Congress Can Agree on This: Cut Federal Paperwork

Before you laugh, please consider a number: 9.78 billion. That is the number of annual hours of paperwork burdens that the government imposes on its citizens.

If you asked every citizen of Boston to spend the next three
years filling out federal forms — eight hours a day, every day — you
would not come close to that figure. And if you assumed, on the basis of
the average hourly wage, that an hour of work is worth $22, the federal
paperwork burden imposes a cost in excess of $215 billion. For
comparison, that’s the amount of the monthly federal budget deficit in the immediate aftermath of the 2018 tax cuts.

Congress should also amend the law to require agencies to make a
reasonable demonstration that the costs of paperwork burdens are
justified by the benefits — and that they have chosen the least
burdensome way to produce those benefits.

Suuuuun stein, what to do with u now

Nudge, nudge: “Libertarian paternalism” is a linguistic atrocity that must die

Congress Can Agree on This: Cut Federal Paperwork

Faces of a new capitalism: How Millennials are embracing socialist values

If you summed up what rankles Elena Botella about US
capitalism today, it might boil down to two issues: equality and
opportunity. Even in a land of abundance, she says a lot of people will
“never have enough in savings to stop worrying,” let alone to fulfill
their larger potential.

“I don’t think we’ve done a
good job at all of sharing the dividends from growth in a way that’s
either fair to workers or good for society,” says Ms. Botella, a
millennial in Washington, DC, who has worked in the credit-card industry
and is now doing research for a possible book.

how do you even begin to explain the problems, let alone persuade.

For both government programs and corporate reforms,
economists caution against assuming there are simple fixes. New
government spending, for example, can mean higher taxes or boosting
public debt. Still, they see the potential to reduce inequality without
harming growth.

Dr. Zingales, the Chicago economist and author of the 2012 book “A Capitalism for the People,” urges a restoration of well-functioning markets, ​not socialism, as the answer to concerns about fairness and prosperity.

To foster more competition, he suggests, for example, antitrust
reforms, taxes on corporate lobbying, and a school-voucher program with
extra support for less-privileged students. “[Socialism is] such a
defeated concept that only young people who don’t remember enough of
history can find that appealing,” he asserts.

smoke and mirrors abound, “
caution against assuming there are simple fixes
“ and unintended consequences 

Faces of a new capitalism: How Millennials are embracing socialist values

Advice to Presidential Hopefuls: Tell the Truth

…The most powerful philosophical accounts offer a simple answer: Lies treat
people as mere objects. When you lie, you fail to respect the autonomy,
and the dignity, of other people. You use them as means to your own
ends. You cast contempt on them.

…Myths are not lies. Operating like fairy tales, they serve essential
purposes. Passed down from one generation to another, they separate
right from wrong. They establish norms: “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you
know I can’t tell a lie.”

 Cass Sunstein is always irritating, like a lot of whats going around, point out wonderful insight and use it to pour gas on a barely related dumpster fire

These points help to explain and to deepen the furor over President Donald Trump’s willingness to lie — by some accounts, on thousands of occasions.

Advice to Presidential Hopefuls: Tell the Truth

Conservatism and Change

It
appears that Kristol is conceding the argument of those on his right
who have warned against the cultural transformation caused by
immigration. He punctuated his comment with this pregnant tweet several
hours later: “We’re having a census every two years as much as an
election.” 

One
should not confuse the instinct to keep everything in place with
holding conservative principles – or for that matter with adhering to
principles of any kind. Wanting to keep things as they are, which may be
what has kept Angela Merkel in power as German chancellor for many
years despite her horrendous decisions, most disastrously in the matter
of immigration, is based on a reluctance to change. We should not
confuse this with a worldview or belief system.  

Conservatism and Change

redbloodedamerica:

Censored in America

I
like social media.  I learn a lot from my news feeds.  Today, 45% of Americans say they
get their news from Facebook.  But I have to wonder, is this censored?  Is there information
I don’t get to see? 

Prager
University has 3 million followers.  The site offers dignified lectures on
conservative philosophy.  One day, Prager saw that some of their videos had been seen by zero people…zero!  Facebook
later apologized.  Prager says Facebook told them privately it limited their posts
because someone clicked a button flagging their videos as “hate speech.”  Then
one of Facebook’s human content monitors agreed and censored it. 

