If Only

As reported by ABC News, apparently with a straight face:

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

(Hat tip to Mark Steyn.)

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Ohio Issue 2: Vote Yes for Reform

(Jump to provisions of new law)

I remember John Derbyshire arguing years ago that public-sector unions shouldn’t exist, in his top-ten list of “Necessary but Impossible” reforms:

Outlaw public-sector unions

Why do public-sector workers need unions? The purpose of unions is to protect employees against unscrupulous bosses, who might seek to maximize profits by taking advantage of those who work for them. In the public sector, however, there are no profits to be maximized, no shareholders to appease. The work that is being done is being done in the public interest — against which, as Calvin Coolidge quite correctly declared, there is no right to strike. So what do government workers need unions for? If public-sector workers don’t like their pay and conditions, they can appeal to the tax-paying public, who are their ultimate employers. If that doesn’t work, they can go get jobs in the private sector, and take their chances with capitalism, like free citizens of a free nation.  

Update to ‘People Should Marry Earlier’

I also recommend the following related writings:

• Kathleen Quiring’s “In Defense of Early Marriage” and the other entries she links to there, expanding on various objections to early marriage; “Why You Shouldn’t Marry Early (Or Ever)”; and the rest of her excellent blog

• Mark Regnerus, “The Case for Early Marriage”, Christianity Today

• Mark Steyn, “We Are the Children” section of chapter four, After America

“Occupy Wall Street” Protesters Couldn’t Be More Different from Tea Party Movement, or from Rest of Country

First, insert here all the usual caveats about polls.  Always take them with a grain of salt, etc.

That said, according to “probably . . . the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion,” 31% of OWS protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda.”  

Why the Economy Isn’t Recovering

The Wall Street Journal summarizes Washington’s generous contributions to the problem:  The Keystone XL oil pipeline could create more than a hundred thousand jobs, and an environmental review says it poses no threat to the environment, but the administration has held it up for three years anyway.  Administrative agencies generated 81,405 pages’ worth of new regulations last year, “bringing the total cost to the U.S. economy of regulatory compliance to an estimated $1.7 trillion a year.”  And so on.  

Conversations around the Petition Table

Maybe I should try some of that first-person-narrative, personal-experience-type reporting that I’m told is blogs’ specialty.

Recently I started volunteering with some local candidates’ 2011 election campaigns.  One day I went with two other volunteers, two college students, S. and D., to a big community event where we distributed literature for one of the candidates, C.  While there, we ran into another volunteer, a liberal, M., a middle-aged woman, gathering signatures for a Democrat ballot initiative.  The four of us talked for a while.  A few things struck me. 

Obama vs. the Economy in a Nutshell

Via Grand Rants I find an “infographic” from Ace of Spades (full-size version here) entitled “The Obama Presidency: By the Numbers”.

It presents some promises and other things President Obama and others in his administration said a few years ago, juxtaposed with various numbers (e.g., the unemployment rate) showing how things have turned out so far.  It’s very succinct and easy to read.