This sentiment, expressed here by a random Facebook friend, seems fairly common. On Tuesday night Jon Stewart asked “How in the world do you, Mitt Romney, justify making more in one day, than the median American family makes in a year, while paying an effective tax rate of the guy who has to scan your shoes at the airport?”

Bob Bartelby at Yahoo!, a self-described “liberal gutocrat”, blasts Stewart for his hypocrisy (even though he might prefer not to. BOOM. What other libertarianish/music/art/drinking/eating/humor blog is going to make a Bartelby the Scrivener joke? TIMELY HUMOUR!).

Here’s the problem: According to celebritynetworth.com, Stewart earns $15 million per year as his salary on “The Daily Show.” We can assume, because that is a job, he pays closer to the 30 percent rate than Romney’s 13.9 percent.

 However, that’s only part of the picture. Stewart is also estimated to have a net worth of $80 million. Depending on how he is invested, he is also earning a substantial income from his $80 million nest egg. Even if he is invested conservatively, he’s likely earning investment income of $4 million per year, which would be taxed at a rate equal to Romney’s. Indeed, between investment income and book royalties, and his salary, more than likely Stewart earns more money in the fiscal year than Romney despite paying a marginally higher tax rate.

 Stewart goes on to blast Romney for having lobbied against tax reform that would have been detrimental to his personal holdings, but the fact is Stewart benefits from the tax laws too, and as such should have disclosed the same.

 Of course, rich men don’t want to pay more taxes than they currently do. But what I can’t figure out is why anyone thinks the rich man should like taxation any more than the poor man does. That’s just insane. I love “The Daily Show” and its contribution to the national dialog, but that bit was just plain hypocritical. Come on, Jon. You’re better than that.

Stewart is always at his best when tearing down the pretenses of public figures. He totally loses me when he acts like a cultural arbitrator, a wise Solomon on the small screen.

There’s something perverse about this whole discussion, beyond the rank hypocrisy and grandstanding. If you want to judge Mitt Romney or Jon Stewart for how much money they make, or how they choose to dispose of it, you’re claiming a moral authority you don’t deserve. No one but Mitt Romney knows what his church and his money mean to him. Every choice is made at the margins, so judging someone you don’t know intimately is foolish at best, and cynically evil at worst.

Consider two judgements I might make. I judge a close family member. I’m deeply involved in their life, I know the circumstances intimately, and I disagree about a course of action. This judgement is probably (discounting emotional distortions) fair, if unfortunate. Now what if I meet someone for the first time, and assume that because of their tight jeans or their Che t-shirt that they are a certain kind of person, with certain moral failings, I’m being a dick. My father is fond of asking, “how do you spell assume? You make an ass out of u and me.” *

We shouldn’t tell strangers how to behave. Similarly the government shouldn’t tell folks who they can and can’t marry, or how they can and can’t dispose of property, money, or their own bodies. Instead, we should help those around us become better, and the government should set basic rules that let individuals, families, and communities thrive in all the different ways they will discover.

 On a completely unrelated note, we’re all pissy and judgmental over how the millions one guy gives to his church betrays a lack of character, but the other guy’s close friend and minister being a nutjob is fine? Apparently the moral high-ground is made of a pile of self-sanctimonious crap.

*This isn’t to say that snap judgments are incorrect; consider Blink. They’re often startlingly correct. The posited strawman with the mass-murderer t-shirt probably embodies the negative associations that spring to mind. It’s morally wrong of me to assume them, though, and treat the associative outward appearance as an integral part of that individual’s identity.

Iron Sky is a partially crowd-funded indie (technically, isn’t anything produced by a corporation ‘crowd-funded’?) that recently released a trailer in advance of its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

- Vince Mancini, Filmdrunk.

And yeah, Iron Sky is about Moon Nazis. Hey, whatever. Like your last movie idea was so great. Shut up.

Families are terribly important. But no two families are alike. Tolstoy noted in Anna Karenina that “[h]appy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, which is only half-true. Pretending Newt (or the people playing gotcha) can engineer the proper dynamic and function of a family, or the economy, is less true than even that. Families, like every other social institution, need freedom to grow, develop, and thrive in whatever way they discover.

This is less ridiculous than his actual “ideas“. Meanwhile, there’re versions for Big O, Dr. No, and many others.

We do miss you, Bill. Thanks for everything.

A friend posted this to Facebook today, and when I saw it I had a minor aneurysm.