So, who are
these sensors?  Well, the social media companies say “we try to be politically
balanced when we pick them.”  Facebook chose the Weekly Standard to be a
“fact-checker,” and Facebook censors did temporarily ban the artist who posted
a painting of a nude Donald Trump with a tiny penis.  

But censorship does seem
to happen more often to people on the right.  And that’s not surprising, because
the people who work for social media companies tend to lean left.  Twitter’s CEO
admits that: “We need a constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which
I fully admit is more left-leaning.”  

People on
the far right have been totally banned.  Alex Jones was banned by every major social network.  Milo Yiannopoulos

was banned by Twitter.  Of course
Facebook, Twitter, and the others can legally censor whomever they want – they’re private companies.  Jones and Yiannopoulos

say hateful things.  But should they be censored?  Open debate keep societies healthy.  I’ll defend your right to say ugly things
even if I hate what you say.  

And I cringe at comments made by comic and
activist

Gavin McInnes.

McInnes

co-founded VICE Magazine.  Now he’s a Trump supporter, saying provocative things on CRTV. 

McInnes

has been banned by Twitter too.  “There is an absolute all-out war on conservative
free speech,” he says.  I haven’t seen enough data to convince me that the media companies
actively ban conservatives, but Twitter did notify

McInnes

that he was banned
specifically for…”Specifically for nothing,” he reminds me.  It was blank.  They didn’t give any
reason.  So we asked Twitter, and they said he was banned for, “…violating our policy
prohibiting violent extremist groups…” 

Now,

McInnes

did create a group called “The
Proud Boys.”  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center it’s a “hate group.”  “It’s a multiracial group,” 

McInnes explains. 

McInnes says The Proud Boys are just a men’s group.  “The only prerequisite
is that you’re a dude – born a dude – and you accept the West is the best,” he says.  But what got The Proud Boys and

McInnes

banned is that some
people calling themselves “Proud Boys” joined the Charlottesville protest. 

McInnes

opposed the Charlottesville racism:  “I
don’t want nothing to do with this and those guys are nuts.”  He then kicked out
anyone he thought was racist.  Should he be banned for what a few Proud Boys did?  

Maybe Twitter banned him for other things he did.  After the group that calls
itself antifa, for anti-fascist, harassed

McInnes

and others outside one of
his speeches, McGinnis said, “I cannot recommend violence enough.  It is a really
effective way to solve problems.”  How does that not violate the social media
company’s guidelines?  “I’m not condoning violence, but I am condoning justified
violence in self-defense,” he explains.   Last year,

McInnes

fought the antifa activists.  “I had
to make it clear to a mob of 500 that I wasn’t tolerating any transgression,” he goes on.  

This month outside a McInnes

speech, Proud Boys
and antifa protesters confronted each other.  Police tried to keep the groups separate, but the
antifa protesters circled the block to confront the Proud Boys.  But in this
case, it was the Proud Boys who were the most violent.  Should we blame this on

McInnes?  Where is the line? 

Some would ban

McInnes

from social media simply because of
what he writes.  Like in an article saying that while leftists do comedy mocking
American Hillbillies as ‘yokels’ that stereotype better fits the Muslim world.  I
see why people call him a racist.  He wrote, “Muslim world is filled with shoeless, toothless, inbred, hill-dwelling, rifle-toting, sodomy-prone men ready to kill.”  “[Chuckles] I’m funny.  That
quote is hyperbolic.  It’s colorful.” Your tone is so mean.  “Yeah, so?  What’s the matter with the rude tone?  I think speech should be widely colorful.  Some people like it spicy.  You don’t have to have Tabasco sauce.  I’m Tabasco
sauce,” he contends.  

I think the social media bosses would say, if they were to be honest, “Well,

McInnes, we just don’t want him on our platform, because he’s not bringing us
together.  He’s mocking people.  He’s pushing us apart.”  “That’s a valid point,” he quips.  So, they don’t want to carry you.  “Why didn’t they say that then?  That’s a reason.  But, that
means that your social media platform promotes a homogeneity of ideas where
everyone is gray and thinks the same, and no one is malicious, no one is is rude, no one is crude.  What kind of a media platform is that?  That’s Stalinism.  That’s
communism.  It’s unAmerican,” he says.  

I don’t like some things

McInnes

says, but he does
make me think.  I’m more upset that some people in Silicon Valley in secret determine
which ideas are allowed on my social media feed.  The best answer to speech we
don’t like is more speech.