Let's start out today remembering the many good innocent people just going about their daily tasks who died on this day in 2001 as victims of the 21st century's version of Fascism

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WHY DO MANY SMALL STATES DO SO WELL?

Because they respect the individual more and are hence more nimble in moving towards market-based policies and giving people choices

"Iceland: Why is this cold, rainy land with its stark volcanic landscape, without much in the way of natural resources, one of the wealthiest places on Earth? Small states, in the past, were most often poorer on a per capital income basis than large states, but in the last half-century many have become much richer then their large neighbors. Among the wealthiest places on the planet, in addition to the United States, we now find Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Denmark and Ireland, none with many natural resources.....

After obtaining freedom 15 years ago, Estonia rapidly moved to establish a rule of law, protect private property and create a sound currency. Estonia removed most price controls, discarded useless regulations, privatized most state-owned enterprises and established a free-trade regime. The result has been the largest percentage increase in real per capita incomes of any of the former communist states.....

Former Iceland Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister David Oddsson detailed how he took a typical, economically stagnate, Scandinavian socialist welfare state and turned it into an economic tiger by privatizing state industries, freeing labor markets, and reforming the financial structure. Iceland has been engaged in a massive tax reduction (for instance, the corporate tax rate has been cut from 50 to only 18 percent, and the inheritance tax to a maximum 5 percent). Yet government revenues have steadily increased because of the resulting economic dynamism, and the national debt has fallen from 50 percent of gross domestic product to only 15 percent."

More here

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ELSEWHERE

The people speak: "More than three-quarters of California voters remain concerned about illegal immigration, and two out of five support the "citizen patrols" on the state's borders, according to a statewide Field Poll released Wednesday. The survey, conducted of 426 registered voters from Aug. 19-29, also showed sharp divisions over whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should call a border emergency, with 44 percent favoring the move and 40 percent opposing it.... About half of the voters (49 percent) said they were "extremely concerned" about illegal immigration, with another third (32 percent) saying they were somewhat concerned. Nearly two-thirds said they perceived that the flow of illegal immigrants across the border is increasing. Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said there's no telling whether concern over the issue could rise to a major campaign issue in the governor's race next year. In 1994, he noted, exit polls showed it was the top reason voters gave for backing then-Gov. Pete Wilson for re-election. Proposition 187, which sought to end most state services for illegal immigrants, was a big part of Wilson's campaign...."

Australian Prime Minister gets tough: "Islamic leaders have reacted angrily to the Prime Minister's plans for new terror laws, claiming he has undone any good achieved by his recent Muslim summit. Many who attended last month's summit criticised the proposals to create a new incitement offence and extend the existing list of terrorist groups to include those who advocate terrorism.... Mr Howard said the incitement offence would "address problems with those who communicate inciting messages directed against other groups within our community, including against Australia's forces overseas and in support of Australia's enemies".... Asked about deporting firebrand clerics, the Prime Minister yesterday said: "I take the view that people who are dual citizens do run the risk of being deprived of their Australian citizenship if they break a relevant Australian law."

Government was the problem yet again: "Hurricane Katrina is yet the latest example of `government' - at all levels - failing the people `it' is supposed to serve. This is not a matter of Republican or Democrat; it is a matter of the expected arrogance, aloofness, diffidence, innate corruption, coldness - and sheer incompetence - that always permeates all levels of government. Katrina is just the latest example. Pick your poison: from bungled investigations to billion-dollar rip-offs, `government' in our country is more often than not more a problem than a problem-solver. Liberals - and this is why they have lost power nationally - still cling to the notion of using the government to `do good.' But, even when well-intentioned, government efforts to solve a problem rarely work; and often they actually make that problem worse.

Krauthammer on Katrina: "In less enlightened times, there was no catastrophe independent of human agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and all felt better (except the witches and Jews). A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2) the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn sinner-in-chief George W. Bush. This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph...."

Hooray! Collapse of a New Orleans legal system that was good for nothing anyway: "More than a third of the state's lawyers have lost their offices, some for good. Most computer records will be saved. Many other records will be lost forever. Some local courthouses have been flooded, imperiling a vast universe of files, records and documents. Court proceedings from divorces to murder trials, to corporate litigation, to custody cases will be indefinitely halted and when proceedings resume lawyers will face prodigious -- if not insurmountable -- obstacles in finding witnesses and principals and in recovering evidence. It is an implosion of the legal network not seen since disasters like the Chicago fire of 1871 or the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, events in times so much simpler as to be useless in making much sense of this one."

Arab Christians persecuted: "Christians in the Holy Land have handed a dossier detailing incidents of violence and intimidation by Muslim extremists to Church leaders in Jerusalem, one of whom said it was time for Christians to "raise our voices" against the sectarian violence. The dossier includes 93 alleged incidents of abuse by an "Islamic fundamentalist mafia" against Palestinian Christians, who accused the Palestinian Authority of doing nothing to stop the attacks."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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