2 June 2009 @ 8:34AM >> Another example of government regulation run amok:

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, “The county asked, ‘Do you have a regular meeting in your home?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say amen?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you pray?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say praise the Lord?’ ‘Yes.’”

The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” — a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

[...]

Broyles also said this case has broader implications.

“If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?” Broyles asked.

(Hat tip: Reason.)

21 May 2009 @ 7:26PM >> In 21^st century America, the federal government’s solution to every financial problem seems the same: people who are responsible with money are forced to foot the bill for the reckless. Video >>

6 May 2009 @ 9:29AM >> History is rife with examples of mafia ties to labor unions. Now, President Obama is using mafia tactics to steal from bondholders and give the loot to one of his biggest source of campaign funds, labor unions:

The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them “speculators” who were “refusing to sacrifice like everyone else” and who wanted “to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

[...]

The President and his team sought to avoid having Chrysler go [the normal bankruptcy] process, proposing their own plan for re-organizing the company and partially paying off Chrysler’s creditors. Some bond holders thought this plan unfair. Specifically, they thought it unfairly favored the United Auto Workers, and unfairly paid bondholders less than they would get in bankruptcy court. So, they said no to the plan and decided, as is their right, to take their chances in the bankruptcy process. But, as his quotes above show, the President thought they were being unpatriotic or worse.

[...]

The President’s attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to “sacrifice” some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power.

Yesterday, I mentioned the threats made by the Obama Administration against groups that lent money to Chrysler through bond holdings. More sources are contradicting the White House, which denied they made such threats:

Creditors to Chrysler describe negotiations with the company and the Obama administration as “a farce,” saying the administration was bent on forcing their hands using hardball tactics and threats.

Conversations with administration officials left them expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.

Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions.

The sources, who represent creditors to Chrysler, say they were taken aback by the hardball tactics that the Obama administration employed to cajole them into acquiescing to plans to restructure Chrysler. One person described the administration as the most shocking “end justifies the means” group they have ever encountered. Another characterized Obama was “the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet- and I knew Kissinger.” Both were voters for Obama in the last election.

It’s interesting that President Obama only uses these mafia-like tactics with fellow law-abiding citizens whose only “crime” is finding themselves opposed to Obama on one issue or another.

When it comes to thugs like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez, suddenly Obama becomes Mr. Warm-and-Fuzzy, and it’s all smiles, handshakes and backslaps.

4 May 2009 >> New York Post columnist Irwin M. Stelzer notes that President Obama “said last week that he’d override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler’s senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers.”

Stelzer continues:

Obama forced the senior lenders to take something like 30 cents for every dollar they’d lent Chrysler. Many lenders — the big banks who’d taken federal bailout money — rolled over. But some hedge-fund managers pointed out that they have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to do the best they can for their investors (which include pension funds) and decided to take their chances with a bankruptcy judge.

Never mind that this is their long-established legal right. Obama is furious with these “speculators,” and hinted that he knows where they live and will get even when the new financial-industry regulations are drafted.

This continued antagonism towards America’s business community may not be in the country’s best long-term interests, Stelzer points out:

[T]he president is counting on some of these “speculators” to partner with the Treasury and take a big stake in the toxic assets that are preventing the big banks from resuming normal lending. Unprotected by a rule of law, these investors will sit on their assets, rather than partner with a government that might some day decide, after the fact, that they made too much money, or should bear a larger portion of any losses than they had signed on to do.

Meanwhile, a prominent bankruptcy attorney, White & Case’s Tom Lauria, alleges White House threats against an opponent of the government’s Chrysler takeover plan:

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.

The most interesting thing about Lauria’s claim is that the Obama official threated to sic the White House Press Corps on offending “speculators.”

In theory, the White House Press Corps is an independent body, an arm of the press and not the Obama Administration. What would give this official the idea that the press corps would blindly do the administration’s bidding?

Perhaps the press could prove its independence by digging into this story a little bit deeper. (The White House has issued a blanket denial, but the varying accounts don’t add up.)

Nevertheless, I can certainly understand why an administration official might mistakenly conclude the hard-hitting media was merely an extension of Barack Obama’s PR apparatus.

