The American Spectator

AN OLD-FASHIONED CROOK
Re: Nicole Russell’s Beam Me Up, Jimbo:

If only we had more old-fashioned crooks like Traficant in office! All they want is a few minutes alone with the cash box. Then they’re satisfied, and leave everybody else alone.

Our liberties and our way of life are not threatened by the odd officeholder who dabbles in larceny. The would-be messiahs are the real menaces. Democracy and freedom are never in more danger than when government is harnessed to drag the nation into some half-cocked Utopia or other, blithely prepared to destroy us all today in the name of a murky Happily Ever After that never comes.

At least the crooks understand: it’s not their money.
— Martin Owens
Sacramento California

SELLING IT WELL
Re: W. James Antle III’s The Democrats’ Cap and Traitors:

I enjoyed the above article, but I take exception to “Regressive taxes tend not to sell well, even among core Democratic constituencies.” Regressive taxes do sell well including core Democrats see Social Security, the myriad of sales taxes including the proposals for a national sales tax, property taxes and tobacco taxes.
— Ernie Marraccini

I saw, on all places, PBS that the slashing and burning of the rain forests emit more CO2 than all the vehicles and power plants in the world. Perhaps that would be a good place to start.
— Steven Powell

FREEDOM’S MEASURE
Re: Daniel Oliver’s What’s Your Metric?

My professor of Economics at Northwood University, Dale Heywood (who passed away in 2006), used to challenge his students for a definition for “being free.”

After several of us stumbled around with our somewhat lengthy attempts he told us “being free is making a dollar and keep one hundred cents.” That’s as good as I have ever heard or read.

 I would have added that to the extent this test fails defines the extent that you are ot free, including the state of making a dollar and being given another twenty cents.
— Carl Cull
Franklin, Tennessee

How does one “buy all of Beethoven for $10”? Currently through Amazon the complete works can be had from about $80 to about $150, and these are admittedly “bargain” collections. But then, much as I admired WFB, I don’t think either technology or math were strong suits.

But the much more important point is not what one “can buy with what’s left over.” That is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is only what government takes from us, expressed as a percentage of the total, and nothing else. This is so, because money is property, and property, liberty, and life itself, are interchangeable, to an extent. In earning money, for example, one exchanges his time, which is nothing less than small pieces of life itself. With this paradigm in mind, I see no reason not to accept Dr. Friedman’s “metric” of 30%, given his economic genius and understanding of conservative principles. If he felt that 30% were the correct line of demarcation, chances are, it is.

In any case, Mr. Oliver makes it clear that we are not as free as we used to be. And I think people are currently worried, because we see not only our freedoms evaporating before our very eyes, but our wealth, as well. It is one thing to be enslaved and rich, but quite another to be enslaved, and poor.
— David Reich
Auburn, New York

Certain unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, plus the Bill of Rights, especially the First and Second Amendments.
— C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, West Virginia