Braid Hair? Go to Jail!

     Draconian “occupational licensing” has long ago gone beyond licensing occupations where there is a serious threat to life and limb.  Such licensing now serves as a barrier to entry into an industry and a way to limit demand and so artificially keep prices up.

     Case in point:

“Achan Agit is no stranger to oppression.

“Born in what is now South Sudan, Achan was forced to flee her homeland in 2001 during the Second Sudanese Civil War. After living in Egypt as a refugee for three years (amid rampant xenophobia and racism), in 2004, she came to the United States and became a lawful permanent resident. Achan learned English while braiding hair in various salons, before she eventually settled in Des Moines, Iowa. Achan realized her skills as a braider (she has been twisting and locking hair since she was five) could help provide for her family. So in 2009, she opened her own braiding salon.

“Just one problem: In Iowa, braiding hair without a license in cosmetology is a crime, punishable by up to one year in prison and civil fines as high as $10,000.”

     But she just has to get a cosmetology license, right?

     Wrong.

“Unfortunately, obtaining a cosmetology license was not a feasible option for Achan. As the Institute for Justice noted last year in a report, “Iowa has the dubious distinction of imposing the most red tape on braiders.” Becoming licensed in cosmetology requires a high school education (or its equivalent) and finishing at least 2,100 hours of coursework, or roughly 490 days. In other words, Iowa’s cosmetologist license is more burdensome than the training requirements for dental assistants, bus drivers, emergency medical technicians, animal control officers, child care workers, security guards, pest control applicators and animal breeders—combined.”

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Quick Takes – Rationing Healthcare, Misunderstanding Healthcare, Privatizing Healthcare?

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: Some People Support Free-Market Solutions; Some People Are Idiots

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

One of the promises of socialized healthcare is that by removing the “profit motive” the beneficent government will be able to provide plenty of everything to everyone because “consensus” and “democracy” or something…

     This, of course, is nonsense:

“Once technocrats seize power over a sector, its political nature is to determine winners and losers, favored and disfavored, in-crowds and out-crowds.

“That means rationing based on invidious determinations about whose lives matter more and whose less.”

     However, rationing is all the rage in the peer reviewed medical journals:

The Cost of Inappropriate Care at the End of life by ThePoliticalHat

     In other words, your “right to die” will be made for you… and against your will.

“The answer is to bar the door to some of the elderly, those in which wanted life-sustaining treatment ‘prolong the patient’s death,’ a very slippery concept that turns what is actually happening–keeping the patient alive longer–on its head.”

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The Need for Conservative Campus Teach-Ins

Doing the job that universities once did.

     Academia and American Universities more broadly, are ground zero for the Progressive attack on Western Civilization, “Kyriarchy”, and any semblance of sanity.

     So infiltrated are the college campuses of America, that almost every facet, from the administration, to professors, to the students themselves, is dominated by Progressive voices that seek to silence dissent.

     The students, who rather than acting like “young adults” are more akin to a modern day Red Guard, where victimhood is cultivated, enemies identified, and proper thought ensured by cult-like practices.

     This insanity is taught by an increasing number of academics who could never land a real job.  They teach about how “Whiteness” is evil, how their warped idea of “justice” is more important than freedom, intersectional oppression, and other naked propaganda.

     Their “research” is increasingly unmoored from reality, with such peer-reviewed publications touching on subjects like the glory of hobo pederasty, feminist mathematics, milk as a tool of oppression, and the mis-gendering of glaciers.

     All this is backed up by the college administrators who care only for Political Correctness, and the silencing of dissent, with mandatory indoctrination sessions:

“Incoming students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will have the, er, ‘pleasure’ of attending the ‘Our Wisconsin’ program which is ‘aimed at increasing knowledge about cultural differences and promoting community.'”

     The common refrain of the Left is that “Systems of Oppression” were created by eeevil Whit “cis-het” X-tian men to oppress everyone else by getting them to oppress each other, and thus steal “unearned privilege” as part of some insidious cabal.

     This ignores the fact that the Progressive Left have total control of these institutions, and have made them into “Systems of Oppression” to oppress any dissent, and anyone who doesn’t try to “smash” their privilege.

