Libertarian blogger Dan Riehl on the liberal response to Wesley Snipes’ tax conviction: “In relative terms, there will be little or no liberal hand-wringing over the Snipes conviction, which causes one to wonder if they really understand freedom at all. Snipes appears to be guilty, but he WAS striking Big Brother at its heart in a way few if any anti-war protesters ever do …Issues like the above are why I genuinely question the motivations of liberals today. They claim to be championing liberty. Yet nearly everything they champion calls for more taxation and regulation. One can’t do both and be intellectually consistent, or honest.”

Possibly this is too complicated for Riehl to grasp, but Snipes wasn’t thrown in jail for leading a peaceful protest against income tax or trying to reform the tax system, he was thrown in jail for not paying it. Since I do think taxes should be paid (though like most people, including Riehl, I have strong opinions on who should be taxed, how they should be taxed, what should be taxed, etc.), I can’t say this shakes me to the core of my liberal soul.

In fairness, reading some of Riehl’s other posts about torture (which he seems to rank much less important in terms of liberty than tax evasion) and Islam, I suspect he’s of the right-wing persuasion that thinks “libertarian” makes him stand out.

Moving somewhat higher on the right-wing food chain, we have George Will on teachers: “After 1962, when New York City signed the nation’s first collective bargaining contract with teachers, teachers began changing from members of a respected profession into just another muscular faction fighting for more government money. Between 1975 and 1980 there were a thousand strikes involving a million teachers whose salaries rose as students’ scores on standardized tests declined.”

I know Will’s supposed to be very, very, very smart, but does have the slightest idea how crappy teacher pay used to be? So help me, every time in my memory that teachers have asked for better pay or benefits, the cry goes up “My god! If they want to be paid well, they can’t possibly care about the kids! They’re supposed to be in this for love, not money!”

Teachers are, apparently, wonderful noble beings until anyone asks they get paid what they deserve.

That’s it for me. I’ll post again May 5, unless I put something up while on vacation.

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