ruse.” He was caught on video and audio saying, “It’s a lie, but it’s fun.” Feller wasn’t at the house when Kerby arrived, so Kerby told one of Feller’s friends that he had been involved in a hit-and-run accident and critically injured a woman who “might not survive,” the lawsuit said. According to the lawsuit, when informed of Kerby’s remark, Feller became increasingly distraught. He committed suicide four days later. The Seattle Office of Police Accountability found that Kerby’s lie was “abuse of his discretion.” It said Kerby’s lie “shocked fundamental fairness” and that he acted “without any apparent consideration of the possible consequences.” The department suspended him without pay for six days.”
Against National Unity
“Americans are not divided because politicians failed to pronounce the correct phrases or promoted one bill rather than another. We are divided because we genuinely disagree—not only on matters of public policy but also on basic questions of justice and identity.
At a glance, this should not be very surprising. This is an enormous country that contains a vast number of people with quite various backgrounds. Disappointed Americans sometimes wonder why the United States does not enjoy the levels of consensus or solidarity that seem possible in, say, Denmark. Part of the answer is that the population of Denmark is comparable to that of metropolitan Phoenix.
Some very large states pursue a higher degree of political and moral consensus than we seem to manage. The difficulty is that the means they employ are not very appealing. There are just six other countries with populations greater than 200 million: Brazil, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria. Most employ policies of coercion and discrimination against religious, ethnic, or cultural minorities that shock American sensibilities.”
…
“The original meaning of e pluribus unum, then, could not be that all or even most Americans should share pursuits or inclinations in the manner of friends—even in a federation of just 13 states and about 3 million inhabitants, only a small fraction of whom were qualified by sex, race, and property to vote. It was that a large population distributed among semi-independent mini-polities could govern themselves in many respects, while acting in concert on matters of truly common concern.”
…
“In education as well as politics, then, unity proves elusive. That is not because we haven’t hit on the right methods for achieving it. It is because a vision of unity borrowed from the Greco-Roman city-state, the biblical people of Israel, or the European idea of nationhood is unsuited to a vastly extended modern republic.
The question we face is not how to achieve an impossible level of consensus. It is how we can live together peacefully while maintaining the principles of personal freedom and legal equality that make America great.”
Senate Republicans and Democrats Agree To Double Amtrak’s Funding
“An influx of additional funding would allow Amtrak to eliminate this backlog and pave the way for faster, more frequent service, passenger rail proponents argue. “There’s so much we can do, and it’s the biggest bang for the buck we can expend,” said Biden about increasing Amtrak funding back in April.
Nevertheless, one of the reasons that Amtrak’s maintenance backlog is so big in dollar terms is that it’s incredibly inefficient at spending the money it does get.
At current costs, Amtrak needs to spend $90 million per mile “merely to keep the same service as exists today,” wrote the Manhattan Institute’s Connor Harris in an April New York Post column. “For comparison, in countries such as France and Spain, less than half that cost per mile would cover a brand-new high-speed rail line good for speeds of more than 200 miles per hour.”
Getting Amtrak’s costs down to European levels would allow it to fix a lot more of its infrastructure for a lot less money. Lawmakers of both parties instead appear set on simply shoveling more taxpayer money at the inefficient agency.”