28 April 2009 @ 7:59PM >> Today, we have dueling Quotes of the Day:

In this corner, we have Larry Kudlow:

What is going on in this country? The government is about to take over GM in a plan that completely screws private bondholders and favors the unions. Get this: The GM bondholders own $27 billion and they’re getting 10 percent of the common stock in an expected exchange. And the UAW owns $10 billion of the bonds and they’re getting 40 percent of the stock. Huh? Did I miss something here? And Uncle Sam will have a controlling share of the stock with something close to 50 percent ownership. And no bankruptcy judge. So this is a political restructuring run by the White House, not a rule-of-law bankruptcy-court reorganization.

...and in this corner, John Hinderaker:

One hallmark of organized crime loan-sharking is that, once you are in debt to the mob, you are never allowed to pay off the principal. No matter how much you pay, you always owe more. The mob squeezes you for everything you have. Until a few months ago, I never expected to see an analogy between the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Mafia. But is it unreasonable to see a parallel in the government’s refusal to allow banks that have borrowed money under TARP to repay it? Does it not appear that financial institutions that became enmeshed with the government, and are now being dictated to by the government, find it increasingly difficult to extricate themselves?

So the federal government along with the unions will have total control over not only General Motors, but Chrysler too. Meanwhile, the federal government can indefinitely extend its control of certain banks by refusing to let them repay government loans.

How is this not socialism, exactly?

6 April 2009 @ 9:01AM >> Who would have thought that in America’s heartland, a house of worship would be used to impose its religious doctrine on the surrounding community, believers and non-believers alike?

From Knoxville, Tennessee comes a story about neighbors and religious tolerance:

On one side of the disagreement is a Muslim mosque, and some of its worshippers are unhappy about plans for a new restaurant that will serve alcohol.

On the opposing end of the clash is a business owner who says he’s invested $1 million to upgrade a blighted building and has tried to accommodate Muslim worshippers during spiritual holidays.

The two entities - The Hill restaurant and the Anoor mosque - are a mere 191 feet apart.

Building owner Trevor Hill wants to offer alcoholic drinks along with home-cooking-style dinner and lunch menus, and he hopes to launch the eatery in about a week. He’ll keep the restaurant open as late at night as is still profitable in hope of appealing to the young residents of Fort Sanders, where the building is located.

The possibility that the restaurant could serve as a local drinking hangout bothers mosque attendees like board member Nadeem Sidiqqi.

Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol, but Sidiqqi said the protest isn’t an attack on drinking in general, just a call for buffer zones for religious establishments.

“People may say ‘we may not want to go to this mosque’ if it’s not a good environment,” Sidiqqi said. “You want an area where you can bring your kids or your family.”

Hill counters that mosque-goers are unlikely to be disturbed by noise or patrons from his restaurant. The entrances are on opposites sides of the two buildings, and Hill said that he has offered to work with mosque board members during the holy period of Ramadan, when Knoxville-area Muslims often pray at the mosque late into the night.

Hill feels he is being unjustly targeted.

“I’ve taken a building that’s been a total eyesore ... really gone out on a limb and taken a risk for the benefit of the Fort Sanders community,” he said, explaining that he has a mortgage and roughly a $1 million investment in the building. “It’s not fair for me to be discriminated against any more than it is for them to be discriminated against.”

3 March 2009 >> When Barack Obama and his allies in Congress say the current tax laws aren’t fair, they are right. They aren’t fair, but not in the way the Democrats contend.

The Tax Foundation put together a revealing report (PDF) comparing taxes paid to the dollar value of government services received.

As this chart shows, 40% of American households are working to support the other 60%. If you make $65,000 or more per year, you’re effectively a slave for the portion of the year that you spend earning the money that the government takes in taxes.

You may not realize you’re a slave, because you don’t see any shackles around your legs. But if you decide not to pay your taxes, unless you plan on being nominated for a position in the Obama administration in which case taxes seem to be optional, those shackles would become very real. Just ask Wesley Snipes.

What we have now is a tyranny of the majority. Because 60% of America benefits from the labors of the other 40%, it’s a winning electoral formula, one that Democrats exploit at every election cycle when they ramp up the class warfare rhetoric demanding that “the rich” pay their “fair share.”

