Category Archives: Liberty

Election Rules: Cause No One Ever Cheats

North Carolina, and other states, have taken significant heat from the Left for wanting to implement rules that govern elections and voting in them.  You know, crazy stuff like having to prove you are who you say you are and stuff like that.

I’ve always maintained that the idea is the right idea.  I think that we should have a system in place where people have to prove that they are a citizen of the precinct they are voting in.  Otherwise there’s nothing to prevent me from just opening a phone book and passing as any old random dude in the neighborhood.  However, I have also resonated with the idea that the problem isn’t that big of a deal.  That people MAY cheat, but if they are, it’s low impact and doesn’t impact anything.

Then this news:

Raleigh, N.C. — A three-term Morrisville Town Council member running for re-election tried to vote Tuesday after already submitting an early absentee ballot, Wake County Board of Elections officials said.

Linda Lyons, who serves District 1, was already under investigation by the elections board in connection with the handling of at least five absentee ballots for voters in her district, board Director Cherie Poucher said Monday.

Five absentee ballots had to be thrown out after voters told elections officials that Lyons was the signed witness on their ballots and that she took possession of the ballots after voters filled them out, Poucher said.

It is a felony to even touch a ballot belonging to anyone but a close relative.

So, Linda, THE candidate tried to vote twice.  To think that she didn’t also elicit others to help her is insane.  Further, she took possession the ballots of five other people who submitted absentee ballots.  This is illegal.  So illegal we call it a felony.  A felony.

How can a crime be a felony if you don’t require proof of self?

But really, how big a deal can this be?  I mean, can one woman really impact a race?

Unofficial elections results Tuesday night show that Lyons trailed challenger Mike Schlink by three votes.

Yes.

The only reason Democrats oppose rules that enforce fair elections is because they know that the people typically don’t have, or won’t show, proper ID are people that typically vote Democrats.  They won’t argue on the merits of rules.  They won’t argue on the merit of reasonability.  For the Democrat, this is politics pure and simple.  For the Democrat, this is about getting every single ballot for their side in the bucket; fair or not.  And when they’re confronted, they flop like Karl Malone and call “Foul”!

Well, they’ve been caught.  I no longer will give the Left the token “The impact is so small as not to matter.”

It does.  And they know it.  And if they say otherwise, they are lying.

 

North Dakota Fighting Sioux

The Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe has decided to weigh in on the University’s use of the “Fighting Sioux” mascot; they have retained legal counsel and sued.  Sued the NCAA that is:

FORT TOTTEN, ND – Speaking at the tribal headquarters of the Spirit Lake Sioux Nation, attorney Reed Soderstrom announced a lawsuit against the NCAA alleging copyright infringement and civil rights violations. The Sioux tribe supports the University of North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo, but the NCAA has deemed them to be “hostile and abusive.”

“Today, the Spirit Lake Tribe of Indians, by and through its Committee of Understanding and Respect, and Archie Fool Bear, individually, and as Representative of more than 1004 Petitioners of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association in direct response to their attempt to take away and prevent the North Dakota Sioux Indians from giving their name forever to the University of North Dakota,” said Soderstrom in prepared remarks.

Soderstrom alleges that the NCAA has violated “the religious and first amendment rights of the Dakota Sioux tribes.” He also alleged a double standard in the application of the NCAA’s policy against the use of Native American names and imagery.

The Sioux Nation WANTS the mascot to remain.  They find honor in being thus honored.  The NCAA is insane.

Gay Marriage: Make My Day

Rumor has it that Clint Eastwood is a conservative.  I am beginning to object to the term conservative because I feel that what we mean when we say we’re conservative is that we’re “Classic Liberals”.

Liberals.  As in, Liberty.

And this just about sums it all up:

GINI: Further Clarification on Wage Earners

This morning I posted on the flaw of using the popular measure of income disparity across nations.  Many organizations use the GINI coefficient to measure this disparity.  However, what these organizations fail to mention is that they are measuring household disparity, not individual disparity.  And when they compare nation to nation, they don’t normalize those numbers so that we’re comparing apples to apples.

