■ Some of the Proverbs are weird products of a bygone age, but Proverbs
23:15-16 gets it timelessly right:
15 My son, if your heart is wise,
then my heart will be glad indeed;
16 my inmost being will rejoice
when your lips speak what is right.
It would be nice if they threw in the daughters there too, but what
are you gonna do?
Well, you fudge the translation, and change "son" to "child".
See, for example, the New Revised Standard Version.
And I can imagine President Trump reading Proverbs
23:15-16, looking at Donald Jr., and heaving a deep sigh. "Oh,
well."
■ Considering the Jr. Imbroglio, Dan McLaughlin makes a lot of sense
at NRO: It’s
Not Treason, but It’s Not Defensible, Either.
One of the rules you should try to follow, if you talk or write
about politics, is to apply the same basic standards and rules for
longer than just whatever gets you through the current news cycle.
That’s true of what you think is right and wrong and scandalous, and
it’s doubly true of what’s legal and illegal. The rule of law exists
so that we know what rules apply to our friends and political foes
alike. When it comes to yesterday’s big bombshell story, too many
Trump defenders are forgetting to apply that to the question of
what’s right and wrong, and too many Trump critics are forgetting to
apply it to the law by throwing around words like “treason.”
Given how rare that attitude is, we should give thanks that people
like McLaughlin exist, no matter how lonely their voices.
■ At the Federalist, David Harsanyi is tired of a certain
argument. Specifically, he explains
Why
The ‘Whataboutism’ Charge Is Dishonest. His conclusion:
At the end of the day, it’s best to take consistent positions always
support strengthening the separation of power. If you were cheering
on the last president as these standards were being corroded, your
laments about abuse of power can’t be taken very seriously. In fact,
it’s legitimate to point out that you’re part of the problem. Either
working with a foreign agent is treason or it isn’t. Coddling up to
Russian authoritarians (or Iranian Islamists) is gross, or it’s not.
Ruling by fiat is how we do things when the opposing party is
engaged in “obstruction,” or it isn’t. We can’t keep changing the
rules every time it’s convenient for Democrats, then cry
whataboutism when someone points it out.
An interesting take on "whataboutism" is
this entry
at the Rational Wiki. The wiki-author insists on a more
narrow meaning that what we're seeing today; in order to be
considered "whataboutism", the "what about" issue really should
be an irrelevant "red herring". Instead, we are seeing a storm of more
general
tu
quoque.
Perhaps the term has shifted in meaning—that happens—or maybe people
are just being sloppy, or maybe they just don't like using Latin.
■ At Reason, Carrie Lukas notes Libertarians'
Lost Voice in the Paid Leave Debate.
Policy leaders are pressing the government to ensure workers have
paid time off. Whether government has any businesses dictating what
benefits must be included in the employment packages of Americans is
rarely considered. The libertarian perspective is all but entirely
absent in the discussion. That needs to change.
Our federal government has limited responsibilities, and micromanaging leave practices isn't one of them. Even the best-intentioned policies have unintended consequences that backfire on those they are supposed to help. We need to call out policymakers who use the excuse of a safety net to justify any new rules and regulations that needlessly restrict options for all Americans.
One of the sorriest trends of recent years is that the headline "Libertarians'
Lost Voice in the X Debate" can be applied to almost any
issue X.
■ Wired's Adam Rogers says, gee whiz, it Looks
Like Google Bought Favorable Research to Lobby with.
Officially, the online search giant Google’s mission is to
“organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible
and useful.” According to two new reports—one
from The Wall Street Journal and one
from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Campaign for Accountability’s Google
Transparency Project, the company doesn’t just organize. When Google
wishes it had information that’d maybe help further its policy and
regulatory goals, it just pays academics under the table to gin it
up.
That’s pretty evil, y’all.
I don't see big corporations as either saintly or the epitome of
capitalistic evil, but given Google's strident politicking on behalf
of "net neutrality", I'm willing to assume that it has bought and
paid for every last academic in that advocacy corner.
Well, probably not. But still, it's worth taking with the same
skepticism that other funded research receives.
■ My Google LFOD alert was triggered by a slow news day for Portland
ME's channel 6 news:
Patriots
support is rock solid in Granite State.
It should come as no surprise that the team with a motto of "Do your
job" finds plenty of support in the state with a motto of "Live
free or die."
<sarcasm>
Yes, deep down, those mottos express exactly the
same mindset!</sarcasm>
The occasion: the Pats' Vince Lombardi trophy is on tour, and
visited Dover NH's Henry Law
Park this previous Monday.
And (by the way) the dateline on the story is "Dover, Maine". Only
off by a few hundred miles; thanks, professional news organization!
■ I suppose you're wondering if the Kelly Miller Circus animal
caretakers are hiding anything? Well, you can find out in this NH1
news story: Kelly
Miller Circus animal caretakers take on activists: 'We're not hiding
anything'. Circus General Manager, Tavana Brown, is quoted on
the animal rights protesters besetting her business, and
I bet you can see this coming:
“We’re in New Hampshire. Live Free or Die, right? You have a right
to protest, you have a right to your opinion, but you don’t have a
right to be disruptive or use profanity.”
Well, that's at least half bullshit. Or maybe elephant.
■ And finally, good news from Julie Kelly at NRO: The
Organic Industry Is in Turmoil. Wha?
Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods, the grocer that brought pricey organic food to the masses, comes during a time of turmoil in the organic industry: The Department of Agriculture is continuing to investigate the importation of millions of pounds of phony organic grains. The move is in response to a lengthy Washington Post exposé published in May that tracked shipments of corn and soybeans from Turkey, Romania, and Ukraine that were labeled “organic” but were not (I wrote about it here).
There's a whole host of things to Shake Your Head about here: (1)
the base story of fraudulent organic grain from overseas; (2) the
idea that consumers are willing to pay a pricey surtax for the
"organic" label that probably means nothing (specifically, in
this case, but also
generally);
and (3) your Federal Government is involved in "regulating" this
phony food fad; and (4) doing a lousy job at it.