Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Rights, Positive and Negative

by Reena Kapoor

The word "rights" is bandied about a little too easily in our culture; learn from Richard Epstein, one of the preeminent legal minds in Sunstein's Second Bill Of Rights? why such a culture of entitlement is not sustainable...  I guess the good news about Socialism is that eventually it self-destructs.  The problem is it destroys the souls and lives of millions in this long slow grind.

A Philosophical framework for our political mess

by Reena Kapoor

Read this to understand what's going on in America today, why Republicans have created such a political morass and why we might thank actually Obama some day, unless of course he morphs into a dictator which he truly is on a path to becoming: Obama's Atomic Bomb

This is the clarity that Obama has brought to the American political scene. To see a president’s clear and principled commitment to an ideology—any ideology—is precisely what America has needed for decades.

Both got it Wrong!

by Reena Kapoor

Camille Paglia at her best - a self proclaimed leftist - she does not let either side off the hook in this insightful article Too Late for Obama?.  While I don't agree with everything she says, her article is a must read for both sides.  And she has that fierce libertarian streak one can only admire.  Are libertarians natural born?

Global revolt of the masses?

by Rakinder Grover

In today's WSJ, Daniel Henninger writes that electorates around the world are casting no-confidence votes against incumbent politicians and bureaucrats.  While I personally am not ready to call this a sustainable trend, it's something to keep an eye on - "green shoots"?  An excerpt:

Some search for an ideological trend toward the left or right in these votes, but the only evident trend is to strike out at whichever blob is currently in power. Even as Americans turned over their country to liberal Democrats, opinion polls showed that the British people were turning toward the Conservatives for relief from listless Labour.

What accounts for the global electorate's growing disgust with the political overclass? Try this: No matter the ideological cast of these governments, they all hold in common one policy: the inexorable upward march of national indebtedness. It has arrived at the edge of the cliff.

Equality for all!

by Reena Kapoor

Meanwhile, at the uber-expensive Sidwell Friends Private Independent School in Washington, D.C.  .  .

Q&A

by Reena Kapoor

All we can do is laugh: Cash for Clunkers Q&A

Immigration Blues!

 

by Reena Kapoor

An interesting report "Losing the world's best & brightest" by Duke University Professor Vivek Wadhwa and team.  Telling trend especially in light of the march of the lemmings into communism without demur or protest.  Apparently many potential immigrants are concluding the difference in economic benefits - a by product of freedom - are not sufficient anymore, anyway. Might as well be closer to friends and family. I hope people will start listening before US innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and Silicon Valley all become a sad memory.

We can't get reform with backroom deals

by Rakinder Grover

This post in Mish Shedlog's blog is quite revealing.  Do we think we'll get real change/reform if the government cuts such deals and lines the pockets of the existing players? Liberals like Arianna Huffington are getting quite upset about this. And this is certainly not the free market working.  In a few years after the excitement of "doing something" dies down and when people start to realize that things have not really changed (and likely have gotten worse), see insurance and pharma companies still making profits - they'll blame the free market and capitalists.  The problem is the "reformers", even those with "good intentions", are not working to cause real reform.  That requires breaking the cozy relationship of government and business and they are not going to bite the hand that feeds them.

No Surprise!

by Reena Kapoor

Every few months I get really mad at some piece of news I read. This is one of them:  Fraud by Trial Lawyers Taints Wave of Pesticide Lawsuits. And why are we surprised that trial lawyers committed fraud to win these lawsuits? See how media reports these cases, and how most people assume that companies are guilty --- before they even hear of a shred of evidence --- and you won't be so surprised. Note that, SIMILAR FRAUD WAS COMMITTED IN THE ASBESTOS LAWSUITS. And how DOW (the company) was tried, judged and ruined over breast implants without evidence.  The rewards for wining are ridiculously huge, the biased media and sheep-like public are only too happy to declare companies guilty without evidence and the rule of law just a nice memory. So why not try you luck by suing someone? All you have to do is find a trial lawyer and sue away!! 

I find this completely believable, do you?

by Reena Kapoor

The Panel in the WSJ today sent chills down my spine. If you've ever lived in a socialist or communist state and if any important decision of your life was ever in the hands of a bureaucrat - or if you saw the film "Lives of Others" - you will read this and remember that awful feeling. Coming soon to a life near you!