For example, in the United States, a massive amount of “households” is comprised of single parents.  That is, the home will find a single eligible wage earner.  And many of those parents opt not to work.  Now, some will say that’s because there is no work to be had.  Others, me included, will say that the incentives are all wrong.  The entitlement programs offer enough aid that the prospect of going to work doesn’t make sense.

So, no income.

Is this sad?  Most certainly.

Does this promote poverty generation to generation?  With out a doubt.

Is this a serious problem that requires serious thought?  Yes.

Does this implicate the job market, compensation structure or some inherent bias towards “the wealthy”?  Under no circumstance.

This morning I showed the “horizontal” version of the data.  Let’s look at the vertical:

Descriptor Lowest Fifth Second Fifth Third Fifth Fourth Fifth Highest Fifth
No Earners 62.4% 29.6% 14.0% 6.3% 3.0%
One Earner 33.0% 52.6% 48.4% 33.1% 22.2%
Two Earners 4.3% 16.0% 32.4% 49.3% 55.9%
Three Earners 0.2% 1.6% 4.4% 8.9% 13.1%
Four Earners 0.0% 0.2% 0.8% 2.4% 5.8%

The data continues to reveal reality.  The quintile that represents the poorest among us, the “Lowest Fifth” has 62.4% of it’s members with ZERO wage earners.  That is, more than half, WAY more than half of the poorest quintile has no one in it making any amount of money.  NONE.  There is no way that this can be counted towards any measure of income disparity.  For that to happen, there must be an income!

I have lived in North Carolina for 12 years [damn!  12 years] and I have never won the North Carolina lottery.  Never mind that we have had a lottery for only 7 years and that I’ve never bought a ticket.  Is it realistic that I be counted among lottery players that haven’t won?

No.

Back to the data.  The “Lowest Fifth” has 62.4% of its members with no income.  62.4%.  Compare this to the “Highest Fifth”.  That quintile has 3% with no wage earners.  Three.  Further, the “Lowest Fifth” has only 4.5% of its membership with 2 or more earners.  Compare that with the “Highest Fifth” who have 5.8% with FOUR wage earners.

It turns out that a predictor of income is, shockingly, the number of wage earners.

GINI: Income Disparity

Thursday I posted my thoughts on the GINI rating and how it pertains to income here in America.  In that post, my main thrust was the fact that GINI, as reported when comparing national income disparity rankings, was comparing household incomes.  Not the incomes of individuals, but of households.

And I think that’s important.  As I demonstrated in that post, taking these two families:

  • Family A making $60,000 a year
  • Family B making $70,000 a year

Looks to be fairly equitable.  But now let’s consider that family A and family B get divorced, created 4 households out of two.  Then the breakdown looks like this:

  • Family A making $0 a year
  • Family B making $28,000 a year
  • Family C making $32,000 a year
  • Family D making $70,000 a year

THIS looks to be dramatically different.  However, the same four families in the second picture are the individual household represented in the first picture.  Remarkable, yes?

So, how do things look in real life?  Let’s take a look at the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey for 2010:

Descriptor Lowest Fifth Second Fifth Third Fifth Fourth Fifth Highest Fifth
Family Households 9,411 13,969 16,162 18,543 20,528
% 12 17.8 20.6 23.6 26.1
Married Couples 4,037 8,521 11,587 15,270 18,621
% 7 14.7 20 26.3 32.1
No Earners 14,805 7,037 3,327 1,496 722
% 54.1 25.7 12.1 5.5 2.6
One Earner 7,845 12,474 11,488 7,853 5,263
% 17.5 27.8 25.6 17.5 11.7
Two Earners 1,020 3,790 7,702 11,700 13,258
% 2.7 10.1 20.6 31.2 35.4
Three Earners 55 379 1,040 2,112 3,119
% 0.8 5.6 15.5 31.5 46.5
Four Earners 5 58 180 577 1,377
% 0.2 2.6 8.2 26.2 62.7
Aggregate Earners 10,240 21,940 31,595 41,125 48,338

The data is remarkable.  Let’s go through it bit by bit.

