Conservatism

People Never PAID 90% in Taxes (Economic Myths)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is posted for adding to a conversation from FACEBOOK where I repeatedly noted no one ever paid 90% in taxes after it was brought up by my antagonist — hoping the operative word “PAID” would sink in — (conversation reproduced at the end of this post for clarity — JUMP.) Other Posts that discuss related issues:

90% MYTH

(From the video):

  • “economic historian Phil Magness, of the American Institute for Economic Research, says that progressives miss an important fact: The high tax rates that America had in the past actually didn’t bring in much revenue. When rates were at 70 percent, Magness tells John Stossel, ‘A millionaire on average would pay 41 percent’.”

Even “CheckYourFact” says this:

  • While the top marginal income tax rate was over 90 percent [92%] while Eisenhower was president, few people were subject to that rate due to deductions and other tax loopholes. Top income earners paid much lower average tax rates.

(MISES.ORG has an excellent article dealing with the 90% issue, as well as GREY ENLIGHTENMENT)

ALMOST CLASSICAL notes this in their “The 90% Tax Rate Myth” post:

… So, let’s get more complicated. When there was a 94% top rate in 1944-45, there were so many deductions and exclusions that the taxable income was not comparable to someone’s entire income. First, the top rate started at $200,000, which today is equal to $2,413,059.90 — so the maximum EMTR would apply only to incomes of $2.5 million. But, that’s still taxable income, not earned income.

In 1944, you could deduct business meals, all business travel, all forms of interest payments, and much more. You could even deduct spousal travel expenses on a business trip! (Why travel alone?) Companies could also “loan” or “provide” almost anything to an employee, from an apartment to standard benefits. It was possible to shelter tens of thousands of dollars from taxable income. Three-martini lunches and expense accounts were important realities, skewing tax calculations.

As a result of deductions and exclusions, even the theoretical maximum Real Rate of taxation at 60% in 1944 overstates taxation dramatically. The reality? On earned income, the richest U.S. taxpayers paid close to 40 percent of their earned incomes in taxes in 1944. We simply didn’t count much of the compensation as taxable income.

Allow me to introduce you to Hauser’s Law. Published in 1993 by William Kurt Hauser, a San Francisco investment economist, Hauser’s Law suggests, “No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP.” This theory was published in The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 1993. For a variety of reasons, we seem to balance tax collections within a narrow range.

Since 1945, U.S. federal tax receipts have been fairly constant in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with taxes ranging from 15 to 20 percent of GDP. The graph is as follows:

When people demand higher taxes on the rich, usually phrased as paying a “fair share,” they are ignoring how our tax system has functioned historically. We could create more brackets, to tax the top 1% at a higher rate once again, but the net increase in tax revenues wouldn’t be dramatic. Why not? Because government spending is near historical highs: we are spending at near-WWII levels. It would be nearly impossible to tax enough to pay the federal bills, and doing so would likely crush the economy….

CREATING MORE REVENUE

So, what did JFK’s “the rising tide lifts all the boats,” Reagan’s tax cuts and Bush’s tax cuts show? (See: “John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan Proved Tax Cuts Work“) That lower taxes brings in more revenue.

  • Should tax rates be higher? It’s the million dollar question! Up? Down? No change? Where in the world should taxes go? In election years, the question of tax rates fills the airwaves. In non-election years, the question of tax rates, again, fills the airwaves. So what’s the answer? UCLA Professor of Economics Tim Groseclose explains his research on the topic. Basically, there’s a certain point at which higher tax rates actually reduce the amount of revenue the government collects. What’s that point? When are tax rates too high? Learn a valuable lesson in economics, and public policy.

Which is why either a national sales tax or a flat tax would help fuel our GDP engine more. Thomas Sowell further explains via an excerpt (my scan from my book) of the “conclusion” of Thomas Sowell’s “The World of Numbers.” You can listen to the entirety of chapter 4 read via MIKE READS: Chpt 4(a) | Chpt 4(b).

I will also emphasize AEI’s PARTIAL QUOTE from my expanded quote — it has changed a bit due to my having the revised edition (as usual I add the references for people to further follow the rabbit trail):

THOMAS SOWELL

  • Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities: Revised and Enlarged Edition (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2019), 110-114; (references), 255-257.