What is a fair share? Is it fair when a 40% minority is robbed to benefit the 60% majority? Would be more fair if 30% of people were robbed to benefit a 70% majority?

Taxing a smaller share of higher earners even more in order to subsidize the rest of the country is not only economically unworkable, it’s morally repugnant. At what point do people get fed up and say they’re not going to put in that extra effort, those additional hours of work so that their slave masters can reap the benefits of their labor?

Between Rick Santelli’s rant, the skyrocketing sales of Atlas Shrugged, and the tea parties popping up all over the country, I suspect we’re going to reach a tipping point real soon.

19 January 2009 >> Congressman Charles Rangel has been in the news quite a bit lately. He’s having trouble keeping up with his taxes, despite being the chairman of the committee responsible for writing the nation’s tax laws. Video >>

4 November 2008 @ 8:16AM >> In New York State, the winner of a general election is often whoever won the Democratic primary. So by the time I get a chance to cast a vote, many elections have effectively been decided.

This year, Senator Barack Obama will win New York State. Period.

It’s a sure thing affords me a little flexibility with my vote.

I’ve never been a big fan of John McCain. Although I salute him for a life in which he’s shown more courage than most men—including myself—ever could, he’s just never appealed to me as a politician. Was his maverick persona genuine or merely designed to maximize media coverage? Senator McCain obviously knew that, as a Republican, the surest way to end up on TV is to publicly tell your own party to shove it.

I also consider the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform law to be one of the greatest infringements on political speech this country has ever enacted. (I explain a bit why in my interview with Michael Moore.) It isn’t quite the Sedition Act, but a part of me will never forgive McCain for pushing it or President Bush for signing it. It would be a bittersweet irony if, hamstrung by rules of his own creation, John McCain were to be defeated by an Obama machine that made a mockery out of the central premise of McCain/Feingold: that by passing it, the political system would be shielded from the corrosive effects of money.

On the other hand, I can’t in good conscience vote for someone who surrounds himself with such an appalling cadre of felons, bigots and 60’s leftover leftist revolutionaries who have changed only their means, not their ends. Obama campaigned as a messianic blank slate, and the media did its best to ignore any information that might smudge up the halo. The best I can say is I hope Obama is a much better—and more moderate—man than his associations indicate. We don’t really know who we’re getting by electing Obama. But I won’t be voting for him, especially at a time when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are running Congress.

So Obama’s out.

Philosophically, the political label that matches my views the most would be “libertarian.” Unfortunately, it’s a label shared with a political party of the same name.

“Big-L” (as in the party) Libertarians seem to attract an uncomfortable mixture of conspiracy theorists, isolationists and pacifists. The Libertarian Party is the political equivalent of a Star Trek convention. Contrast that with “small-L” libertarians (as in adherents to the political philosophy) who tend the be the type of people you’ll have the most fun breaking laws with.

I consider myself a libertarian for two reasons.

First and foremost: for the betterment of the human race. True, these aren’t easy days to proclaim oneself an unashamed capitalist. But whatever governmental market distortions led to the current financial crisis, the simple fact remains that no single system has brought more material comfort to more people worldwide than capitalism.

In America today, people we consider poor have a standard of living that would’ve been thought of as middle-class a century ago. Sure, we can to do better for more people, but there’s only one historically proven way to do it: capitalism. By definition, government can’t create wealth. Only private economic activity can. The more economic activity, the faster the growth, and the richer even the poor become. The larger the share of the economy that flows through the government, the longer it’ll take for the engine of capitalism to grow poverty into extinction.

The second reason I’m a libertarian is because I believe that the individual should be afforded the maximum personal liberty in cases where no other individual’s rights are being abridged. In their private lives, people should be allowed to set whatever personal boundaries their consciences allow and require. And while I believe that people should abide by some form of moral code, it is not the function of the state to impose one person’s moral code on another. If you want to convince someone else to live by your rules, you’re free to do so in the private sphere. But government is too big a bludgeon to be used for such a function.

So, in a nutshell, that’s why I’m a (”small-L”) libertarian.

Unfortunately, the (”big-L”) Libertarian Party is a bit of a joke, repeatedly letting itself get hijacked by vanity candidates who aren’t serious about libertarianism or winning elections.