First, the “Fifths” listed at the top is earnings by quintile.  That is, the poorest 20% is the “Lowest Fifth” while the richest 20% is the “Highest Fifth”.

Now then, the data:

Households that are “families” is a massive indicator of income.As the percentage of families in each fifth increases, so does the wealth.  The same goes for married couples.  The top fifth has nearly 5x the number of married couples as the bottom fifth.  Seems that family is important in wealth creation.

Family aside, the powerful statistic that I took away was the number of earners in a household.  And what I found matches exactly with the phenomenon I described in my earlier post.

Of the households in the bottom fifth, more than HALF don’t have a single wage earner in the household.  More than half.  While the top 20% has only 2.6% of households that don’t qualify as a wage earner.

Further, if you look at the “Lowest Fifth” as a column and march down, you’ll see that fewer and fewer of those households have the described number of earners.  Starting at the top, this segment of the population has 54% of households with 0 wage earners.  While at the bottom, it has but .2% of the households with 4 wage earners.  The exact opposite is true of the “Highest Fifth”.

In short, it would seem that as a household has more wage earners, that household moves from one of the fifths to another.  And to the extent that this is true, look at the last line; aggregate earners.

The “Lowest Fifth” has 10,240 members.  The fifth that earns twice as much money as the lowest fifth has twice as many wage earners.  The fifth that makes three times as much as the lowest fifth has three times as many wage earners.  The fourth has four times as many wage earners.  And the highest has five times the number of wage earners.

This is true almost to the exact number.

The data presented above tells me that we don’t have an income disparity issue.  We have a family structure issue.  If you take a single wage earner in a household and compare that household to one with 4 wage earners, it should be no surprise which of the two households makes more money.

And lest there be any doubt.  The “Highest Fifth”?  They are some working sums -o- beetches.  Fully 62.7% of those households have FOUR wage earners.  This is not the lazy rich that the OWS and the ((% make them out to be.

OWS and Corporations

I’m guessing that the OWS crowd doesn’t like the fact that corporations are viewed as people.  With free speech rights and the ability to donate to campaigns or to purchase advertising.

I wonder if they think those same rules should apply to OWS or not?

I’m guessing they think that the rules they want applied to corporations are not the rules that want applied to themselves.

OWS Continues To Grow Up: Welcome to the 53%

A few days ago I posted a story about OWS protestors in LA who realized that their protest camp was being infiltrated by imposters and homeless:

Anyway, this nicely frames this nugget:

Homeless transplants from the city’s Skid Row have set up their tents within the larger tent city. No violence has been reported, but protest organizers are attempting to discourage people who are only at the encampment for the amenities.

I smiled and said, “Welcome to the 53%!”

Now, to be very clear, I do NOT think the OWS crowd is obligated to serve food and provide shelter for people who are not members in their group.  The people who are organizing any individual movement and group is working hard, I am sure.  However, what they are protesting subjects them to a degree of tolerance that would not otherwise be applied to other organizations.

See, the 99% feel that other people in the world should labor for their direct benefit.  These people honestly feel that they deserve a “living wage”, free college and healthcare.  Gone is the concept that any and all of these things require that an individual, somewhere-anywhere, labor for the benefit of the 99% and not themselves.

This is, of course, crazy and no one really supports it.

See, what’s happening is that protesters have organized into roles.  One of those roles is to cook and prepare meals for the other protesters, in theory, so that they can focus on other tasks that are required.  Perhaps this is park cleaning, garbage removal, sign making and library tending.  This makes sense.  Just like in life, specialization of tasks is more efficient and better serves the community.

However, because of the nature of the camps, homeless and other non-protesters are coming for the meals.  And the folks who are contributing are getting fed up; they are tired of supporting those who don’t contribute in other ways.

Again, no one supports requiring people to labor for those who don’t contribute.

And the proof that no one supports it is the fact that those protesting for just such that condition are opposed to that condition when they are the ones being asked to contribute money and labor.

Hat tip Boortz.

To show they mean business, the kitchen staff refused to serve any food for two hours yesterday in order to meet with organizers to air their grievances, sources said.