     As the veritable Dave Burge noted:

     So, what then, can non-insane students do to fight this?

     Simple, just use a tool the Left itself used: The campus teach-in.

     While few professors would be tenured and beyond that secure enough to openly dissent, students can organize and bring in their own speakers and educators.  This is not to put all professors in a bad light, as many professors who are not Progressive have to protect themselves in order to teach what non-insane subjects or views they can, or to keep teaching non-political subjects non-politically.

     The subjects that could be taught are a myriad, but emphasis must be made on those issues that might sway incoming Freshmen, some of whom might be inoculated against the Progressive insanity.

     The goal is twofold: 1st, to dismantle at the root the basis of the Left’s beliefs; and 2nd, to provide an alternative worldview.  Superficial talking points must be eschewed. In both cases an in-depth inquiry, with as many primary sources as possible, will be necessary. In effect, it must be like the first major “teach-in” that was organized by the insidious Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which was an event “attended by about 3,500 and consisted of debates, lectures, movies, and musical events” … abet with more of a YAF-esque orientation.

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Happy Flag Day, 2016

     There are many historical flags associated with the United States, particularly during amongst which is the naval ensign used by Oliver Hazard Perry.

On September 10, 1813, Perry’s command fought a successful fleet action against a squadron of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie. It was at the outset of this battle that Perry famously said, ‘If a victory is to be gained, I will gain it.; Initially, the exchange of gunfire favored the British. Perry’s flagship, the USS Lawrence, was so severely disabled in the encounter that the British commander, Robert Heriot Barclay, thought that Perry would surrender it, and sent a small boat to request that the American vessel pull down its flag. Faithful to the words of his battle flag, ‘DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP’ (a paraphrase of the dying words of Captain James Lawrence, the ship’s namesake and Perry’s friend), Perry, with Lawrence’s chaplain and purser as the remaining able crew, personally fired the final salvo, and then had his men row him a half-mile (0.8 km) through heavy gunfire to transfer his command to USS Niagara. Once aboard, Perry dispatched Niagara’s commander, Captain Jesse Elliot, to bring the other schooners into closer action while he steered the Niagara toward the damaged British ships. Like Nelson’s Victory at Trafalgar, Niagara broke the opposing line. Perry’s force pounded Barclay’s ships until they could offer no effective resistance and surrendered. Although he had won the battle aboard Niagara, he received the British surrender on the deck of the recaptured Lawrence to allow the British to see the terrible price his men had paid. Perry’s battle report to General William Henry Harrison was famously brief: ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.’

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Unconstitutional Carbon

     Not happy with a lack of tyrannical war on carbon being declared by Congress, a historian wants “carbon pollution” be declared Unconstitutional!

“The current unwillingness or inability of Congress to deal systematically with the problem of climate change threatens both the world’s climate—which nearly everyone has noticed—and the United States Constitution–which has gone virtually unnoticed.

“The longer Congress takes to form the necessary bipartisan coalition to legislate on the subject, the more tempting it becomes for people who are alarmed at the world’s problem, to look to other branches of the government to rescue the Earth.”

     How?  By declaring the atmoshpere to be a “public trust”:

“[A]n organization representing young people called Our Children’s Trust is initiating suits in federal courts in the West and in courts in several states insisting that continuing to allow the emission of dangerous amounts of carbon is an unconstitutional infringement of our children’s rights.

“Plaintiffs point to the promises made ‘to . . . our posterity’ in the Preamble of the Constitution and to the Fifth Amendment.

“The result desired by the plaintiffs is a court-ordered solution to climate change based on the idea that the atmosphere is a ‘public trust.'”

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News of the Week (June 13th, 2016)

 

News of the Week for June 13th, 2016


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Nevada Primary 2016: Early Voting Roundup And Prognostications

     Early voting in Nevada for the 2016 Primary Election have concluded.  Aside from late arriving absentee ballots, this will be all the votes until election day.  Traditionally, early voting has skewed Republican compared to election day and over all results; absentees have usually been even more Republican.