IMPLICATIONS

The emphasis on complex statistical analysis in economics and other fields— however valuable, or even vital, such statistical analysis may be in many cases— can lead to overlooking simple but fundamental questions as to whether the numbers on which these complex analyses are based are in fact measuring what they seem to be measuring, or claim to be measuring. “Income” statistics which lump together annual salaries and multi-year capital gains are just one of many sets of statistics which could stand much closer scrutiny at this fundamental level— especially if laws and policies affecting millions of human beings are to be based on statistical conclusions.

What can be disconcerting, if not painful, are the simple and obvious fallacies that can pass muster in intellectual circles when these fallacies seem to advance the prevailing vision of what is called “social justice.” Among prominent current examples is French economist Thomas Piketty’s large international statistical study of income inequality, which was instantly acclaimed in many countries, despite such obvious and fundamental misstatements as one pointed out by Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard:

Thomas Piketty, whose 2014 bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century became a talisman in the uproar over inequality, wrote, “The poorer half of the population are as poor today as they were in the past, with barely 5 percent of total wealth in 2010, just as in 1910.” But total wealth today is vastly greater than it was in 1910, so if the poorer half own the same proportion, they are far richer, not “as poor.”66

In addition to speaking of percentages as if they represented a given amount of income or wealth over the course of a century, Professor Piketty also made such assertions as that, in income, “the upper decile is truly a world unto itself,”67 when in fact just over half of all Americans are in that upper decile at some point in their lives.68 When Piketty said that the top one percent sit atop the “hierarchy” and “structure of inequality,”69 he again verbally transformed a changing mix of people in particular income brackets into a fixed structure rather than a fluid process, in which most Americans do not remain in the same quintile from one decade to the next.

Such misstatements are different expressions of the same fundamental misconception. As an empirical study of the 400 richest Americans pointed out, Piketty “naively assumes that it’s the same people getting richer.”70 But the majority of the 400 richest Americans have earned their fortunes in their own lifetimes, rather than being heirs of the 400 largest fortunes of the past!71

Such misconceptions are not peculiar to Professor Piketty. Nor are these the only problems with his statistics. But that such simple and obvious misstatements can pass muster in intellectual circles is a problem and a danger that goes far beyond Thomas Piketty.

Whether income differences are measured before taxes or after taxes can change the degree of inequality. If inequalities are measured both after taxes and after government transfers, whether in money or in goods and services, that can reduce the inequality considerably, when high-income people pay higher taxes and low-income people receive most of the government transfers.

Statistics on tax rates themselves can be grossly misleading when changes in tax rates are described in such terms as “a $300 billion increase in taxes” or “a $300 billion decrease in taxes.” In reality, all that the government can do is change the tax rate. How much tax revenue that will produce depends on how people react. There have been times when higher tax rates have produced lower tax revenues, and other times when lower tax rates have produced higher tax revenues,72 as well as times when tax rates and tax revenues moved in the same direction.

During the 1920s, for example, the tax rate on the highest income Americans was reduced from 73 percent to 24 percent— and the income tax revenue rose substantially73— especially income tax revenues received from people in the highest income brackets. Under the older and much higher tax rate, vast sums of money from wealthy investors were sheltered in tax-exempt securities, such as municipal bonds. The total amount of money invested in tax-free securities was estimated to be three times the size of the annual budget of the federal government, and more than half as large as the national debt.74

Such vast and legally untaxable sums of money caught the attention and aroused the ire of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who declared it “repugnant” in a democracy that there should be “a class in the community which cannot be reached for tax purposes.”75 Failing to get Congress to take steps toward ending tax exemptions for incomes from particular securities,76 Secretary Mellon sought instead to lower the tax rates to the point where it would in fact lead to collection of more tax revenues.