This year’s Libertarian Party candidate is Bob Barr, a former Republican who didn’t seem to be much of a libertarian until the moment he figured out he could get the party’s nomination.

When Bob Barr was last seen on the political stage, it was during the Clinton impeachment hearings. Barr, as one of Clinton’s ineffectual Republican antagonists, went on to be thought of as one of those Clinton-was-lucky-to-have-him-as-an-enemy types.

Barr isn’t the sort of candidate I’d pull the lever for in any other circumstance. But I don’t live in a swing state where voting for the Libertarian is effectively the same as a voting for Obama (who—for me anyway—fails the libertarian lesser-of-two-evils test).

The political leanings of my fellow New Yorkers has effectively reduced my vote to a protest anyway. So I might as well cast my vote in a way that most accurately reflects my political philosophy.

Which is why, this year, I’m holding my nose, voting Libertarian, and hoping that, somehow, McCain wins.

Someone has to stand between your wallet and the Democrats in Congress.

27 October 2008 @ 8:24AM >> An e-mail that’s making the rounds:

In a local restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08” tie [...]

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

(Hat tip: Robert Bluey.)

26 October 2008 @ 6:48PM >> A local TV reporter in central Florida made television history the other day by questioning Saint Barack’s running mate in a manner usually reserved for Republican candidates.

And, of course, disciples of The One aren’t happy about it.

So the TV station has been cut off from all access to the Obama campaign for the duration of the election.

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

WFTV-Channel 9’s Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. A friend says it’s some of the best entertainment he’s seen recently. [...]

West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama’s comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn’t being a Marxist with the “spreading the wealth” comment.

“Are you joking?” said Biden, who is Obama’s running mate. “No,” West said.

West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America’s days as the world’s leading power were over.

“I don’t know who’s writing your questions,” Biden shot back.

Biden so disliked West’s line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate’s wife.

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was “a result of her husband’s experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West.”

[...]

WFTV news director Bob Jordan said, “When you get a shot to ask these candidates, you want to make the most of it. They usually give you five minutes.”

Jordan said political campaigns in general pick and choose the stations they like. And stations often pose softball questions during the satellite interviews.

“Mr. Biden didn’t like the questions,” Jordan said. “We choose not to ask softball questions.”

You can watch the interview here.

22 July 2008 @ 7:51PM >> In a recent post, I cited some statistics on this year’s distribution of the income tax: “the richest 1% of tax filers [will pay] more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% [will pay] just 3%.”

In response, I commented, “Every time I hear someone claim that ‘the rich’ aren’t paying their ‘fair share,’ I wonder, how much tax would ‘the rich’ have to pay before it becomes fair?”

Steve W. e-mailed me with a good question:

What percentage of the total income earned goes to that top 1% of filers that are paying 40% of the income tax burden? If it is something like 37% of the total income, and they are paying 40% of the total income taxes, that doesn’t seem overly atrocious, but if they are down around 15% of the total income, that seems like a far bigger problem to me.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal supplied the answer:

The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. [...] Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. [...]

Aha, we are told: The rich paid more taxes because they made a greater share of the money. That is true. The top 1% earned 22% of all reported income. But they also paid a share of taxes not far from double their share of income. In other words, the tax code is already steeply progressive.

In other words, the top 1% earned 22% of the nation’s income, but paid 40% of the nation’s income tax. That’s a pretty steep disparity.

So, the question remains: if the rich aren’t paying their fair share even under this lopsided scenario, how much tax would “the rich” have to pay before it becomes fair?

29 November 2007 >> Last week, I linked to a Denver Post story detailing the ordeal of Don and Susie Kirlin, a Boulder couple who’ve been living in the city for 27 years. The Kirlins recently had a substantial chunk of their land taken away from them by the legal maneuverings of their well-connected politician neighbors, Richard McLean and wife Edith Stevens. You see, McLean and Stevens wanted that land for themselves. And thanks to a friendly judge and an obscure legal doctrine called “adverse possession,” they were able to seize the land from the Kirlins.

A reader wrote in with a little more background about this case:

Evan,

Just some notes I found while poking around on the internet about this case. I don’t know anyone involved, everything I know came from Google searches. It just infuriates me that someone could do this.

