Censorship, Protests, and Does the Government do anything well?
Friday News Roundup – 19 April 2024 (Saturday edition - oops!)
This Week’s News
As of April 17th, here’s how much each candidate is worth (metaphorically of course, the real values are likely much lower than this):
Biden 52 cents (-1)
Trump 46 cents (+1)
And once again for those who prefer an analysis based on the electoral college and not a popular vote:
There is some debate concerning what government does well. Some say the military, others sending people checks, but I’d say what they really excel at is collection taxes:
“Tax Mystery” – Fewer US taxpayers are getting money back and more are having to write the government checks. I’m not sure why this is a mystery. Isn’t this how the government wants it?
Liberals announce budget, raising taxes on “the rich” – The new Liberal budget includes a measure that raises taxes on capital gains in excess of $250,000 ($181,000 USD). “The new tax measure comes at a time when the government's spending shows signs of a permanent increase beyond the pandemic blip that distorted its fiscal goalposts.” While the government has stated that the measure will “only affect 0.13% of the population,” we know that this wouldn’t be the first time a government has lied and expanded a tax to affect more people than originally “intended” (see US Alternative Minimum Tax).
Update: yes, since starting to write this an article has come out indicating that the new tax gains tax might affect more than “the wealthy” after all. I can’t say that I’m shocked, but I did think it would take more than a few days to prove that the Liberals were lying.
Government Priorities:
Anger towards the Canadian government is at a 6 year high – A Nanos Poll shows 62% of Canadians are either pessimistic or angry with the government. It’s not all bad news for the Liberals though, optimism is up to 10% from it’s September 2023 low of 8%. The poll was conducted before the Liberal budget so time will tell if efforts to buy voters’ love worked.
Could part of the problem be that the Liberal governments priorities aren’t aligned with the majority of Canadians? As mentioned previously Trudeau and the Liberals refuse to back down from their carbon tax despite 2/3rds of Canadians opposing it. If being “out of touch” is the problem then announcing “halal mortgages as a means to 'enable Muslim Canadians, and other diverse communities, to further participate in the housing market'” is unlikely to move the needle.
Has society finally decided to say “enough!” to Progressive demands?
Google “Sit-In” Protests – Google fired 28 of its employees who staged a sit-in “at the company’s offices in Seattle, New York and Sunnyvale, California — including one at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office.” The employees were protesting Project Nimbus, “a joint $1.2 billion contract providing the Israeli government and military with cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence services and data centers.” It appears that Google is happy to let it’s AI redefine history/reality based on progressive politics but there’s a line that it won’t cross, and that line is green. Good for them?
Police Arrested Over 100 at Columbia Pro-Palestine Protest – after being “informed multiple times” to remove themselves from the South Lawn of Columbia University’s Morningside Heights Campus and failing to comply, the NYPD, with the authorization of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, moved in and arrested dozens of protesters. In addition, all students involved in the protest were suspended including Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn). We will see if holding people accountable for their behavior has any effect.
Illegal Immigrant or Undocumented Worker? Progressives continue to state that the term “illegal immigrant” is offensive often stating that “people aren’t illegal.” Perhaps not but one wonders if they would prefer the term “criminal immigrant” because breaking the law makes you a criminal. The opinions of progressives aside, a recent poll found that “Sixty-three percent of Americans disagree that the term ‘illegal immigrant’ is offensive and 54% agree that people who use the term ‘undocumented person’…tend to prefer open borders.
What I’m Reading
The Democrats’ Abundance Problem Revisited – Ruy Teixeira over at the Liberal Patriot looks at a recent poll that finds “only about a quarter (26 percent) describe economic conditions today as excellent or good, compared to 74 percent who say they are only fair or poor” and argues that Democrats must move away from arguing that the economy is “stellar” and the voters are “deluded, ungrateful wretches,” and play the long game by “laying the basis for future abondance.”
Censorship, it’s for our own good:
Inside the disinformation industry – Freddie Sayers at Unherd describes how the Global Disinformation Index, which is the UK government (via the FCDO), the European Union, the German Foreign Office and a body called Disinfo Cloud, manages a “’dynamic exclusion list’ of publications that supposedly promote ‘disinformation’ and should therefore be boycotted by all advertisers.” As government fight “misinformation” for our own good we should be asking ourselves “what’s the difference between ‘good’ government censorship and ‘bad’ government censorship?” Hint: there’s no difference.
If the “dangers of misinformation” isn’t the reason for censorship, then it’s usually some other “safety” reason as Oliver Wiseman of The Free Press explains. While “light on specific threats” police shut down a gathering of prominent European right-wingers” in Brussels this week in order to “ensure public security.” Despite a vastly different political situation, the University of Southern California cancelled their valedictorian’s speech citing “’substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement’ but was light on specifics.”
I’m reading a lot of hockey articles!!! It’s playoff time baby! – so here’s a pitch for my hockey blog:
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
Veering away from politics for a change, my recommendation this week is:
The Michael Shermer Show - Life on Mars? (Robert Zubrin)
Zubrin is former president of Pioneer Astronautics and the founder and president of the Mars Society. He has worked closely with NASA, the US Air Force, the US Department of Energy, and private companies. Zubin and Shermer discuss: Why not start with the moon? What it is like on Mars Was ever Earthlike? • How to get to Mars and how much it will cost • Is public or private enterprise the best approach for space exploration • and more.