Tax-exempt securities tend not to pay as high a rate of return on investments as other securities, whose earnings are taxed. It made sense for wealthy investors to accept these lower rates of return from tax-exempt securities when the tax rate was 73 percent, but not after the tax rate was lowered to 24 percent. In terms of words on paper, the official tax rate on the highest incomes was cut from 73 percent to 24 percent in the 1920s. But, in terms of events in the real world, the tax rate actually paid— on staggering sums of money previously untouchable in tax shelters— rose from zero percent to 24 percent. This produced huge increases in tax revenues received from high-income people, both absolutely and as a percentage of all income taxes collected.77

This increase in income taxes collected from high-income taxpayers was a result of the plain fact that 24 percent of something is larger than 73 percent of nothing. Tax rate cuts in some later administrations also led to increases in tax revenues!78 For example, a front-page news story in the New York Times of July 9, 2006 said: “An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year.79

However unexpected this increase in tax revenues may have been to the New York Times and others decrying “tax cuts for the rich,” this was precisely the kind of outcome predicted and expected by others in various administrations over the years, who had urged that tax rates be cut, in order to get money disgorged from tax shelters and invested in the market economy. This included people in the Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, where there were similar outcomes.80 But the very possibility that tax rates and tax revenues can move in opposite directions is seldom mentioned in the media— a crucial error of omission.

These are not simply arguments about history. Among the consequences in our own time is that proposals to reduce income tax rates are automatically met with objections to reducing income tax revenues. In the Wall Street Journal of January 31, 2018, for example, economist Alan Blinder objected to tax rate cuts on grounds that “the deficit is already too large!”81

This is in defiance of what the New York Times reported about the unexpected reduction of the deficit by increased tax revenues during the administration of President George W. Bush. It is also in defiance of a record-breaking budget surplus after tax rates were reduced in the 1920s— a surplus large enough to allow about one-fourth of the national debt to be paid off.82 Like many others, Professor Blinder proceeded as if it were axiomatic that tax rate reductions mean tax revenue reductions.

There is, of course, no guarantee of what any given tax rate reduction will lead to in a given set of circumstances. But Professor Blinder’s assertion was not based on any argument that a tax rate reduction under particular current circumstances would lead to a reduction in tax revenues. There was in fact no argument whatever on that point, nor apparently any sense of need to make such an argument. Similarly, a twenty-first century book on President Calvin Coolidge likewise asserted that, as a result of the tax rate cuts during his administration, “the bounty that the rich enjoyed sapped the U.S. Treasury of funds it might have used for other ends.”83 Thus a record-breaking budget surplus under President Coolidge was verbally transmuted into a deprivation of funds, with the turn of a phrase.

All the voluminous and detailed statistics on tax rates and tax revenues published by the Internal Revenue Service, going back more than a hundred years, might as well not exist, as far as many of those with the prevailing social vision are concerned. This is ultimately not a question about history, but about what such heedlessness implies for the present and still more so for the future.

REFERENCES

66 Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York: Viking, 2018), p. 99.

67 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 252.

68 Thomas A. Hirschl and Mark R. Rank, “The Life Course Dynamics of Affluence,” PLoS ONE, January 28, 2015, p. 5.

69 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, p. 278.

70 Robert Arnott, William Bernstein, and Lillian Wu, “The Myth of Dynastic Wealth: The Rich Get Poorer,” Cato Journal, Fall 2015, p. 461.

71 “Spare a Dime,” a special report on the rich, The Economist, April 4, 2009, p. 4.

72 See, for example, Phil Gramm and John F. Early, “The Myth of American Inequality,” Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2018, p. A15. See also Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, fifth edition (New York: Basic Books, 2015), pp. 426-427, 428.

73 Gene Smiley and Richard Keehn, “Federal Personal Income Tax Policy in the 1920s,” Journal ofEconomic History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1995), p. 286; Benjamin G. Rader, “Federal Taxation in the 1920s,” The Historian, Vol. 33, No. 3 (May 1971), p. 432; Burton W. Fulsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America, sixth edition (Herndon, Virginia: Young America’s Foundation, 2010), pp. 108, 115, 116.

74 Burton W. Fulsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, sixth edition, p. 109.

75 Andrew W. Mellon, Taxation: The People’s Business (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1924), p. 170.

76 Gene Smiley and Richard Keehn, “Federal Personal Income Tax Policy in the 1920s,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1995), p. 289.

77 Burton W. Fulsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, sixth edition, p. 116. The share of income tax revenues paid by people with incomes up to $50,000 a year fell, and the share of income tax revenues paid by people with incomes of $100,000 and up increased. At the extremes, taxpayers in the lowest income bracket paid 13 percent of all income tax revenues in 1921, but less than half of one percent of all income taxes in 1929, while taxpayers with incomes of a million dollars a year and up saw their share of income taxes paid rise from less than 5 percent to just over 19 percent. Gene Smiley and Richard Keehn, “Federal Personal Income Tax Policy in the 1920s,”Journal ofEconomic Histoy, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1995), p. 295; Benjamin G. Rader, “Federal Taxation in the 1920s,” The Historian, Vol. 33, No. 3 (May 1971), pp. 432-434.

