The Book of the Shadows

Irrational fear and hatred is usually dangerous. That is what has beset the IRS, and the dangers are not being fully appreciated. It's a little lengthy, but you should read this article from Forbes and MSN .

No this isn't about the new Godzilla movie coming out next year, although it is looking quite amazing so far. This is about a sort of mis-characterized debate that has gone on in our government for a long time; big government versus small government.

Tuesday was election day. It wasn't big E, big D, Election Day, but it was still a day for some people to go out and vote. I'm not gonna get into the politics of who won and who lost. But I do have something of an idea that might make it a little more meaningful when we do have the little E and D election days.

American Corporations hold an estimated $1.5 Trillion in profits overseas that goes untaxed. This hefty sum of money was accumulated in subsidiaries and off-shore accounts over the course of many years, not just the last one or two. An idea that has bounced around for a long time has been to have a "tax-holiday". For those unfamiliar with the idea, it's rather basic and simple - for a designated period of time, certain activities are not taxed. In this instance, it would mean that for some time (some plans suggest 60-90 days) companies would be allowed to bring money back to the United States without paying taxes on it. I don't like this idea. My first problem is that some of the people pushing this idea in Congress are quick to push the concept of moral hazard in many other instances. This is a moral hazard as large as possible. Why? Because it isn't the first time that this idea has been considered and utilized. There have been plans like this previously. ...

As a political scientist I don’t really find any form of government necessarily boring. In fact I’m probably a bit unconventional in my approach to the viability of various forms of government. But as I began working on my creative writing hobby, I realized a few things that are retrospectively simply obvious. First, most fiction stories of note take place in worlds with non-democratic governments. Second, democracy is boring. The second point reinforces the first. That is, the boringness of democratic governance leads to the writers of fiction stories to instead pursue more interesting governmental systems, thus using a government that isn’t a democracy, or at the very least only vaguely resembles a democracy. Democracy is driven by the most boring endeavor in the history of mankind – bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the system by which operations are set to happen. In the abstract, everyone hates it and tends to say they can’t understand it. But it’s a simple concept. It ...

I find myself looking back on the events on Tuesday in New Jersey. I listen to the news and read a few articles on the web about President Obama and Governor Christie being together touring the Jersey Shore and looking at the repairs being done. They have a few photo-ops of the two men at game stands chatting, giving each other high fives. Then the president gives a speech where he touts the area, talks about all the good that has been done between the federal, state, and local governments to fix the damage since Hurricane Sandy, how the federal government will remain invested in helping residents and businesses recover. A lot of the talk post the event was not about the actual event. It wasn't about what was done in Jersey, or what is left to be done. It is mostly about whether Republican Gov. Christie will be helped or hurt by being seen "paling" around with the Democratic Pres. Obama. It is the continuation of the same talk that came around when the two elected offic...