Liberals' 50 years of dreadful domestic policy
Posted: December 23, 2010

by Larry Elder

For the past 50 years, the Democrats – and many Republicans who should know better – have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:

Taxes

The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.

President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue. President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35 percent.

President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them. If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true. Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90 percent to 70 percent, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right – and most of the Democratic Party knows it.


Welfare for the "underclass"

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.

The percentage of children born outside of marriage – to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women – exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."

Education

The federal government's increasing involvement with education – what is properly a state and local function – has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.

Where parents have choices – where the money follows the student rather than the other way around – the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.

Gun control

Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas – where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun-control laws.

Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent and robberies by over 2 percent."


"Affirmative action"

Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.

Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters – even in liberal states like California – have voted against them.

Minimum-wage hikes

Almost all economists agree that minimum-wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled – the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.

Economist Walter E. Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary. That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Obamacare

This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care – all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.

Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'pumpkin, carver, glock' to 'pumpkin, carver, glock, pistol, handgun' - edited by calvados

There have been a number of books that dealt with the subject:

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Freakonomics had a section about how terrible we as humans are in gauging the likelihood of something awful happening. The authors illustrate their point by asking you if your child would be safer visiting a friend who had a swimming pool in the back yard, or a friend whose parents owned a handgun. As you could guess, the swimming pool is 100 times more dangerous than the handgun.

Of course, each of these books have extensive references in the back.

She actually looks like a horrible shot. She's firing all over the place with the 1st handgun. 20degrees difference is a lot.

From LiveLeak: A B.C. filmmaker says he's lucky to be alive after narrowly avoiding a grizzly attack while filming in the Robson Valley, southeast of Prince George.

Leon Lorenz, who lives in Dunster, B.C., was filming grizzly bears in a nearby valley last Monday evening when he spotted a bear and her cub.

Lorenz said he took cover behind a spruce tree so he could film the bears without disturbing them, but the mother bear picked up his scent.

She turned suddenly, he said, and looked him right in the eyes.

Then, roaring, she charged through the trees right at Lorenz.

He recalls thinking, "This is for real. This is … no bluff charge."

Lorenz set the camera down on a tripod, capturing everything on film, and grabbed his handgun with the hopes of firing a warning shot to scare the grizzly off.

Crouched behind the tree, he aimed his gun high and pulled the trigger — just as the grizzly burst through the branches of the tree, a few feet from where he was hiding.

Lorenz said the shot spooked the bear, which he estimates weighed between 400 and 500 pounds, and she ran off with her cub.

"I knew if I would have run, I wouldn't be here," he said.

"If I didn't have my handgun, even if I would have fired a shot a quarter of a second later, the blast would have been too late. She would have been on me."

'I just thank God that I'm still here'
Lorenz said it's an experience he'll never forget.

"It's something that will stay with me for life. … It was really something that I never expected and I think I've grown from it," he said.

"I think even if I would have hit her, even a very fatal shot … she would have had enough life left in her to do me in."

He believes it would have been nearly impossible to survive an attack at such a close range.

"They were both so fast. It's unbelievable — the speed — and I just thank God that I'm still here."

Lorenz said he's grateful both he and the grizzly survived the encounter.

"The timing couldn't have been more perfect," he said. "The outcome couldn't have been more perfect as far as, you know, I wasn't touched, she wasn't wounded, she wasn't killed, her baby's OK … and I was able to capture the whole thing [on film]."

Lorenz said he has had about a dozen grizzly encounters, but a bear had never charged at him before.

"It just really shows … that their personalities are all different, just like people," he said.

"But also, it shows that they're unpredictable because they can be one way one day and totally different another day and … you just have to be as careful as you can."

>> ^joedirt:
The guy that filmed this is a fucking lunatic... Not that it impacts his bike attempted theft.
But still like a delusional paranoid kook that films all the time in fear of his bike being vandalized...


I doubt he films his bike all the time, its pretty obvious that he saw the guy about to steal his bike and started filming.
But you may be right about the lunatic part. Reminds me of Michael Douglas in "Breaking Down".
"You want my briefcase!! Take It!!"
Sounds like this guy has had enough. Wonder if he owns a handgun.

>> ^darkrowan:

Love the Bond-esc music playing in the background.
[edit] watched the rest of the vid, now realize it's a Bond remix. Well played, but I don't think Q would have made an obvious weapon more lethal.