78 Alan Reynolds, “Why 70% Tax Rates Won’t Work,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2011, p. A19; Stephen Moore, “Real Tax Cuts Have Curves,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2005, p. A13. Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz argued that the tax rate cuts during the Reagan administration failed: “In fact, Reagan had promised that the incentive effects of his tax cuts would be so powerful that tax revenues would increase. And yet, the only thing that increased was the deficit.” Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), p. 89. However, the tax revenues collected by the federal government during every year of the Reagan administration exceeded the tax revenues collected in any previous administration in the history of the country. Economic Report of the President: 2018 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2018), p. 552; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Part 2, pp. 1104-1105. The deficit reflected the fact that there is no amount of money that Congress cannot outspend.

79 Edmund L. Andrews, “Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Curbs U.S. Deficit,” New York Times, July 9, 2006, p. Al.

80 James Gwartney and Richard Stroup, “Tax Cuts: Who Shoulders the Burden?” Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Economic Review, March 1982, pp. 19-27; Benjamin G. Rader, “Federal Taxation in the 1920s: A Re-examination,” Historian, Vol. 33, No. 3, p. 432; Burton W. Folsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, sixth edition, p. 116; Robert L. Bartley, The Seven Fat Years: And How to Do It Again (New York: The Free Press, 1992), pp. 71-74; Alan Reynolds, ‘Why 70% Tax Rates Won’t Work,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2011, p. A19; Stephen Moore, “Real Tax Cuts Have Curves,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2005, p. A13; Economic Report of the President: 2017 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2017), p. 586. See also United States Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income 1920-1929 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922-1932).

81 Alan S. Blinder, “Why Now Is the Wrong Time to Increase the Deficit,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2018, p. A15.

82 The national debt, which was a little over $24 billion in 1920— the last year of President Woodrow Wilson’s administration— was reduced to less than $18 billion in 1928, the last year of President Calvin Coolidge’s administration. U. S. Bureau of the Census, _Historical Statistics ofthe United States, Part 2, p.1104. See also David Greenberg, Calvin Coolidge (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 67.

83 David Greenberg, Calvin Coolidge, p. 72.

CONVERSATION

 

Joe Biden’s “Authentic Black” Moment

Published by Papa Giorgio

I will post the teasers to Larry Elders film, UNCLE TOM after this Biden “if you don’t vote Democrat then you aren’t ‘authentic black'” moment. This movie can’t get here quick enough:

LEGAL INSURRERECTION hat-tip:

Biden has benefited by his hiding-in-the-basement strategy, which allows his handlers to minimize his gaffes. But even in that controlled environment, Biden gonna Biden, a preview of the general election.

[….]

A good example of what the general election holds in store for when Biden no longer can hide was revealed during a Biden appearance on The Breakfast Club, hosted by ‘Charlamagne Tha God’:

BIDEN: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

CTG:“It don’t have nothing to do with Trump, it has to do with the fact — I want something for my community.”….

BREITBART has a list of 10 “could be racist offenses” of Bidens, Here are six:

1.) “White Kids” are Smarter than Other Kids – August 2019:

We should challenge these students, we should challenge students in these schools to have advanced placement programs in these schools. We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor you cannot do it, poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.

2.) Brags About His Ability to Work with Racists – June 2019

“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland [and Herman Talmadge],” Biden said with an attempted Southern drawl. “He never called me boy, he always called me son.”

“Well guess what?” the former vice president continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”

Eastland and Talmadge were arch-segregationists who opposed civil rights and saw black people as an “inferior race.”

3.) Brags About Segregationist Democrat Not Calling Him “Boy” Like He Did Others – 2019

“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” the former vice president said while putting on a Southern drawl. “He never called me boy, he always called me son.”

4.) Appears to Use Racist Term “Roaches” to Describe Black Kids – 2017

By the way, you know, I sit on the stand, and it get[s] hot. I got a lot, I got hairy legs that, that, that, that turn blonde in the sun, and the kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down so it was straight and then watch the hair come back up again. They’d look at it. I learned about roaches, I learned about kids jumping on my lap.

