Volunteering to Pay More Taxes Doesn't Make You a Saint

From FEE.org:

As seems to happen whenever tax rate reductions that could be demonized as “tax cuts for the rich” are proposed, the Trump administration’s tax reform framework has triggered vehement opposition, because “we need the money” to finance government programs.

However, such advocates must divert attention from the ethics of forcibly imposing greater burdens on one group of people who already bear the greatest burdens, which we would call theft in any other setting. So to inoculate themselves from criticism, some rich people publicly volunteer to pay more in taxes. Tom Steyer provided the most recent illustration in October 5’s Los Angeles Times, with “I’m a billionaire. Raise my taxes.”

Displays of such “sainthood” deflect consideration from the central issue—what can ethically justify such coercion of others against their will—to how much the self-sainted signal that they care. Further, it implies that those who disagree with them are merely selfish. However, no such implication can be drawn. That some will volunteer to bear higher taxes to support government programs they like (as long as others are forced to do the same, even if they disagree) is perfectly consistent with the existence of excellent reasons to oppose a vast array of such government programs for waste and ineffectiveness, rather than out of cold-heartedness.

You're Not Helping

If a few rich people each volunteer to pay more in taxes to fund some “caring” government program, that would not demonstrate they believe it is effective enough to be worth its cost. That implication only follows from donations that fund programs without the coercion of others. Only that shows a belief that a program is effective enough to justify its cost (although when  donations are tax deductible, even such private donations do not demonstrate that). But that is far different than what they propose.

Rich tax volunteers are not just private benefactors; they mainly propose imposing “coercive charity” on others. However much they may preen about their moral rectitude (which they can always display directly through their own independent, private giving), they offer to pay only a small share of the total cost of trying to do what they consider good through the tax code. They are primarily volunteering others, who need not in any way share their views or evaluations of the programs in question, to pick up the vast majority of the tab for their favored causes. [read more]

I agree with the article. They should stop it. But Rush Limbaugh makes a point that the people who want their taxes raised are people who don’t want to be attacked by the Left. That strategy doesn’t work though. The Left will keep attacking them unless they donate to Leftist groups and candidates. Then the rich will be left alone.

China is opening a new quantum research supercenter

From PopSci.com (Oct. 10);

On 37 hectares (nearly 4 million square feet) in Hefei, Anhui Province, China is building a $10 billion research center for quantum applications. This news comes on the heels of the world's first video call made via quantum-encrypted communications and the completion of a quantum-encrypted fiber optic trunk cable.

The National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences, slated to open in 2020, has two major research goals: quantum metrology and building a quantum computer. Both efforts would support military and national defense efforts, as well civilian innovators.

But let's back up. What is quantum metrology, anyway? Basically it measures minute changes in gravity and other physical effects, which can be used to build highly accurate, self-contained navigation systems. This has a key application for autonomous vehicles and submarines, which wouldn't have to rely on GPS or other external navigation signals that could be jammed or used to detect their location.

And then there are quantum computers. Pan Jianwei, a leading Chinese quantum scientist, says that the first general-purpose Chinese quantum computer could have a million times the computing power of all other computers presently in the world. In the computers we use today, information is encoded in a series of bits set as either 1 or 0. In a quantum computer, bits would theoretically be able to hold one, both, or some combination of these states. They could be used to speedily crack encrypted messages or solve complicated research problems involving anything from weather modeling to fusion research and biomedicine, because quantum bits allow certain calculations that happen one by one on a standard computer to occur simultaneously. [read more]

IBM is trying to build a quantum computer too. Let’s hope they do it first and not just because I own stock in the company—although it wouldn’t hurt the stock price.  But because I want America to do it first.

The Wisdom of Winston Churchill 6

No race, country or individual as a monopoly of good or evil.

The strength and character of the national civilization is not built up like a scaffolding or fitted together like a machine. Its growth is more like that of a plant or a tree.... No one should ever cut one down without planting another. It is very much easier to cut down trees than to grow them.

Do not disband your army until you have got your terms.

Large views always triumph over small ideas.

It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and as rapidly as folly.

We are for private enterprise with all its ingenuity, thrift and contrivance, and we believe it can flourish best within a strict and well-understood system of prevention and correction of abuses. In a complex community like our own no absolutely rigid uniformity of practice as possible.

Some see private enterprise as a predatory animal to be shot, others look on it as a cow to be milked but a few see it as a sturdy horse pulling a wagon.