1) The Kirlins claim that they have satellite photos proving that the paths that McLean “developed” didn’t exist until a year ago.

2) Edith Stevens is a former Chairwoman of the Boulder Democratic Party and is still active in local politics. In fact, one of the claims that she uses to justify the land grab is that she used the land to stage political fundraisers. I’d be interested to find out which politicians benefited from her land grab.

[Link]

Edith Stevens has resigned as campaign treasurer for State House Representative Claire Levy (Democrat).

[Link]

3) Levy appears to be yet another trial lawyer turned politician. From her website:

[Link]

“I also worked with legislators on bills related to local government land use authority. Our goal was to retain flexibility for local governments to address their unique problems during a time when the state legislature wanted to take tools away from local government in favor of developers.”

Presumably Don and Susie Kirlin, in this case, are the developers. They’re a family trying to build their dream home. “Local government” in this case are the courts and politicians. This isn’t eminent domain or overzealous land use regulation, but it’s all part of the same picture— usurping property rights in the name of “public good”. After all, where would we hold our democratic fundraisers if Don and Susie build their house?

4) Two points seem to be getting lost in the comment threads on the sites I’m reading. First, this is NOT an open and shut case. Apparently, the Kirlins claim to have convincing evidence that key facts were misrepresented (that is, aerial photography disputing when the footpaths were created). Second, over and above the legal question is the ethical question. The Kirlins aren’t 17th century English barons, fencing off the commons and evicting the commoners. They’re neighbors. McLean and Stevens might win in the courts—in fact with their political clout it seems likely they will—but that doesn’t make taking what isn’t theirs morally right.

Rob in Atlanta

21 November 2007 >> An example:

[Don and Susie Kirlin] moved to the city in 1980. A few years later, the Kirlins purchased a plot of land near their residence, hoping to someday build a “dream home.”

“We took advantage of the market in the early ’80s,” says Susie Kirlin, almost apologetic for making a smart investment.

Children interfered slightly with the master plan - three of them in the next few years - postponing any development of the property.

As the children began to make their own way in life, the couple decided it was time to finally develop the property in late 2006.

By then, it was too late.

Despite owning the land, despite living only 200 yards from the property, despite hiking past it every week with their three dogs, despite spraying for weeds and fixing fences, despite paying homeowner association dues and property taxes each year, someone else had taken a shine to it. Someone powerful.

Former Boulder District Judge, Boulder Mayor, RTD board member - among other elected positions - Richard McLean and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, used an arcane common law called “adverse possession” to claim the land for their own.

All McLean needed was to develop an “attachment” to it.

Undoubtedly, his city connections couldn’t have hurt, either.

In the court papers, McLean and his family admit to regularly trespassing on the Kirlins’ property.

They created paths. They said they put on a political fundraiser and parties on it (though not a single photograph of these events surfaced in court documents).

This habit of trespassing developed into an affection.

If we take McLean at his word, he should have been treated appropriately: like a common criminal. Instead, the former judge demanded a chunk of the land for himself - and implausibly he got it.

[...]

When the couple began building a fence on the land - which is within Boulder city limits, not out in the wilderness - McLean was able, according to the Kirlins, to obtain a restraining order in an exceptionally speedy 2 1/2 hours.

Boulder District Judge Morris Sandstead, who served with McLean, issued the restraining order quite swiftly.

Serendipity, I guess.

All of this adds up to District Judge James Klein ordering the Kirlins to sign over about 34 percent of their 4,750-square-foot lot to McLean and his wife last month.

“Now the lot is just about worthless,” explains Don Kirlin. “We estimate the land was worth about $800,000 to a million dollars. Now, we can’t build anything on it.”

Update: A reader wrote in with some additional background about this case.

2 March 2007 @ 10:39AM >> “At Columbia University, the wheels of justice grind exceeding slow. If at all.” So say the editors of the New York Post in reference to the student mob that, last October, shut down a speech by someone who—horror of horrors—actually supports enforcement of the nation’s borders.