When he spoke, Biden was surrounded by black children, he was also referring to his time as a lifeguard, where he says the swimmers were mostly black kids.

5.) Mocks Indian-Americans – 2006

You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.

6.) Describes Barack Obama Is a “Bright and Clean” Black Person – 2007

You got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

UNCLE TOM TEASERS

An oral history of The American Black Conservative.

A JOE BIDEN BONUS:

Black History [every] Month

Books Worth Reading

Biographical

David Barton 3-Part (Video) Series

(Watch now)

Do Conservatives Riot?

Published by Papa Giorgio

An excellent point is made by Dennis Prager. We hate the Kate Steinle verdict deeply. Just as deeply as other high profile cases of people getting convicted, killed, or merely showing up to give a speech. Conservatives do not riot. Anarchists (Lefties) and Socialists (Lefties) do. Here are a couple great articles:

➤ Do Conservatives Riot? (ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLACK CONSERVATIVES)
➤ New Study Shows Riots Make America Conservative (NEW YORK MAGAZINE)
➤ Violence comes from the Left (GAY PATRIOT)
➤ Why Aren’t We Having a National Conversation About Leftist Violence? (THE FEDERALIST)
➤ Leftist Violence Goes Mainstream In America (WND)
➤ Leftist Violence & Double Standards (FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE)

Christians Discriminated Against By Gay Coffee Shop Owner

Published by Papa Giorgio

<< LANGUAGE WARNING >>

  • That’s what happens when you order a tall drip instead of a whipped, half-caf, blended, soy, mocha frappicino, blended chocolate burst!!! they brought this on themselves – Facebook Friend

Joking aside, one should know at the outset, that I agree with the coffee shop owner. He should be able to serve whom he wants and whom he does not. I posted elsewhere that if he puts up a sign saying,

  • “No One Allowed But Gay Middle-Aged Men In Borat Bathing Suits.”

He has that right – dammit! JUST LIKE a Christian business owner can deny service celebrating same-sex marriages. This should only be used as an example of Leftist hypocrisy, but people should be ready to provide FREEDOM to counter this. I will expand on this more with media and examples… this post may be long.

RED STATE notes the following about this incident:

…I don’t think I need to point out the hypocrisy here. When Indiana Pizza shop Memories Pizza merely said they couldn’t cater a gay wedding to the wrong journalist looking for a head to hunt, they were threatened, vandalized, and harassed to no end. When Colorado baker Jack Phillips refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding ceremony, politicians tried to force him into reeducation programs, and called him a Nazi. 

However, this is hardly getting a blip. It’s certainly not getting the same media attention Phillips or Memories Pizza did. This coffee shop owner will never be forced into reeducation programs, or have to go to battle within the Supreme Court to preserve his right to refuse service to people.

Apparently, if you fall into a protected group, you can be as bigoted and intolerant as you please, while demanding everyone else straight up applaud you for so much as breathing out of your right nostril.

GAY PATRIOT wryly notes this about Red States post:

Apparently, only Christians give up their Constitutional Rights when they open a business. Gays (and Mohammedans) can discriminate against anybody they want.

[….]

My favorite part is when he threatens to sodomize his boyfriend in front of them. The LGBT activists used to claim it wasn’t about buttsex, but this guy seems pretty sure… it’s about buttsex

BTW, no one would sit and watch a straight couple do the same.

In a past post of mine — “Gary Johnson Is a Cake Fascist” — an example used to compare equal application of the law (a Constitutional ideal) of Bruce Springsteen cancelling his tour in North Carolina :

Springsteen explained his decision in a lengthy statement to fans.

“As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the ‘bathroom’ law. HB2 – known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act – dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use. Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace. No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress. Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments.”

The rocker added he felt it was not the right time for him and the E Street Band to perform in North Carolina.

(Fox News)

GAY PATRIOT noted years back that Springsteen should be forced to perform in that state, using the understanding of Leftists, Christian apologist FRANK TUREK agrees:

…When Bruce Springsteen refuses to do a concert in North Carolina for moral reasons he’s a hero to the liberals and the media, which are the same thing.

Imagine what would have happened if Bruce had a wedding band that refused to perform at a gay wedding? He’d go from hero to zero!