The Assembly announced the three-day menu crackdown announced earlier in the day — insisting everybody would be fed something during that period.

Some protesters threatened that the high-end meals could be cut off completely if the vagrants and criminals don’t disperse.

Unhappiness with their unwelcome guests was apparent throughout the day.

“We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out” to curb the influx of derelicts, said Rafael Moreno, a kitchen volunteer.

See, they understand.  They GET it.  And when faced with the prospect of laboring for those who don’t contribute in a meaningful way, they react by reducing the “welfare” they provide to “vagrants”.  Further, these people understand the power of incentives.  They know that if they put out more and more “stuff” they will get more and more “derelicts”.  The reverse seems to be obvious.  Reduce the quality of the “stuff” and the “derelicts” go away.

I so do love the free market.

From the Mouths of Babes

I was having lunch with my daughter the other day; a special treat for me.  She is 9 and her time is full.  If not school, then dance or friends.  The peaceful time of daughter and father is rare and precious.

I asked the waiter for the check.  And then she said something that hit me like a truck.  Gave me chills to the very core of my being:

Daddy, why do we have to pay for food?  We need it to live!  It should be free!

In my own HOME!

Suffice it to say that a copy of “The Law” will be given to her for her 10th birthday.

To Clarify The Left’s Position On “Immoral War”

Children!  Children, gather ’round.  I wanna tell you the story of the Leftist.

When someone you disagree with enters into a war to overthrow a brutal dictator, you protest him, call him Hitler and burn him effigy.  It is IMMORAL to use force against a foreign nation in an attempt to overthrow an evil brutal dictator.

But.  But….if Barack Obama would like to do the same, it is okay if:

  1. He does it quickly.
  2. There is no #2.

See, if one President goes to the United Nations and obtains resolution after resolution forcing the evil bad-guy dictator to allow this or allow that, and the evil bad-guy dictator doesn’t, AND the President gathers a coalition of foreign nations to assist in the overthrow of that evil bad-guy dictator AND that President goes to, you know, CONGRESS, AND….AND Congress authorizes force to remove evil bad-guy dictator AND that evil bad-guy dictator is captured AND that evil bad-guy dictator is imprisoned with human right’s representatives on guard AND that evil bad-guy dictator is given a trial and found guilty; well, THAT is immoral and the President is a douche.

He is greedy and is Hitler.

But, if the other President is Barack Obama, well, then we can target the evil bad-guy dictator in an assassination attempt, never go to Congress, the UN or any other body, watch as he is strung up on the hood of a truck like a deer, beat and shot without trial THEN allowed to have his body, decaying, be placed on public display for all to see while crooning:

We came, we saw, he died.

THAT is a foreign policy success, and the President is macho.

The Left is without morals.  They have none.  Which is why they try to legislate morals to force ME to abide by ’em.  They demand the rich donate to charity, but never do the same.  They demand that the Right care for the poor, but never do the same.  They scream that the Right engages in immoral wars, yet don’t care that they are the worst offenders.

They legislate others to do what they themselves can’t or won’t.

Buffet Is A Smart Man

I was looking through articles and news about Warren Buffet, his compensation and his taxes.  He makes a remarkable amount of money.  And I have great admiration for the man.  His simple down to earth nature, his favorite activity is to have a bowl of popcorn and watch the Corn Huskers play football.  I like his common sense approach to business, I think he once mentioned that if he had purchased the Red Sox, he wouldn’t try and manage how Ted Williams approached hitting.

No, tax policy aside, I have great regard for the man.  And even in the tax debate, he showed a glimpse of his genius:

Becky: OK, there were a couple of emails that came in that people that said if you think the government should be able to tax more money, why don’t you just give your money away to the government instead of charity.

Buffett: Well, that’s a choice and it’s an option that… If I had to give it to a single individual, or make some young Buffett a multi-billionaire, or give it to the government, I’d absolutely give it to the government. I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter’s foundation, my two sons’ foundations, will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government.

Indeed.  I have little doubt that Buffet’s three children would do a better job with that money.

My only question is this:

Why does Buffet reserve the right to keep and spend his money as he sees fit but denies that same right to all other people?