Now Columbia wants the restricted speech zone that is its campus to expand into surrounding neighborhoods. And Columbia wants the government to evict the current occupants so the school can take the land for itself. Columbia hopes the city will use its power of eminent domain to seize the land from the people who currently own it, which the city can do even if the land owners don’t want to sell.

The Post notes:

An ideologically inspired mob attacked an invited speaker at one of America’s great universities. Months pass, and no meaningful punishment is meted out, and the university’s president - whose own academic specialty is the First Amendment - has yet to extend a personal apology to the victim.

And this same university - which clearly is unwilling to police its own grounds - seeks to extend its reach into surrounding neighborhoods by using the government’s power to condemn and seize private homes and businesses.

The two issues aren’t directly related, but eminent domain is such an extreme exercise of government power that it should only be used sparingly and with the greatest care and consideration. The city isn’t obligated to seize the land and give it to Columbia. And the city has every right—no, the city has a duty—to consider the behavior of the organizations that benefit from the exercise of its power.

16 February 2007 @ 7:49AM >> Socialism always leads to the same predictable ruin for nations ignorant of history. Yet for some reason, the ideology that enslaved millions throughout the 20th century still appeals to wide-eyed leftists throughout academia and around the globe.

Venezuela is the latest country to fall victim to the delusion of utopia through socialism:

Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.

President Hugo Chavez’s administration blames the food supply problems on speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible.

Such shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.

Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.

“Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls,” Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told Union Radio on Thursday. “The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high.”

Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.

Major private supermarkets suspended sales of beef earlier this week after one chain was shut down for 48 hours for pricing meat above government-set levels, but an agreement reached with the government on Wednesday night promises to return meat to empty refrigerator shelves.

8 January 2007 >> Mine Your Own Business is a soon-to-be-released film documenting the detrimental effects that trendy environmentalists can have on underprivileged communities throughout the world. Not every society has yet been fortunate enough to reap the economic benefits of the industrial revolution, and some activists want to keep it that way, preferring to impose impoverishment on other cultures in the name of quaintness.

You can view the trailer for Mine Your Own Business on YouTube or read more about the film here.

The film debuts in New York on Friday, January 19th and in Washington, D.C. on January 24th. Both screenings start at 7PM. If you wish to attend either screening, you can sign up here.

Disclosure: Mine Your Own Business was created with the assistance of the Moving Picture Institute, which was also instrumental in enabling the completion of another soon-to-be-released film, Indoctrinate U.

14 June 2006 >> Who says bureaucrats don’t innovate? Check out this beautiful little scam:

1. Your local city decides to build a monorail and plans a route that runs over land currently occupied by your business.
2. Through eminent domain, the government takes your land against your will, and you are paid what the government decides is the fair market value.
3. The monorail plans fail, as any fan of The Simpsons could have predicted, so the city decides to unload the land.
4. Arguing that the land’s value has risen in the time since it was taken against your will, the city graciously offers to let you buy your land back, but only after jacking up the price by $70,000.

Sound far-fetched? It actually happened, to the owner of the Caffe Appassionato in Seattle.

Taking your property against your will and then selling it back to you at a higher price...sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference between government and organized crime.

16 August 2005 >> Imagine this scenario: your town wants to take your land and give it to someone who’ll generate more tax revenue for the town government. You don’t like that very much, so you refuse, and the town then sues you. The case goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sides with the town.

You now must move off the land you once owned, so the town can take it for someone else.

Is this just a nightmare vision of an out-of-control government? No, this is the new reality in a country whose Supreme Court grants only periodic deference to the words written in our Constitution.

But as bad as that is, imagine how you’d feel if the town then sent you a bill after all that. A bill for what, you might ask? For the back rent that the town now says you owe for the time that you occupied “their” land while fighting them in court.

Sad but true:

The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city’s original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit [which started in 2000] and owe back rent. It’s a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.

29 June 2005 >> If you haven’t yet read about the Supreme Court’s decision in the Kelo vs. New London case, then you might not appreciate how much I love this:

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter’s land.

Justice Souter’s vote in the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on [...] the present location of Mr. Souter’s home.

Clements [...] points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on [Mr. Souter’s land].

The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Cafe” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

“This is not a prank” said Clements, “The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.”

Clements’ plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.

(Note: Links in quoted text above added by me.)