Yet, when a conservative band, florist, or photographer refuses to work at a gay wedding for moral or religious reasons, the left and the media bully those folks mercilessly as intolerant bigots. And they do so while claiming to be against bullying and for “tolerance”! (As Ryan Anderson pointed out, if it wasn’t for double standards, liberals would have no standards.)

In America, a gay T-shirt maker should not be forced to print up anti-gay marriage T-shirts. And a Christian or Muslim photographer should not be forced to photograph a gay wedding.

If Bruce has the right to deny service, so does everyone.

One person i know succinctly posted this:

  • The free market is the great equalizer of inequities while protecting freedom at the same time.

This idea is what Barry Goldwater was running on. Freedom. Here Dennis Prager comes to the realization that his position on Goldwaters “anti-Civil Rights Act” platform was wrong all these years:

The thinking that special rights apply to different groups of people are what totalitarian regimes proffer. Here is an example of freedom being diminished, really a backfiring of Leftist ideals on the Gay Left.

Gay Patriot writes about a recent logical conclusion of the Gay Left and their wanting to force private businesses to participate in gay wedding celebrations. With all the BIG government laws their is surely an aspect of backfire involved… I mean, the BIGGER government gets, the smaller the individual is:

…But, you know, once you let that sort of idea… that the Government can force a business to labor for others against their will… you never know where that sort of thing is going to end up.

A Denver bar has been cited by the state’s Division of Civil Rights for discrimination because it refused to let a gay man dressed in drag enter. The bar is the Denver Wrangler, and despite what its name might suggest, it is not some Country Western joint. It is, in fact, a gay bar. So the state has determined that a gay bar has discriminated against a gay person

Wha-a-a-a-a-a….?

Gay Patriot proceeds to explain the bars target audience, what in the gay lifestyle apparently are called “bears”?

… [the bar] caters to a gay subculture known as “Bears,” which are bisexual or gay males which tend to place importance on presenting a hypermasculine image and often shun interaction with men who exhibit effeminacy. This is evident from the pictures and statements made by employees regarding the “Bear” culture of the club and several links on the Respondent’s webpage referencing “Bear” clubs … .”

That’s right… a taxpayer-paid Government employee investigated and found out about the Bear subculture and interviewed bar patrons to find out what that was.

So, Gay Fascist Left, you wanted the Government in the business of policing businesses and their clientele, and now a bear bar is being cited for twink-discrimination.

Well done.

Indeed, if wanting to strip one’s self of individual rights and freedoms… well done. But some gays “GET IT” and fight for freedom!

Even the “supposed” Libertarian candidate wants the state large enough to force, fine, and run out of business citizens acting according to their conscience. Here is the debate portion that showed Gary Johnson was a Leftist and not a Libertarian:

I even called into the Michael Medved Show to challenge Gary Johnson on this debate:

The REAL march toward freedom was realized in this GREAT EXAMPLE of these two freedom loving lesbians fighting against the LEFT in oprotecting the freedoms of a Christian T-Shirt company owner:

Gay Patriot shot me over to The Blaze’s article on this… good stuff, and I LOVE these two ladies.

Glenn Beck interviews from lesbians who disagree with the gay fascist left. [Edited for brevity and emphasis added to the really important bit that only a complete smeghead would disagree with.]

[Kathy Trautvetter and Diane DiGeloromo, a lesbian couple who own and operate BMP T-shirts, a New Jersey-based printing company, sat down with Glenn Beck Thursday night to explain why they are standing up for an embattled Christian printer who refused to make shirts for a gay pride festival.]

[….]

The lesbian couple are standing up for Christian t-shirt maker Blaine Adamson, who refused to print shirts for a gay pride festival because it compromised his values. Adamson has come under attack for his stance, but this couple supports him. The story is a microcosm for what should be happening in America as we navigate the way the world is changing.

“As a business owner, it struck a chord with me when I read the story, because I know how hard it is to build a business. You put your blood and your sweat and your tears into every bit of it. When I put myself in his place, I immediately felt like if that were to happen to us, I couldn’t create or print anti-gay T-shirts, you know, for a group. I couldn’t do it,” Kathy explained.

Diane added, “We feel this really isn’t a gay or straight issue. This is a human issue. No one really should be forced to do something against what they believe in. It’s as simple as that, and we feel likewise. If we were approached by an organization such as the Westboro Baptist Church, I highly doubt we would be doing business with them.”“Everybody votes with their dollars, you know?” Kathy said. “And why you would want to go with somebody who doesn’t agree with you, [when] there’s others who do agree with you, that’s who I want to do business with.”