Aw, shucks, Obama’s just some cute little rapscallion, and mean old Mr. Ayatollah can’t stand upstart America’s gumption. What a grump. We should totally bomb him. The reality is a little more like this:

Each star represents a U.S. military installation. But don’t forget, it’s IRAN that is threatening US.

I’ve repeatedly said voting is a waste of time, and I stick with that. But if you ARE going to vote, consider why the folks in the military support Ron Paul. As my friend Pete, a former solider, wrote on tumblr:

I know many people that disagree with Ron Paul on a ton of issues (myself included) but there is at least thing I am mostly sure of. He would end the wars and would not detain, imprison, or execute anyone without a trial.

To me that is the most important thing, he wouldn’t fucking kill people. When we stop spilling the blood of innocent people we can debate the rest. Not killing comes first to me.

Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than Bush with a teleprompter and the rest of the Republican field are the same. Let’s end the wars first (including the “war on terrorism” and the “war on drugs”) and deal with the rest afterwards. The only Presidential candidate that would do that is Ron Paul.

Sounds good to me. How about you, Little O? You scamp.

Between the NDAA and SOPA, it’s apparently Crappy Idea Week here in the capital. But when is it not, amirite?! *Clown horns, bow-tie spin, big hook from stage right.*

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, which thinks that censorship will somehow stop online piracy. It’s supported by Hollywood and the recording industry. The major problem is that it will break the internet. Like, all of it. Folks on both sides of the ideological spectrum agree that this is a terrible bill that ignores, or doesn’t understand, the basic nature of the internet and freedom of expression. And it’s worth repeating, this bill WOULD BREAK THE INTERNET. We need that! I yell at people there!

Back in the dark days of law school, one of my professors spent almost an entire semester drilling us on how evil and rotten President Bush’s stance on detaining American citizens was. Today, the big O is going to sign the National Defense Authorization Act, which will codify indefinite detention for terrorist suspects, regardless of nationality. That means no trial, no habeas corpus, and breaks a major campaign pledge, and one of the few valid reasons for voting for Obama in 2008. Tap on my cell wall, CBS news:

The detainee provisions are just one part of the annual NDAA authorizing $662 billion (editors note: *SPIT TAKE*) in federal defense spending next year.

 While the bill never expanded the authority to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges, proponents said the legislation would codify court decisions finding the President does have the authority to declare “enemy combatants,” as commander-in-chief and under the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al Qaeda and its allies. The administration, which has pledged not to use this power, believes the bill leaves this legal issue unresolved.

 ”By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in U.S. law,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”

The ACLU is also against this bill. If a leftist president can loose both the HRC and the ACLU, who is supporting him? Haliburton? Oh, crap. Liberal pundit Glenn Greenwald has covered this extensively, and does not like it one bit, no sir.

There are several very revealing aspects to all of this. First, the 9/11 attack happened more than a decade ago; Osama bin Laden is dead; the U.S. Government claims it has killed virtually all of Al Qaeda’s leadership and the group is “operationally ineffective” in the Afghan-Pakistan region; and many commentators insisted that these developments would mean that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. And yet here we have the Congress, on a fully bipartisan basis, acting not only to re-affirm the war but to expand it even further: by formally declaring that the entire world (including the U.S.) is a battlefield and the war will essentially go on forever.

Indeed, it seems clear that they are doing this precisely out of fear that the justifications they have long given for the War no longer exist and there is therefore a risk Americans will clamor for its end. This is Congress declaring: the War is more vibrant than ever and must be expanded further. For our political class and the private-sector that owns it, the War on Terror — Endless War — is an addiction: it is not a means to an endbut the end itself (indeed, 2/3 of these war addicts in the Senate just rejected Rand Paul’s bill to repeal the 2003 Iraq AUMF even as they insist that the Iraq War has ended). This is the war-hungry U.S. Congress acting preemptively to ensure that there is no sense in the citizenry that the War on Terror — and especially all of the vast new powers it spawned — can start to wind down, let alone be reversed. (Emphasis Glenn’s.)

That might sound a little agitated and spittle-flecked there at the end, but he’s right. If your blood pressure can take it, read both his linked articles for a good summation of the issues in the bill. This President campaigned on a promise of change, and then took the Bush presidency to 11. If you voted for him in 2008, would you vote for him again? Why? Forget the clowns challenging him, and any lesser-of-two-evils stuff. I mean what about him, his policies, his wars, his broken promises, or his cronies has you jazzed for Nov. 2012?

There’s something beautiful in a well-loved thing seen just slightly different. From Live With Johnny Flynn.

