How to Deal With Police

Tim Lynch at the Cato Institute plugs a handy video with helpful hints for dealing with the police.

10 Rules is a gold mine of useful information (both legal and practical) for handling police encounters.  Legal books are too often impenetrable and just too time-consuming for laypersons. 10 Rules is a media-savvy vehicle that can alleviate the problem of constitutional illiteracy in America.

In less than 45 minutes, you acquire the information you need to know.  Get the dvds and encourage others to show them at high schools, colleges, and other venues.

Trailer for the film:

Obamacare and Public Health

George Avery, an assistant professor of public health at Purdue University, writes on the conflation of health care reform and the improvement of public health, and argues that Obamacare will actually prove detrimental to public health in general.

In fact, federal “reform” often hurts the public health system. Both public health and health care experts have criticized Medicare and Medicaid, enacted by Congress in 1965, for changing the focus of health care practitioners from prevention to treatment. Infectious disease mortality rates rose 22 percent in the 1980s (even after discounting for AIDS deaths), despite rising public and private spending on health insurance and medical care. In 1988, the Institute of Medicine warned of a deteriorating public health system. Inadequate vaccine supplies, such as the recent shortages of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or influenza vaccines, are at least in part the result of federal attempts to control the production and distribution of the vaccines.

Read the whole thing here. Hat tip to Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute.

KC Schools and Government Fail

Randall Hoven at American Thinker has a piece on the dismal Kansas City school district, which is preparing to close amost half of its schools due to budget shortfalls. The AP report blames white flight and poor economic condition in the Kansas City city core for the failure of the school system. Hoven points to another explanation.

A report by the Cato Institute in 1998 highlighted the financial and performance problems of the Kansas City School District, and traced it back to 1985, when a federal judge essentially took over the school district, dictating how much money should be spent and how. The results? By 2000, the district had lost its accreditation due to its abysmal performance.

Spending does not equal performance. Nor does control by fiat of the federal government. Given the liberal demographics of Kansas City, I’m not sure how much better the district would have performed without federal control, but it’s pretty apparent from the Cato analysis that liberal policies caused more problems than they solved.

Hate Register

Jason Kuznicki at the Cato Institute recently penned an analysis that argued that hate speech laws encourage outrage over increasingly petty offenses. (I can see it as a valid argument — now all you have to do to be a racist is diagree with the President’s spending proposals.) Kunznicki has found more evidence for his argument: in the UK, grade schools have established “hate registers” which record alleged hate crimes on students’ records.

The True Cost of Public Education

Donald Douglas at American Power presents this video from the Cato Institute on the costs involved in public education, especially those not made apparent.

The California College Revolt

Donald Douglas at American Power takes a look at an upcoming “protest” (i.e. riot) at the university he works at. Disguised as a union protest against cuts to the education budget, the movement is working with communist and anarchist groups advocating an “occupation” and seizure of private property across the state in order to acquire the resources they desire for their goals. Where  come from, we call that “theft,” but apparently they call it “revolution.” Whatever.

Subsidizing the States

Tad DeHaven at the Cato Institute responds to a comment about the popularity of federal funding for state programs with many pretty charts demonstrating the dramatic increasing in federal subsidies of state programs.

Human Rights Violations in Cuba and Venezuela

Ian Vasquez at the Cato Institute has a brief piece on human rights violations in Venezuela and Cuba.

A report (PDF) released today by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemns in well documented form the growing violation of human rights under the regime of Hugo Chavez. The 302-page study is yet another confirmation of the multitude of ways in which individuals, NGOs, union leaders, politicians, activists, businessmen, students, judges, the media and others who disagree with Venezuelan government policies are targeted by the government and its supporters through intimidation, arbitrary use of administrative and criminal law, and sometimes violence and homicide.

Government vs Business

Tad DeHaven at the Cato Institute cites a recent survey(.pdf) that indicates that the biggest obstable to the success of small business is government.

According to the latest Small Business Economic Trends survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 31 percent of respondents said the single most important problem facing small businesses is “poor sales.” “Taxes” and “Government Regulations and Red Tape” came in second and third place at 22 percent and 13 percent respectively. Combining the two, the biggest problem facing small businesses according to respondents is government.

Wow. Government regulation and high taxes are bad for business. Who’d have thought? Don’t worry, though — the government is working on helping small businesses out – by increasing taxes and regulation.

Fiscal Federalism

Ted DeHaven at the Cato Institute highlights an effort by Utah legislators to disentangle federal funding from state-run programs. An editorial in the Washington Post written by the President of the Utah Senate and the Speaker of the Utah House delineates this plan to shift management and funding of state-run programs exclusively to the State of Utah.