Politics

A Taxing Situation

This entry was posted in Capitalism Economics Politics Taxation on by

Check out the per capita state tax confiscation in your state. Be aware that, as Stateline.org notes, this is not the entire story:

Because the Census numbers don’t include tax levies by local governments, which often pick up certain state services, economists say a better measure of tax burdens nationwide is a snapshot of both state and local tax collections.

Is your state government making an effort to move up in the rankings?

The Pledge

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Culture Government Law Libertarianism Politics on by

Kenneth Quinnell, in his essay Why I Don’t Say the Pledge of Allegiance states:

But the very concept of a Pledge of Allegiance is wrong in a free country.

He elaborates on this at some length and I could, and I’m sure some others might, debate some of his points.
I do, though, agree with his basic point that free individuals have no obligation to recite a pledge of allegiance.
On the other hand, there is a group who by dint of their position should recite a pledge…probably several times per day. That would be the set of government employees, elected, appointed or hired, throughout the world. Our servants: congress critters, kings and queens, premiers, secretaries of desks and states, governors, presidents, soldiers, firepersons, police, mayors, etc.
They, each and everyone, in every government job throughout the world should start their day with something like:

I pledge allegiance to the people of name your jurisdiction and swear to protect their lives, help them maintain their liberty and assist them in their pursuit of happiness.

…and repeat it frequently throughout the day and once again before going to sleep at night.

Catching up on Genetic Dispositions

This entry was posted in Biology Politics Psychology Religion on by

Well, by mistake I decided to read Kristoff’s column from yesterday:

Instead, modern science is turning up a possible reason why the religious right is flourishing and secular liberals aren’t: instinct. It turns out that our DNA may predispose humans toward religious faith.
Via previous education I knew just where to look for the antidote to this stuff and Myers was P.Z. on the spot:
It�s nothing but modern molecular preformationism. Palmistry for the genome. We�ve been fighting against this simplistic notion of the whole of the organism prefigured in a plan or in toto in the embryo since Socrates, and it keeps coming back. We�ve moved from imagining a little homunculus lurking in the sperm to one hiding in the genome. It�s just not there. You can�t point to a spot on a chromosome and say, �there�s the little guy�s finger!�, nor can you point to a spot and say, �there�s his fondness for football!�.
Kristof, for instance, points to a particular gene as the source of piety. Piffle. Here�s his shining locus of sacredness, VMAT2:
It won’t hurt you to read the rest of the post yourself…
Over at Crooked Timber John Quiggen provides additional curative resources by working through some statistical, logical, and definitional failings in Kristoff’s piece and more generally with pop evolutionary psychology.
As usual the comment threads to both posts provided plenty of stimuli for both my chuckle gene and my thinking gene.