A Democrat is somebody for whom productive people never pay enough taxes. Consider these stylized facts about tax incidence. "The highest-earning 20% of taxpayers will earn 60% of the income this year, yet pay 76% of all federal taxes, including 93% of all income taxes. The much-maligned top 1% of earners will earn 19% of the income, yet finance 29% of all federal taxes, including 43% of all income taxes." A juvenile temperament is also useful. "That these professors and pundits think of themselves as scientific – and are widely regarded as being especially intelligent, thoughtful, and scientific – testifies to the strength of the cult of democratically rubber-stamped coercion."
The weekly roundup of pithy reinforcements of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.
1. Freedom is on a ventilator. "Our horror at the assault on [author Salman] Rushdie is a sign that there is life in our tradition still. The culturally alien nature of the attack reminds us that our tradition of freedom is real, distinctive, and worth preserving."
2. Mock them and make it hurt. "I just can’t be afraid of weenies named 'Merrick Garland' and 'Chuck Schumer.'"
3. Let the ruling classes tremble. "For at least a generation, our elites haven’t valued anyone’s freedom but their own: but it was fascinating to hear them say it."
4. Turf them out. "It is unserious to be led by a gerontocracy, where our elected officials had kids in college when the internet was invented."
5. Another reason to turf them out. "Turns out it’s a bad thing to have your institutions run by people who don’t like your culture."
6. Cultish enthusiasm. "I indulged the [Obamamania] effusiveness, because I thought hope was always a good thing to have." So are outcomes. "The bitterness and regret that many progressives now feel toward [Mr Obama's] administration is a function of their own inflated expectations going in."
8. Barrows and wethers. "[W]hat will progressives say to the angry army of childless, breastless, middle-aged women demanding answers?"
9. Make the rubble bounce. "Higher education, run mostly by women, is particularly hostile to men."
10. The originality trap, or is it a Glass Bead Game? "[T]here's little incentive for an academic in education to write an article that says, 'Guess what? Phonics still works...'" Sometimes you find out in the failure to find an effect from the latest novelty.
11. Let them eat bile! "Restaurant scraps plant-based dishes after becoming fed up with ‘holier-than-thou’ vegans."
12. Be careful what you ask for. "Universities have been rejecting academic freedom and free speech for decades, while talking about the need to use government power to 'change society.'"
13. Fauxahontas laments to Great Spirit. "It wasn’t because of Warren’s sheer unlikability."
14. The Tragic Vision prevails. "[D]espite claims to the contrary, the conservative warning has indeed proved accurate." Rawls and Dworkin failed.
15. St. Louis. "It is hard not to see our own collapse in that of Cahokia." See, in the opening paragraphs, "They spawn parasitic elites who plunder and loot the institutions and systems that make a complex society possible."
16. Elementary, but Our Intellectual Betters keep getting it wrong. "Subsidizing demand while crimping supply is a recipe for problems."
17. Ground those parental helicopters. "I recommend that you pause and consider what you're doing when you always step in for your child." Pro tip: college faculty can exercise their rights under the privacy laws even with parents.
18. The Infrastructure Cult. "While more and more of the state’s roads and bridges fall into a state of disrepair, public officials continue to champion public investments that only add to the backlog of infrastructure to be maintained. "
19. The Grim Strategy might be the only way to restore comity. "If [Wisconsin] Democrats try to make the 2023 Supreme Court race the election of all elections, they should not be surprised when Republicans respond accordingly."
20. It came to this, Mr Will, when you thought it more important to punish Republicans than to put checks on Democrats. "What was important enough to bring to a rolling boil the already simmering suspicions of tens of millions of Americans about tentacles of the 'deep state' engaging in partisan skulduggery?"
21. The beginning of wisdom. "[I]t’s counterproductive to condemn the whole lot of Republican voters as deplorables."
22. Be careful what you wish for. "Having hundreds of people suddenly showing up in your city with no resources or support networks, with most unable to even speak English carries very real and potentially significant costs." Your rhetoric is issuing checks ...
23. Hippies can become yuppies. Gelding is forever. "It’s all the rage these days to be anything but straight and your daughter is likely confused as hell."
24. You can't spoil the view for the nomenklatura. "[T]he biggest impediment to the federal government's attempted development of offshore wind is, it turns out, the federal government."
25. The corona reset. "How many people on the planet have now been acculturated to top-down control, socialized to live in fear, accept whatever comes down from above, never to question an edict, and expect to live in a world of rolling man-made disasters? And was that the point after all, to cultivate low expectations for life on earth and relinquish the soul’s desire for a full and free life?" Or, as the Insta Pundit line puts it, "they'll turn us all into paupers because they're easier to please."
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