Nice. If only all gay people were so tolerant and open-minded.

So ~ to be clear ~ we use this as an example of the Left being hypocrites, but offer a way that increases people’s freedom.

  • “The larger the government gets, the smaller the person gets. The smaller the government gets, the larger the individual gets.”

Conservatarianism IS the New Counterculture

Published by Papa Giorgio

Headlines like this “Katy Perry Decides to Make Bold Political Statement at Grammys…” are nothing of the sort. The boldest statement can be found pictured below.

Keep in mind she is a “mixed bag (language warning)” and she has already gotten many threats against her life and definitely made some heads explode — but her sales of her albums are up 18,000[+]% (<<< LOL – I previously put 18-million percent). Also keep in mind the dress designer is a pro-Trump immigrant all about the wall.  [She is a Scientologist — which means I hope she scours the Christian faith more thoroughly, starting with the easy stuff.]

What will happen from such a dress is that people will HATE Joy Villa for wearing it… whereas previously the dresses (pictured at the bottom) were not as shocking to the same persons. What this points to is that conservatism and Republican viewpoints wrapped up in a person — perceived rightly or wrongly — IS the new counterculture. Here are excerpts from a now timely article from two-years back via NATIONAL REVIEW:

…A great irony that slowly emerged out of the turmoil of the 1960s is that conservatism became the new counterculture — a movement that was subversive in relation to the established liberal cultural order. And, continuing this irony, liberalism became the natural home of timid conventionalists and careerists — people who find it hard to know themselves outside the orthodoxies of mainstream “correctness.” And what is political correctness if not an establishment orthodoxy?

[….]

When you win the culture, you win the extraordinary power to say what things mean — you get to declare the angle of vision that assigns the “correct” meaning. When I was a boy growing up under segregation, racism was not seen as evil by most whites. It was simply recognition of a natural law: that some races were inferior to others and that people needed and wanted to be with “their own kind.” Most whites were quite polite about this — blacks were in their place and it was not proper to humiliate them for their lowly position. Racism was not meant to be menacing; it was only a kind of fatalism, an acceptance of God’s will. And so most whites could claim they held no animus toward blacks. Their prejudice, if it was prejudice at all, was perfectly impersonal. It left them free to feel compassion and sometimes even deep affection for those inferiors who cleaned their houses, or served them at table, or suckled their babies. And this was the meaning of things.

The polite booing I elicited by mentioning American exceptionalism at the charity dinner also simply reflected — for the booers and their cohort — the meaning of things. It was a culturally conditioned response. American exceptionalism was a scandal that one booed in the name of humility and decency. Dissociation from it was the road to the Good. And this was so sealed a matter that booing me was only an expression of one’s moral self-esteem — the goodness in oneself bursting forth to censure a heretic.

[….]

What drives this conservative “movement”? Of course there are the classic motivations — a commitment to free-market capitalism, smaller government, higher educational standards, the reinforcement of family life, either the projection of strength abroad or, conversely, a kind of isolationism, and so on. But overriding all of this is a cultural motivation that might be called the “pinch of stigma.” The special energy of contemporary conservatism — what gives it the dynamism of a movement — comes from conservative outrage at being stigmatized in the culture as the politics in which all of America’s past evils now find a comfortable home.

This stigmatization is conservatism’s great liability in an American culture that gives dissociation preeminence, that makes it the arbiter of all other social values. Contemporary conservatism is, first of all, at war with this cultural stigmatization. Its ideas always swim upstream against the perception that they only echo the racist, sexist, and parochial America of old — as if conservatism were an ideology devoted to human regression. For conservatives, it is, in the end, a bewildering war against an undeserved bad reputation. And how do you fight a bad reputation that always precedes you?

This connection of conservatism to America’s hypocritical past is the American Left’s greatest source of authority. However trenchant conservatism may be on the issues, however time-tested and profound its principles, this liberalism always works to smother conservatism’s insights with the poetic truth that conservatism is mere cover for America’s evil. This ability to taint conservatism — its principles, policies, and personalities — with America’s past shames has been, for the Left, a seemingly endless font of power.