     As mentioned before, since the Presidential Caucuses are held earlier in the year, it is easier to compare 2016 with 2012.  The number of active registered voters in Nevada in 2016 is 22% higher than it was in 2012, so naturally the number of voters in the primary can be expected to be higher than in 2012.  The increase in overall early voters has tracked that with an increase of 22% over 2012, though that will likely result in a higher increase once late absentees are reported.

Nevada est omnis divisa in partes tres

     The state can be divided, as Caeser might say, into three parts: Clark County, which contains Las Vegas and 70% of the states population; Washoe County, which contains Reno and 20% of the states population; and the rural counties, which contain 10% of the states population.

     Clark County leans Democratic, while the rural counties are overwhelmingly Republican if not more conservative (hard right 3rd parties can be elected to partisan office in many rural counties).   This leaves Washoe as the “Bellwether” county which has, with two notable exceptions, always gone with the statewide winner in every statewide contest in Nevada this century.

Early Voting

     The early vote numbers for Republicans do not compare well when compared to 2012.*  A comparison of turnout, as a percentage of the vote is noted below for statewide, Clark County, and Washoe County results:

Statewide

  2016 2012
GOP 46.4% 50.8%
Dem 44.4% 39.3%

Clark County

2016 2012
GOP 40.1% 46.4%
Dem 50.9% 46.3%

Washoe

  2016 2012
GOP 51.0% 53.8%
Dem 39.2% 37.2%

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Tumblr: The Hell-Hole of Insanity

     Tumblr is a ready collection of insanity (and porn) distilled to its stupidity essence from college academia and online roving bands of the mentally ill.

     While anti-Trump witchcraft, a desire to kill normal people, mind-controlling Patriarchy, Social Justice space aliens, trans-gendered Harry Potter, and sexualities that can only be described by lizards, are all examples of this insanity, it gets much, much more insane:

ಠ_ಠ

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The Party Purge

     Somehow “expanding the tent” and “growing the base” includes purging dissenters:

“If they take over the state conventions and staff state and national parties with Trump supporters or those who are sympathetic to Trump, then they can continue making their consultant cash even after Trump goes down in flames in November. At the very least, they are going to try to use Republican hatred of Hillary to get as many Republicans as possible on the record in support of Trump so that they don’t look so bad as early adopters of Trumpism.

“That’s exactly how to understand this weekend’s fracas in Nebraska, which saw the Nebraska GOP convention issue what can only be understood as a rebuke to Ben Sasse. This was all orchestrated by Deb Fischer allies, some of whom were staffers for Ben Sasse’s primary opponents in his Senate race. These people don’t have an ideological dog in the fight at all – they are just trying to insure the future of their own political consulting career. And they see in the Trump ascendancy the opportunity to settle political scores along the way and shove rivals out of the way.”

     A similar occurrence happened in Nevada.  The fringe Ron Paul types took advantage of Trump supporters to regain power of the Clark County (which contains Las Vegas and ) Central Committee, and now are planning of purging any dissenters from power.

     Hypocritically, the new Chairman, who is now calling for unity, is the same man who threw a temper-tantrum at the 2012 RNC convention, as are his confederates, by voting for Ron Paul despite being pledged on the first vote for Romney.

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Quick Takes – Social Justice in Oregon; Thought Police in Oregon; Deciding Genders in Oregon

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: Oregon is Doubleplusgood!

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     Oregon State University has decided that “Social Justice” isn’t just for the activist elite anymore, but shall now require indoctrination of all students!

“[Oregon State University] has plans to implement a new training program for incoming freshmen in the fall of 2016. Dr. Angela Batista, the campus’s interim diversity officer, sent an email to students earlier this week asking them to review the proposed training program. This training is ideological by its very nature: students will complete on-line modules in ‘social justice learning,’ ‘diversity,’ and ‘inclusivity.’

“‘This training initiative is intended to provide all students entering Oregon State University an orientation to concepts of diversity, inclusion and social justice and help empower all OSU students to contribute to an inclusive university community,’ according to the proposal.

“The modules will brief students on the history of social justice activism at Oregon, stress the importance of diversity and inclusivity, and provide students with resources to ‘incorporate the pursuit of social justice within their university experiences.’ It will let them know about the Bias Response Team, which provides a website where students can report each other for perceived harassment.”

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