h/t Instapundit
We're accustomed to thinking about public policy issues as points on conventional political spectrums: Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative. While these traditional frames will always work to some degree, those of us who live on the Harbor need to add a new scale: urban/rural.
We live in a rural area and that's a good thing. Rural economies can do well. Our costs of living and of doing business tend to be lower than in urban areas. Lighter population density and a less-anxious lifestyle are pluses, too.
But this rural area hasn't thrived or grown in recent years. Part of the reason is that we've been serving other parts of the state.
#1
Urban politics tend to overshadow rural politics simply because of larger numbers. Urban interests are generally not represented by those who get elected by the urban areas. I'm not sure what you can do about this--if anything.
#2
Elect Senators by giving each subunit (county/parish) one electoral vote. Population is represented in the House (one man - one vote), but the Senate is suppose to represent the state. Watch 'negotiations' when city folk want money from the purse that has to clear the Senate.
#3
Repeal the 17th Amendment - that which shifted the election of Senators from the states to the general population. Give the power back to the state legislatures.
Sure they sometimes elect some real Whoppers - but is the current Senate any better?
#4
Not much different in New York state, or California (North and South.) And I like P2K's suggestion, though I think the urban areas would still dominate.
#5
Given how many state legislatons are "Red" these days, this would definitely change the senate. And better yet, it would tend to make Senators beholden to the state legislators, not their big donor list. Be a darned sight easier to get rid of them when the legislation changes hands.
h/t Instapundit
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee declared his candidacy for president at a rally Tuesday in a speech that would make a libertarian's blood boil.
Typically, libertarians can rely on Republicans to agree with their viewpoints on economic issues and Democrats to agree with them on social freedom. Huckabee is the rare populist who wants government heavily involved in both economic and social issues.
Here are just a few highlights of Huckabee's anti-libertarian agenda. IMO, libertarian is a stage you go through in your teen years---like acne.
#1
Can't say I disagree with Huckleberry's points whether he is called a libertarian or conservative. He gave a good speech yesterday. Better than any of the Donks either sitting or running. Experience as a governor. Makes me want to find out more about him.
#7
When talking libertarian I think it is important to separate the Big L "legalize everything" from the little l "shrink the government and stop spending". I think perhaps most outgrow the first stage but settle into the second.
[ARABNEWS] The Iraqis are gearing up for another war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS), the second to occur during the rule of Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi after he won the battle of Tikrit.
Several army forces, security forces and Shiite popular mobilization militias, as well as some Sunni tribes, are gathering to head to Anbar province. There's more to the battle than Anbar and the battle is not limited to the IS, as Abadi's real rival in Baghdad is former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki who is launching a widely-inciting political and media campaign against him. Abadi seems confused and is sometimes adopting contradictory stances due to apparent pressures exerted on him
The Iraqi prime minister stands between two fierce rivals and is in big trouble. If he loses the war in Anbar, his political rivals will pursue him in Baghdad and the IS will expand its influence.
Victory will not be easy to achieve with the protests and threats made by his rivals in Baghdad as it requires depending on the Sunni tribes who are most capable of defending their areas.
Abadi has retreated from arming the Sunni tribes and has only provided them with simple weapons due to pressures by Lion of Islam Shiite parties. To resolve the problem, the Americans volunteered to perform the task of arming the Anbar tribes who oppose the IS but after his rivals criticized him, Abadi had to object to that and the American government backed down.
All this fighting will firstly be at the expense of the Iraqis and the Iraqi state and will be in the interest of the IS and Iran's proxies. Anbar's battle is part of a war that may prolong as the terrorist organization resides in several areas, such as the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... which is still occupied by the IS and which will be the most difficult to liberate as the Iraqi government may have to seek the help of countries like the US and perhaps The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and Iran to restore it. Even after Mosul is liberated, there are several areas, which will take a long time to liberate.
Therefore, the prime minister must think beyond Anbar and must realize that he will lose his battle with political rivals if he loses his war against the IS and that he will emerge victorious over them if triumphs over the terrorist organization.