Private property has a right to be defended. Our civilization is built up by private property and can only be defended by private property.

Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.

Source: The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill: A Treasury of More Than 1,000 Quotations and Anecdotes (1994) by James C. Humes.

'Beam of Invisibility' Could Hide Objects Using Light

From Live Science.com (Oct. 11):

Once thought of as the province of only "Star Trek" or "Harry Potter," cloaking technologies could become a reality with a specially designed material that can mask itself from other forms of light when it is hit with a "beam of invisibility," according to a new study.

Theoretically, most "invisibility cloaks" would work by smoothly guiding light waves around objects so the waves ripple along their original trajectories as if nothing were there to obstruct them. Previous work found that cloaking devices that redirect other kinds of waves, such as sound waves, are possible as well.

But the new study's  researchers, from at the Technical University of Vienna, have developed a different strategy to render an object invisible — using a beam of invisibility.

Complex materials such as sugar cubes are opaque because their disorderly structures scatter light around inside them multiple times, said study senior author Stefan Rotter, a theoretical physicist at the Technical University of Vienna.

"A light wave can enter and exit the object, but will never pass through the medium on a straight line," Rotter said in a statement. "Instead, it is scattered into all possible directions."

With their new technique, Rotter and his colleagues did not want to reroute the light waves.

"Our goal was to guide the original light wave through the object, as if the object was not there at all. This sounds strange, but with certain materials and using our special wave technology, it is indeed possible," study co-author Andre Brandstötter, a theoretical physicist at the Technical University of Vienna, said in the statement.

The concept involves shining a beam, such as a laser, onto a material from above to pump it full of energy. This can alter the material's properties, making it transparent to other wavelengths of light coming in from the side.

"To achieve this, a beam with exactly the right pattern has to be projected onto the material from above — like from a standard video projector, except with much higher resolution," study lead author Konstantinos Makris, now at the University of Crete in Greece, said in a statement. [read more]

Fascinating, but I would think it would be hard to implement for everyday uses. Like for a spy for instance.

There is no black culture without America

Commentary from Meeke Addison on One News Now.com:

People have joked that the United States of America has no culture of its own. They've suggested that American culture is the collection of other cultures. That's partly true. America is an amazing tapestry of subcultures mixed together to give the country a unique, distinct, and very evident culture. America's culture is, in fact, the result of the great experiment that is our existence. We come from all over the world, and together we form what was once called a "melting pot." We're not required to lose the identity of our country of origin, but instead, we're celebrated for what we bring, adding to the culture at large.

I grew up attending public school in New Orleans where teachers taught us that we were an amazing country because we were made up of so many people groups. I remember having what was called "cultural assemblies." Our entire school would gather in the auditorium to watch our classmates display what made us who we are. It was an opportunity for us to learn what made America so great. I loved it! Seemingly, we all loved it. Seemingly, we all loved America. And that was normal.

But today something disheartening has happened. Today many subcultures are encouraged to hate America. It often feels that if you love this country and are an ethnic minority, then you must by default hate yourself. This is especially pronounced in black culture. It's confusing, particularly when one considers that black culture is American culture. In fact, it is a culture that is the result of America. In that way, black culture may be different from Italian, Japanese, French, or Hispanic cultures, which all brought their individual cultures and practices with them to the United States. These and various other cultures were then shaped by their new homeland. Black culture, on the other hand, is different. Black culture is uniquely American. It is birthed right here, proudly made in the USA.

……………………..

I love this country, with all of her flaws and scars. I'm an American. I'm ethnically and culturally black, and God caused all of it. He determined it, and I'm grateful. In America, inside my black culture, I met Jesus and received eternal life. Unfortunately, many Christians have lost the greatest reason to celebrate our countries of origin and even to value for our various ethnicities – the Lord's sovereignty. The apostle Paul in Acts 17:26-27 teaches, "[H]e made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. …" (Emphasis added.)

I celebrate the greatness of my country because God raised it up. I celebrate my country for all of the reasons people continue to risk their lives to come here and beg to remain here. More than anything, I love and celebrate my country because it is the country in which God caused me to live; He created me black and allowed me to find Him here as a black female living in America. I hope Christians who are white, Hispanic, or any other ethnicity feel the same way. [read more]

She evidently doesn’t believe in identity politics. Hmmm. Wonder what the Left would call her.

The Wisdom of Winston Churchill 5

One mark of a great man is the power of making lasting impressions upon the people he  meets.