*music

I think that everyone would be surprised just how easy it is to become an Armed Security Officer (guard). 40 hour training which includes handgun qualification and shotgun qualification. I've seen a few of these classes, and they are pretty strict, but that is given the place that is providing the training. Zero Tolerance for itchy trigger fingers, and violating the fire line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_guard

Pennsylvania No licensing requirements to be an unarmed security guard. However, armed security guards must undergo and successfully complete a 40 hour training course (including shooting range time) in order to be certified to carry weapons and on watch while on duty under the Lethal Weapons Training Act (commonly referred to as Act 235 certification). Certification involves qualifying on a pistol range, with firing of 50 rounds of .38 cal. ammo. You are also required to qualify on a shotgun. The certification is good for five years at which time an eight hour refresher course must be taken or the certification is revoked.[28]

@Lawdeedaw, I don't think you and I watched the same video. First, if you pause the video @0:50 you will see another man with the same badge as his and his jacket flies open showing what appears to be a handgun. Whatever type of "security guard" they are, they're not the "I work at the mall" variety.

Second, if you actually watch the video you'll see the man didn't shove the camera in the guy's face, but instead the officer (or security guard) approached him and made a blatant threat. I'm curious why you feel the need to apologize for them when they're obviously in the wrong.

I don't see who failed at what here. As if a sex toy is surprising to see in a suitcase of all places.

If it had been a handgun or say.. rocket launcher. That's more up to par.

Thanks. I thought I was asking the right guy.

In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_State_Police

The Maryland State Police are currently issued a Beretta PX4 Storm, but the officer in the video seems to be carrying something of the Beretta type, but I cannot tell. It definetly does not look like a glock which usually have a square slide.

When he holsters the weapon his thumb appears to come up to hit a decocker, which on a Beretta is on the back of the slide and ambidextrous.

I don't know if its standard protocol to have the hammer in ready position, most pistols are double action. However it does appear that he is placing the gun on safe when he holsters the weapon, he is defiantly doing something.

In this case I don't think he needed to draw his weapon. Some will say that's protocol; I say if the perpetrator was not armed then there was no need to present a weapon. In my mind the situation did not scale on the force continuum to have need for a weapon. Maybe soft physical force; the officer jumped straight to lethal force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_force_continuum

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Heh, thanks Nordy. You seem to know a lot about handgun training, so if I may ask a question? Does he appear to take the safety off with his left hand immediately after drawing the weapon? Is that procedure, or is the decision to saftey off a separate event?

In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
>> ^schmawy:

Nope. It's not changing.


TELL EM SERIOUS CAT!
GET 'EM!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_State_Police

The Maryland State Police are currently issued a Beretta PX4 Storm, but the officer in the video seems to be carrying something of the Beretta type, but I cannot tell. It definitely does not look like a glock which usually have a square slide.

When he holsters the weapon his thumb appears to come up to hit a decocker, which on a Beretta is on the back of the slide and ambidextrous.

I don't know if its standard protocol to have the hammer in ready position, most pistols are double action. However it does appear that he is placing the gun on safe when he holsters the weapon, he is definitely doing something.

In this case I don't think he needed to draw his weapon. Some will say that's protocol; I say if the perpetrator was not armed then there was no need to present a weapon. In my mind the situation did not scale on the force continuum to have need for a weapon. Maybe soft physical force; the officer jumped straight to lethal force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_force_continuum

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Heh, thanks Nordy. You seem to know a lot about handgun training, so if I may ask a question? Does he appear to take the safety off with his left hand immediately after drawing the weapon? Is that procedure, or is the decision to saftey off a separate event?

In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
>> ^schmawy:

Nope. It's not changing.


TELL EM SERIOUS CAT!
GET 'EM!

Heh, thanks Nordy. You seem to know a lot about handgun training, so if I may ask a question? Does he appear to take the safety off with his left hand immediately after drawing the weapon? Is that procedure, or is the decision to saftey off a separate event?

In reply to this comment by NordlichReiter:
>> ^schmawy:

Nope. It's not changing.


TELL EM SERIOUS CAT!
GET 'EM!

So American cops can't tell the difference between a mobile phone and a handgun, and the American military can't tell the difference between a camera and a machine gun?

Am I the only one that saw the camera holder as somebody just trying to make some trouble? And then when trouble found him he was sub-par at taking control. He stuttered...didn't seem to know the law...he didn't own the situation. Now, maybe his submissive approach helped him from being arrested, but it made for a less interesting video.

Plus why would you go up to a cop with a handgun? That's f*cking stupid. Even if you are within your rights...that's like walking up to a "tamed" lion then wondering why he bit your arm off. His idealism wrote a check that his balls couldn't cash.