However it's impossible to emerge victorious if he bases his decisions on pleasing sectarian parties and his political rivals, like Al-Maliki. Rejecting to arm the Sunni tribes who are fighting the IS and objecting to America supplying them with arms will only help the murderous Moslems spread and will drive thousands of the Anbar's sons to join the organization as long as they have no other choice. Let's recall the tragedy of the 100,000 people who were displaced from Ramadi as they were forced to leave their city out of fear of the IS and the anticipated fighting, especially after events in Tikrit and the destruction that followed.
The neighboring governorates refused to provide refuge for those displaced. They were then left out in the open as Abadi's rivals escalated the situation after Shiite forces of Evil claimed that there were holy warriors living among the displaced. The aim of all this partisan and sectarian escalation is to topple Abadi and push him to make wrong decisions.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
It's easy to get into trouble comparing wars to each other. There are still lots of differences between Islamic State and the Nazis. Even bigger is the gap between the forces fighting their respective enemies in the past and present.
For one, from our reporting in the country, Iraq's different and divided armies appear unwilling or unable to mount an offensive toward Mosul anytime soon. There's a lot we don't know - but it wouldn't be surprising if this war dragged on for years.
Yet there's a demonstrable limit to Islamic State's reliance on attacking at all costs. In the final year of World War II, German armies repeatedly threw themselves into surreal and self-destructive attacks under orders from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Their armies included children and old men - and their job was only to delay the inevitable. They largely failed, and the human toll was tragic.
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 ||
05/06/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#4
Except for, oh, lacking an industrial base, any sort of martial tradition, or producing someone along the lines of Heinz Guderian. But it's early days yet.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/06/2015 7:34 Comments ||
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#5
Hey just a carry over from the last century, the NAZIs had a "soft spot" for their muslim counterparts and the successor east german stazi helped train muslims in the last part of the 20th century. why are you all surprised ?
#6
Any movement that treats humans as cattle for the 'great cause' behaves similarly. One of the distinguishing differences between classical Western thought and the embodiment of the 'individual' over that of various movements for the party/state/god in which one is considered just a cog. In their view, you exist to serve the state rather than the state exists to serve you.
#7
Baath Party ideology is based on European Fascist Socialism. Islamic State is the Baath Party remnants that fled to Syria disguised (legitimized?) with a veneer of jihadist rhetoric.
#9
The Muslim was and are enthralled with the Nazi. Look at the military uniforms. Bath party of Saddam with the goose step for an example. They also are drawn to the occult and magic. Many similarities in my opinion.
...The "legacy of slavery" argument is not just an excuse for inexcusable behavior in the ghettos. In a larger sense, it is an evasion of responsibility for the disastrous consequences of the prevailing social vision of our times, and the political policies based on that vision, over the past half century.
Anyone who is serious about evidence need only compare black communities as they evolved in the first 100 years after slavery with black communities as they evolved in the first 50 years after the explosive growth of the welfare state, beginning in the 1960s.
You would be hard-pressed to find as many ghetto riots prior to the 1960s as we have seen just in the past year, much less in the 50 years since a wave of such riots swept across the country in 1965.
#2
For me the money quote is: You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large.
#3
One more example of facts and reason versus emotions and "feelings".
This is why conservatives always lose these arguments. It is much easier to ignore the former and go with the latter.
I cut my teeth in politics reading WFB columns. His erudition was magnificent but guaranteed to turn off anyone that didn't want to work at it. Sowell is not quite that bad but is pushing that same Sisysphean boulder up the hill of "progressive" sludge.
#5
I postulate that Libs exhibit an interesting quality I call "Cognitive Gerrymandering."
Logical processes do not apply and when the discussion makes a turn against them, the subject is quickly reset to something related in only a tertiary sense, usually related to "tolerance" (or lack thereof) of an "aggrieved" population sub-set.
#7
when the discussion makes a turn against them, the subject is quickly reset to something they nearly always change the subject and go off on an emotional tangent.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