There is a precipitous on either side of you-- a precipitous of caution in the precipitous of over-daring.

They're the most disagreeable of people.... Their insincerity? Can you not feel a sense of disgust at the arrogant presumption of superiority of these people? Superiority of intellect! Then, when it comes to practice, down they fall with a wallop not only to the level of ordinary human beings but to a level which is even far below the average.

These very high intellectual persons who wake up every morning... see what they can find to demolish, to undermine or cast away.

Let them quit these gospels of envy, hate and malice. Let them eliminate them from their politics and programs. Let them abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of false equality... they will increase the well-being of the world.

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes in to make this muddled world a better place to live in after we are gone?

The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation.... [T]he element of the unexpected and unforeseeable is that gives some of its relish and saves us from falling into the mechanical thralldom of the logicians.

Logic, like science, must be the servant and not the master of man.

To change your mind is one thing; to turn on those who have followed your previous advice is another.

Source: The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill: A Treasury of More Than 1,000 Quotations and Anecdotes (1994) by James C. Humes.

Ten Principles of Health Care Reform

From FEE.org:

1. Government should not be determining what is or must be insured. That should be up to the consumers to decide.
2. Government should not interfere in contractual relationships between providers and purchasers of insurance, whether individuals or businesses.
3. Prices for medical services need to be completely decontrolled, and the convoluted market-rigging by a conspiracy of providers, insurers, and government welfare bureaucracies must be ended.
4. Government should not mandate coverage by employers or privilege employer-provided coverage over individually purchased coverage. Third-party payment should be an option.
5. Government should not mandate that insurers accept all comers at the same price; that system makes a mockery of the whole idea of insurance itself.
6. Discrimination for “pre-existing conditions” should not be a criminal act but rather a rational consideration for determining premiums.
7. Government should not restrict who gets to try their hand at providing insurance; entry and exit need to be competitive too.
8. Government should never force anyone to pay for a service that he or she does not want. You say coverage is a human right? It’s a human right for a person to refuse coverage.
9. If you want to get serious about fixing the system, the byzantine pharmaceutical system has to go. Again, let the consumers decide, and, while we are at it, there should be complete free trade in medicine.
10. The 100-year old medical credential monopoly that has so severely restricted entry into the profession should be dismantled. The market is fully capable of assuring quality, and remember too that there is not one definition of quality.

Source: “Real Health Insurance Is a Crime.” by Warren Gibson from Essential Guide to Healthcare (pdf).

Good ideas. Make sense.

Hitler may have come close to building atomic bomb, German treasure hunter finds

From Fox News.com (Sept. 26):

A pensioner in Brandenberg, Germany, was casting about with his metal detector last week when it gave an unusual ‘bleep’.

According to German media, it’s cause was what first appeared to be a nondescript but shiny lump of metal.

Then the 64-year-old hobbyist, Bernd Thälmann, gave it a quick test.

It was not magnetic.

This was odd. Bernd had been scouring the terrain around Oranienburg in Brandenberg for some time. He had some experience in what to expect to find.

After bringing it home and leaving it laying around for several days, he and his children began to do some digging on the properties of various metals

What they found caused them to became somewhat anxious.

He notified authorities.

He suddenly became the centre of a huge emergency services effort — including the evacuation and cordoning off of surrounding homes.

NAZI LINK

Men in hazmat suits moved into his house, and carefully packed his find into a special lead-lined container, which was itself put in a protective suitcase.

Now Bernd’s being investigated for possessing ‘unauthorised radioactive substances’.

Police have confirmed Bernd’s metallic find is radioactive. And they’ve also reportedly suggested a source.

Oranienburg was, during World War II, the location of a secret research facility.

It was working on enriching uranium oxide sourced from South America..

Its objective was to create weapons-grade plutonium.

This was to be the core a Nazi atomic bomb.

The research facility is long gone.

But it seems some rather telltale traces still remain.  [read more]

It sure was a good thing that Hitler didn’t build the atomic bomb. That would have been a game changer.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 42

• When you look at the Abyss, the Abyss looks back at you and bitch slaps you.
• A free press definition: Factual, objective and no attitude. I don’t even care if they are biased as along as those three conditions are met.    
• Usually when the republicans reach across the aisle in Congress they get their hands cut off. 
• If you can represent yourself in a court of law without a lawyer’s license why can’t you hire someone to represent you without a license? Lawyers would probably like to outlaw someone representing themselves too if they could get away with it.
• Term limits in Congress will never happen as long as the majority of members are addicted to power.
• Peer pressure –> Group think –> Socialism
• I think the Left is resisting reality and reasonableness. That’s their resistance movement.
• Congress should be the ones who drain-the-swamp. They won’t do it as long as they view their swamp as a luxurious swimming pool.
• The Law of the Jungle doesn’t care a whit about an endangered species.
• You can’t argue for small gov’t if you believe man can be made perfect or incorruptible by man himself. The corruptibility of man is the basic difference between the Left and Right viewpoints of the nature of man.