Just a friendly reminder that drugs can be hazardous to you, your kids, and your pets.

Via.

I’d like to add a couple quotes:

The case for trade is not just monetary, but moral. Economic freedom creates habits of liberty. And habits of liberty create expectations of democracy.

George W. Bush, November 19, 1999

[I]f the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost. And this is why the struggle against corruption is one of the great struggles of our time.

Barack Obama, August 28, 2006

These inspiring gentlemen violently repressed tax protesters, outlawed criticism of the government, took on massive debts, endorse official torture and arbitrary  killing of American citizens, authorized warrantless wiretaps, and oversaw political patronage and corruption on a massive systemic scale.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Politicians will always disappoint you. The solution isn’t voting for someone else, it’s working to embody the change you want to see in the world. Nothing worth doing is ever easy, and no one else can make you more free, prosperous, or moral. You have to do that yourself.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want from my life, what it would take to make me happy, and what I want to do with the time I have. It’s not exactly a mid-life crisis, but I am concerned that I don’t feel like I’m building towards any kind of a life I’ll be proud of, or take joy in. One decision just follows from the last, haphazard and piecemeal. It seems like in a world that’s all around me moving forward, I’m stepping to the side.

But then again, motion is relative. You can’t step in the same river twice. Consider:

Adjusting for inflation, that old bacon would cost $5.63 in today’s money. Things are better today, even if it doesn’t immediately seem like it. And that’s how Marty McFly and bacon made me less mopey.

I’m headed north today. I’ve got a fuzzy co-pilot and a trunk full of Fat Tire. These tunes should make the miles tick by.

Reddit user well_met_sir took a shot at illustrating the competing values in philosophy and politics. It’s a fresh and interesting take, and certain aspects of it ring true. For instance, Fascism and Communism similar in practice. They’re both committed to order and authoritarianism, with some minor underlying ideological differences.

For my part, I’d fall somewhere between Anti-federalist and Georgist. While the graph stands on it’s own, the comment thread is a great discussion of  various philosophical issues, including the efficacy of education, the possibility of a stateless society, and various semantic ramblings. Obviously it’s an incomplete explication of very complex phenomena, but anything that busts up the worn-out right/left dichotomy is worth checking out.

Spotted in West Asheville. Via.

Update! Apparently the talented street artist is one Dustin Spagnola, who got in touch via twitter. Check out his website. You can even order posters!

Yeah, they’re dumb and probably taken a bit out of context. But the flagrant hypocrisy and self-contradiction underscore Occupy’s poverty of ideas and naked greed. The elites huddled in the Deutsche Bank don’t object to class distinctions, or “private property”; they’re just making a thuggish push to become the upper class and hold on to their “personal property”.

Would anyone like to help rebuild that library, hopefully with hundreds of copies of Animal Farm?

There’s a bunch of upsides to working from home. Making coffee just the right way, wearing my favorite t-shirt, flip-flops, and cranking some good music. Also, I’m staggeringly more productive away from other folks. But the biggest benefit? Izzy time.

Republican direct mail guru Richard Viguerie has a piece at Real Clear Politics about Mitt Romney’s lack of conservative Republican support:

First, because of his record in Massachusetts, where he was behind the coercive health care law, raising taxes and abandoning the conservative social agenda. Second, because he has flip-flopped on these and many other issues, bringing into question his character. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, because personnel is policy and Romney’s team is at best a group of establishment Republicans, and at worst a group of big government technocrats — both of whom will never make any effort to fundamentally reform Washington’s culture of spending and crony capitalism.

And the importance of personnel as policy should not be underestimated. When Ronald Reagan ran for President, conservatives could look at his team and see people they had known from the conservative movement for 10 or 15 years. We conservatives knew Reagan would govern as a conservative because we knew the people who he would bring with him — but when I once put the question of who were the conservatives on his team directly to Governor Romney, he blew it off.

Michael Gerson and Tom Ashbrook’s answer to this criticism was first to try to make the case that Romney did indeed have conservative advisors. The problem is, his list was made up of corporate lobbyists and Wall Street-types who actually proved my point — if the next Republican President enters the White House surrounded by Fortune 500 CEOs, then conservatives will once again have won the election for the Republicans, but lost the battle to reform Washington.

