Irrational People Cannot be Persuaded

So
it is with the American electorate.  Some people for whom I care very
deeply oppose Republican allies of Donald Trump, even though they
express strong agreement with Trump’s policies.  My friends want lower
taxes, but will vote for politicians who promise to raise taxes.  When
this dissonance is brought to their attention, their response always
begins with, “Yes, but …”  The rest is always bafflingly irrelevant.

It took me many years to settle in to this fact of life.  Good people who mean well can pave the road to Hell.  What can we do?

I
simply let them know that I disagree, but not to press the issue to the
point of severing the relationship.  If all I can do is to keep the
door open, that is better than burning the bridges forever.  There is
always time for that later.

Such
people pose a real danger to the nation, as much so as did the Nazi
brownshirts in 1930s Germany.  There is a certain point beyond which
their growing numbers can overwhelm those who practice common sense.

Because of irrational voters, we now face the fait accompli
of an impending Democrat takeover of the House of Representatives.  
This might well turn out to be disastrous, unless a degree of common
sense is adopted by the least radical of the Democrats.

Irrational People Cannot be Persuaded

Will the Moment Seize Democrats?

Waters seems to have forgotten that the subprime mortgage crisis
began during the Clinton administration. As Investor Business Daily
noted in an April 15, 2015 editorial, “The evidence is overwhelming that
Clinton was the architect of the financial disaster that wiped out
trillions of dollars in household wealth. Under his National
Homeownership Strategy, Clinton took more than 100 executive actions to
pry bank lending windows wide open.

"Through executive order, he
marshaled 10 federal agencies under a little-known task force to enforce
new ‘flexible’ mortgage underwriting guidelines to boost low-income and
minority homeownership.”

Instead of seizing the moment, Democrats are likely to be seized by
the moment. And what about President Trump? Will he tone down his
rhetoric, as he suggested in a recent interview that he has already
done? Will that make a difference in future Republican prospects?

Between
now and the next election gridlock, not comity between the parties, is
the likely scenario. Welcome again to a divided government representing a
divided nation.

Will the Moment Seize Democrats?

White Women Don’t Need Your Saving

Phew! For a second there I thought we were going to have to continue
navigating these scary political waters on our own. I’m so relieved to
know that, instead of thinking for ourselves, we’ll have obscure liberal
Twitter activists and Linda Sarsour guiding us. I’m hoping my
tyrannical husband won’t be too upset with me for going against his
commands. Last week he gave me an extra fifty cents in my allowance and
told me to “buy something pretty,” so maybe he’ll be just as gracious
when I tell him I’ve started forming my own opinions.

The irony is, of course, rich. Leftist feminists,
long-asserting the strength and independence of women, now argue that
some women are so weak that they need to depend on liberals to tell them
how to vote. They cannot fathom that we Republican “white women” may
actually have different values than they do. It must be because we are
“foot soldiers of the patriarchy.” (That’s newspeak for “self-hating
idiots.”)

White Women Don’t Need Your Saving

Democrats Harp On Income Inequality Because They Can’t Help The Poor

If we are to take Bartels’ research seriously, which we should,
Democratic policies generally succeed far more than Republican ones at
leveling Americans’ income. But here is the problem with thinking in
terms of inequality: by focusing on closing the gap, one is only
concerned with the differential between two classes, regardless of how each class is doing independently.

But
there is a larger reason Democrats are better at closing the wage gap:
they invariably support policies that redistribute wealth from the top.
Indeed, one of two methods is sufficient to fulfill Democrats’ promise
of closing the gap: either the top must be pulled down or the bottom
raised.

Framing the ultimate question as one of inequality blurs the
significant differences in utility between the two methods and falsely
suggests that the perfect solution lies in equalizing everybody’s
finances. This much is intuitive — where inequality is the problem,
equality must logically follow as the solution.

This consequentialist outlook dwells on the ends and is quick to
dismiss important considerations behind the mechanisms of economic
wellbeing. Under the Democratic framework, economic equality is the
noble goal, however it must be brought about.

Democrats Harp On Income Inequality Because They Can’t Help The Poor

The mounting burden of taxation not only undermines individual incentives to increased work and earnings, but in a score of ways discourages capital accumulation and distorts, unbalances, and shrinks production.

Henry Hazlitt