The Wisdom of Winston Churchill 4

A nation that forgets its past has no future.

Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after it has happened; but it is only the wise man who knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting in memorable.

Those who seek to plan the future should not forget the inheritance they have received from the past, for it is only by studying the past as well as drawing for the future that the story of man's struggle can be understood.

Nourish your hopes that do not overlook realities.

The human race cannot make progress without idealism, but it dealers them at other people's expense... cannot be regarded as its highest or noblest form.

Imagination, without deep in full knowledge, is a snare.

Individualism offers and infinitely graduated and infinitely varied system of records for genius, for enterprise, for exertion, for industry, for faithfulness, for thrift. Socialism destroys all this.

Innovation of course involves experiment. Experiments may or may not be fruitful.

On international law: Humanity, not legality, must be our guide.

What the horn is to rhinoceros, what the sting is to the wasp, the Mohammadan faith is to the Arabs.

It is a fine thing to be honest, but is also very important to be right.

Source: The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill: A Treasury of More Than 1,000 Quotations and Anecdotes (1994) by James C. Humes.

The Dangers of the Hackable Car

From The Wall Street Journal.com (Sept. 17):

Hackers may have a new target in their sights—one that’s just as central to everyday life as computers are.

Our cars.

As vehicles fill up with more digital controls and internet-connected devices, they’re becoming more vulnerable to cybercriminals, who can hack into those systems just like they can attack computers. Almost any digitally connected device in a car could become an entry point to the vehicle’s central communications network, opening a door for hackers to potentially take control by, for instance, disabling the engine or brakes.

There have been only a handful of successful hacks on vehicles so far, carried out mostly to demonstrate potential weaknesses—such as shutting down moving a car and taking control of another’s steering. But security experts paint a grim picture of what might lie ahead. They see a growing threat from malicious hackers who access cars remotely and keep their doors locked until a ransom is paid. Cybercriminals also could steal personal and financial data that cars are starting to collect about owners.

Or they might get even more ambitious. Some experts warn of a day when millions of fully internet-connected vehicles will be at risk of being hijacked remotely. A mass hack could be catastrophic for the self-driving cars of the future, especially if those cars don’t have steering wheels or other backup systems to let drivers take manual control.

Now the auto industry and lawmakers are rushing to meet these threats. Congress is proposing new standards that car companies must meet to guard against cyberattacks. Car makers are beefing up their software to make their vehicles tougher to hack, as well as reaching out to benevolent hackers to help them identify potential security flaws.

While there are disagreements among manufacturers and security experts about the exact magnitude of the possible threats, there is a widespread consensus that action is needed immediately to minimize risks. [read more]

Hopefully, the car manufacturers will beef up the computer security in cars because just about any computer can be hacked.

The Wisdom of Winston Churchill 3

Expert knowledge, however indispensable, is no substitute for a generous and comprehending outlook upon a human story with all its sadness - with all its unquenchable hope.

You must look at facts because they look at you.

The idea that nothing is true except what we comprehend is silly.

It is bad for a nation when it is without faith.

There's no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.

A fanatic is one who won't change his mind and won't change the subject.

The best method of acquiring flexibility is to have three or four plans for all the probable contingencies all worked out with the utmost detail.

A nation without a conscience is a nation without a soul. A nation without a soul is a nation that cannot live.

Never surrender ourselves to servitude and shame whatever the cost may be.

If you destroy a free-market, you create a black market.

Some people's idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

I have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into the mysterious, let us tear aside the veils which hide it from our eyes and let us move onward with confidence and courage.

Source: The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill: A Treasury of More Than 1,000 Quotations and Anecdotes (1994) by James C. Humes. 