Hmmm. If only there were a candidate who was a principled fiscal conservative.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Whole Foods co-CEO John Mackey argues that economic freedom is the the motor that drives prosperity:

The success of economic freedom in increasing human prosperity, extending our life spans and improving the quality of our lives in countless ways is the most extraordinary global story of the past 200 years. Gross domestic product per capita has increased by a factor of 1,000% across the world and almost 2,000% in the U.S. during these last two centuries. In 1800, 85% of everyone alive lived on less than $1 per day (in 2000 dollars). Today only 17% do. If current long-term trend lines of economic growth continue, we will see abject poverty almost completely eradicated in the 21st century. Business is not a zero-sum game struggling over a fixed pie. Instead it grows and makes the total pie larger, creating value for all of its major stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers, investors and communities.

So why is our economy barely growing and unemployment stuck at over 9%? I believe the answer is very simple: Economic freedom is declining in the U.S. In 2000, the U.S. was ranked third in the world behind only Hong Kong and Singapore in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by this newspaper and the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, we fell to ninth behind such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland.

He goes on to suggest some reforms, cutting spending on Defense, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, reforming corporate tax rates to allow capital use for job creation, and regulatory reform. In particular, I agree with this:

All regulations should automatically expire after 10 years unless a mandatory cost-benefit analysis has been completed that proves the regulations have created significantly more societal benefit than harm. Currently thousands of new regulations are added each year and virtually none ever disappear.

Mr. Mackey is right about the power of economic freedom. Consider this video:

Full disclosure, I once interned at the non-profit which produced this video.

Well put. Via.

Auberon Herbert sounds like an interesting guy. Via.

I love Anthony Bourdain, so naturally a video of him explaining why, as a “true believer” lefty, he supports the Tea Party.

Via.

The well-being of ordinary people has been the main thing that has been improved by economic progress and economic growth and development. – Milton Friedman

Tell that to the Occupy Wall Street Puppeteers.

Via.

Every Friday Morning we kick off your weekend with a series of videos loosely gathered around a theme. This week, in remembrance of  the fallen, a round of introspective instrumentals. 

My father plays the guitar, but not often. As he’s gotten older his fingers are less fluid, a little weather beaten and a little stiff. Music for him is all about smoothness; his guitar is always subtle and smooth, not the loud brash stand-out licks of a rock-star, but rising and falling, coming back again to a persistent melody. The opening to Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane” is one of his favorite pieces, rambling, precise, and understated. When I was 17, I started buying him albums on CD that he only owned on vinyl. Harry Chapin’s greatest lasted most of a drive to Gettysburg, and Leo Kottke’s 6 & 12 String Guitar ended up in my CD case. For good. Today is about remembering and introspection, and to that end, here’s some acoustic instrumentation from Andy McKee and Leo Kottke.

Leo Kottke – The Driving of the Year Nail

Andy McKee – Drifting

Andy McKee – Into the Ocean

Leo Kottke – Crow River Waltz

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind. Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not. So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is.

– Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions 

The Classical features Matt Ufford’s series of vignettes spanning his service in Iraq. Read it. I’ve written about Veteran’s Day before, and how we regard those who serve. My relationship to the military is complicated; I have family and close friends who served or are serving, but war and combat are the worst activity we continually return to. Live and don’t learn. I wonder if our national regard for veterans and the activity of service, and our fetishistic hero-worship of the returned, make more war inevitable.

Armistice Day recognized sacrifice without celebrating. That seems more true to the spirit of combat veterans; as a country we ask them to do the unthinkable. We ask because it is necessary. They do it because someone must. Celebrating cold necessity seems wrong.

Picture and quote via.

Via.

Via. If you’re interested in the legal and moral issues surrounding corporate personhood, and a libertarian response, please go check out the comment thread at Reddit. Again, both Tea Partiers and Occupiers should get this; the problem isn’t “corporations or government. It’s “corporations + government”.

Those policy-things that happen here are less interesting than they were. Ideas are more alive than ideologues. Washington is the city without a memory. Our mistakes do not echo, and our successes won’t ripple, let alone make waves. Hunter believed that visions change worlds, people (and by extension, or example, the world) change through relationships. Those really aren’t my thing. I use this space to uncover things I believe, to whittle an idea from the raw stuff of experience. You listening isn’t the point, or the purpose. I dissemble a lot.  ”To the extent that” is a worm; it’s not arguing, only getting you to doubt yourself. The truth comes in short sentences and catchy rhymes, but escapes comprehensive explication; it isn’t always an either/or. Banner girl is beautiful and mysterious, but also banal and boring. The distance between is the difference in your perspective, but if one is,  the other isn’t necessarily is not. Neutral Milk Hotel is important, but they’re also weird, and sad, and art. Some things are true and wrong.