AMERICAN THINKER ends an article with this:

  • How can anyone make a coherent argument that what was once the liberal counterculture is not the new mainstream culture? So in turn, doesn’t that make conservatism the new counterculture?

And here is an older version of a great commentary by Paul Watson. (I enjoy the older one as compared to the newer one… which can be watched here):

While I like their rants (Paul Watson, Mark Dice, and others) and these commentaries hold much truth in them, I do wish to cation you… he is part of Info Wars/Prison Planet, a crazy conspiracy arm of Alex Jones shite. Also, I bet if I talked to him he would reveal some pretty-crazy conspiratorial beliefs that would naturally undermine and be at-odds-with some of his rants. Just to be clear, I do not endorse these people or orgs.

RPT Graphic ~ Stupid Party

Published by Papa Giorgio

RPT Site Democrat to Republican Evolution Red and Blue

The shirt company I got this idea from notes that when a person is young… they tend to be more “left-leaning” with their views. As they mature, maybe try to start a business, pay for their home, health insurance, schooling for their kids, and the like… they tend to become more moderate or conservative in their viewpoints. A popular saying goes like this:

  • “If you aren’t a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart, but if you aren’t a middle-aged conservative, you have no head.”

I would posit as well that the political spectrum that is left-leaning in their views are regressive… in my “humble” opinion.

I do fully acknowledge however, especially with this 2016 campaign season, that I am in the “stupid” party:

  • “There are two parties in Washington: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party.” ~ Samuel T. Francis

MORE: John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) called conservatives “the stupidest party” in his Considerations on Representative Government (Barry Popkik).

“The Republican Party Has Left Me” ~ George Will

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via PJ Media:

WASHINGTON – Conservative columnist George Will told PJM he has officially left the Republican Party and urged conservatives not to support presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump even if it leads to a Democratic victory in the 2016 presidential election.

Will, who writes for the Washington Post, acknowledged it is a “little too late” for the Republican Party to find a replacement for Trump but had a message for Republican voters.

“Make sure he loses. Grit their teeth for four years and win the White House,” Will said during an interview after his speech at a Federalist Society luncheon.

Will said he changed his voter registration this month from Republican to “unaffiliated” in the state of Maryland.

“This is not my party,” Will said during his speech at the event….

The Conservative Minority

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is the portion of the article Prager is reading from, via The New York Times:

But it turned out that Republican voters didn’t want True Conservatism any more than they wanted Bushism 2.0. Maybe they would have wanted it from a candidate with more charisma and charm and less dogged unlikability. But the entire Trump phenomenon suggests otherwise, and Trump as the presumptive nominee is basically a long proof against the True Conservative theory of the Republican Party.

Trump proved that movement conservative ideas and litmus tests don’t really have any purchase on millions of Republican voters. Again and again, Cruz and the other G.O.P. candidates stressed that Trump wasn’t really a conservative; they listed his heresies, cataloged his deviations, dug up his barely buried liberal past. No doubt this case resonated with many Republicans. But not with nearly enough of them to make Cruz the nominee.

Trump proved that many evangelical voters, supposedly the heart of a True Conservative coalition, are actually not really values voters or religiousconservatives after all, and that the less frequently evangelicals go to church, the more likely they are to vote for a philandering sybarite instead of a pastor’s son. Cruz would probably be on his way to the Republican nomination if he had simply carried the Deep South. But unless voters were in church every Sunday, Trump’s identity politics had more appeal than Cruz’s theological-political correctness.

Trump proved that many of the party’s moderates and establishmentarians hate the thought of a True Conservative nominee even more than they fear handing the nomination to a proto-fascist grotesque with zero political experience and poor impulse control. That goes for the prominent politicians who refused to endorse Cruz, the prominent donors who sat on their hands once the field narrowed and all the moderate-Republican voters in blue states who turned out to be #NeverCruz first and #NeverTrump less so or even not at all.

[….]

What remains, then, is Trumpism. Which is also, in its lurching, sometimes insightful, often wicked way, a theory of what kind of party the Republicans should become, and one that a plurality of Republicans have now actually voted to embrace.

Whatever reckoning awaits the G.O.P. and conservatism after 2016 will have to begin with that brute fact. Where the reckoning goes from there — well, now is a time for pundit humility, so your guess is probably as good as mine.