Quit Obamacare And Build Your Own Mutual Aid Organization

From FEE.org (Sept. 14):

A better way to manage health care costs without the federal government’s involvement is for us to do it ourselves through mutual aid. The mutual aid model has been around for decades in the form of health care sharing ministries (HCSMs). HCSMs are not-for-profit religious organizations that act as clearinghouses for people with similar strong beliefs and who wish to share their medical expenses with each other. HCSMs organize the efforts of their participants by funneling grassroots financial support towards those participants who incur medical expenses.

The most important thing people need to understand about HCSMs is that they are NOT insurance. Whereas the relationship between a policyholder and an insurance company is contractual, the relationship within an HCSM is a covenantal agreement between individual participants.

How My HCSM Works

Each month, the HCSM publishes a newsletter that it distributes to all participants. The newsletter lists participants who have incurred legitimate medical expenses, and it directs other participants to send a previously agreed-upon amount of money to those with medical expenses. Gift givers are also encouraged to pray for those to whom they send money.

Recipients are given a list of participants the HCSM has assigned to send them money, and when they receive it, they cross that gift giver’s name off the list. Assigned gift givers who are late in sending funds are reported to the HCSM, who will remind them of their commitment. If they still don’t send the gifts they agreed to, they get dropped from the program.

There are no financial reserves, no legal protections, and no lawsuits; there are only thousands of participants helping each other with medical expenses, organized by an HCSM. Eleven months per year, gifts are sent to participants and one month per year, a gift is sent to the HCSM to cover the costs of running the organization. The overhead cost of the program is only 8.3%, which is significantly less than the 20% of overhead expenses and profit insurance companies are allowed under Obamacare.

Most HCSMs hold strict lifestyle and moral guidelines for participation: no tobacco, drug use, sex outside of marriage, and only moderate alcohol use. Some require overweight participants to demonstrate good faith efforts and progress towards losing weight. All participants are ultimately responsible for paying their medical bills, and participants are expected to negotiate lower fees from their health care providers before submitting a medical share need to the HCSM.

HCSMs don’t pay for preventive care; mammograms, pap smears, and annual physical exams; all these services are paid for by the participants themselves. Most HCSMs (but not all) require members to be active church attendees, and several require a pastor’s signature verifying a participant’s commitment to the HCSMs lifestyle and faith obligations. With that said, there is no reason (other than political) why people of different worldviews and values couldn’t organize their own health care sharing programs around common values and needs.  [read more]

Another good idea that the Obamacare designers never thought of. Then again the designers wants the citizens dependent on the gov’t for their healthcare.

Leftism Is Not Liberalism. Here Are the Differences.

Commentary from Dennis Prager on The Daily Signal.com:

What is the difference between a leftist and a liberal?

Answering this question is vital to understanding the crisis facing America and the West today. Yet few seem able to do it. I offer the following as a guide.

Here’s the first thing to know: The two have almost nothing in common.

On the contrary, liberalism has far more in common with conservatism than it does with leftism. The left has appropriated the word “liberal” so effectively that almost everyone—liberals, leftists, and conservatives—thinks they are synonymous.

But they aren’t. Let’s look at some important examples.

Race: This is perhaps the most obvious of the many moral differences between liberalism and leftism.

The essence of the liberal position on race was that the color of one’s skin is insignificant. To liberals of a generation ago, only racists believed that race is intrinsically significant. However, to the left, the notion that race is insignificant is itself racist.

Thus, the University of California officially regards the statement, “There is only one race, the human race,” as racist.

For that reason, liberals were passionately committed to racial integration. Liberals should be sickened by the existence of black dormitories and separate black graduations on university campuses.

Capitalism: Liberals have always been pro-capitalism, recognizing it for what it is: the only economic means of lifting great numbers out of poverty.

Liberals did often view government as able to play a bigger role in lifting people out of poverty than conservatives, but they were never opposed to capitalism, and they were never for socialism. Opposition to capitalism and advocacy of socialism are leftist values.

Nationalism: Liberals deeply believed in the nation-state, whether their nation was the United States, Great Britain, or France.

The left has always opposed nationalism because leftism is rooted in class solidarity, not national solidarity. The left has contempt for nationalism, seeing in it intellectual and moral primitivism at best, and the road to fascism at worst.

Liberals always wanted to protect American sovereignty and borders. The notion of open borders would have struck a liberal as just as objectionable as it does a conservative.  [read more]

What Mr. Prager calls a liberal is what sometimes are called the Old Left—eg FDR, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, etc. Although, Woodrow Wilson was a racist so he doesn’t completely fit the definition of a liberal. Senator Joe Biden is a liberal. The New Left got started somewhere in the 1960s.