The Cold Turkey: Sean Penn- ‘On Hugo Chavez & Fidel Castro: Hollywood Leftist Support For Socialist Dictators’

Source: The Cold Turkey– Hollywood actor/activist Sean Penn, talking about Prudent Fidel Castro and President Hugo Chavez. 

Source:FRS FreeState 

“Sean Penn talks about Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.”

From The Cold Turkey

For the life of me I don’t understand why today’s so-called Progressives ( radical hippie, Socialists, Communists in actuality ) love affair or admiration with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Progressives are supposed to be people that are about progressive through government action like democracy and yet they defend people, who are anti-democratic. Who’ve attempted to centralize power with their presidencies, in President Castro’s case, have been successful in doing that. President Chavez’s case still trying to do that in the Bolivar Republic of Venezuela, still has that official name.

Source: The Nation Magazine– Hollywood actor/activist Sean Penn and President Hugo Chavez ( Socialist Republic of Venezuela )

But if President Chavez is successful, they’ll basically be another Communist Republic in Latin America. He’s already been successful in nationalizing the energy industry, as well as at least certain parts of the media. But Venezuelan Democrats still have media outlets they can go to but in President Castro’s case, it’s official he’s had a Communist State in Cuba for over fifty years. This guy is not a democrat and never has been, he’s not even a Democratic Socialist, he’s a Statist, who wants his people to be subjects of the State. And Hugo Chavez is one of Fidel Castro’s biggest admirers.

Source: The Atlantic– President Fidel Castro ( Communist Republic of Cuba ) and President Hugo Chavez ( Socialist Republic of Venezuela )

So why would Social Democrats or Democratic Socialists, people like Sean Penn who I generally have a lot of respect for, respect him more as an actor ( but that’s a different story ) be standing up for people who are anti-democratic? First it’s Castro, now it’s Chavez, who is next President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation? Who’s not a Communist but certainly a Statist, who’s really Russia’s version of a Nationalist.

I can understand why Democratic Socialists would speak highly of European Socialists or Canadian Socialists, but all those people are Democratic Socialists. Those are the people that regressive so-called Progressives like Sean Penn and others should be speaking highly of. Not Communists in Cuba, Venezuela or anywhere else, people who hold their own people down, because they don’t want them to be powerful on their own. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez aren’t people to be admired, unless you are a Communist.

Not Progressives seem to have this notion that Americans, especially the Federal Government, have no right to criticize people in other countries. Because we aren’t perfect, that we can’t speak out against voter fraud in Venezuela or anywhere else. Because we have voter fraud in our own country. If that was the rule, then no one would ever be able to criticize anyone else. Because no one is perfect and this would be a very quiet world.

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The Onion: Socialism Vs. Capitalism: How About Democratic Socialism vs. Objectivism

href=”http://thedailyreview1975.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-onion-socialism-vs-capitalism-how.html”>The Onion: Socialism Vs. Capitalism: How About Democratic Socialism vs. Objectivism

Just to be serious for a minute or so and risk losing viewers who are expecting nothing but laughs from me and for me to be an asshole. Socialism vs capitalism, is not a real debate. Socialism, is a broad collectivist political philosophy. Capitalism, is an individualist economic system that every developed country in the world has a version of including social democracies. Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, go down the line. The amount of major countries in the world that don’t have a capitalist system, you can now count on one hand and perhaps not need a second finger. Just chop off the other four, or save yourself from some extreme pain and point out North Korea and perhaps Syria. While you hold your other fingers down. This should really be capitalism vs Marxism, or capitalism, vs Communism.

So let’s try it this way and compare democratic socialism and use perhaps Bernie Sanders as the elected leader and not Marxist dictator. Versus what I at least call Randism, that I personally named after Ayn Rand and name Ayn their leader. You should’ve seen the ceremony, because it was beautiful. No one forced Ayn to show up, because she’s an objectivist and showed up voluntarily.

You have Democratic Socialists who say that the state or society as a whole is the most important thing. And because of that you can’t let people to be free and as individualist as they want. Because some people are just better and more productive than others, which will make the poor and ignorant look even worst and hurt their self-esteem. They say what we should do is have a big central state and not even have states and localities with much power over their own affairs either. Because if they’re free to do well than others will be free to struggle. And one part of country will be doing very well, because they know how to educate, how to build, how to regulate, how to tax and everything else. While other parts of the country will have central planners who don’t do much else than planning screw ups. And their people will suffer as a result. So you need a big central state to run things from government central to take care of the nation.

And then you have Randian’s or Libertarians, or Objectivists. Who say, “what’s mine is all mine! And anything that government take is a form of theft! And any type of regulation is a form of imprisonment.” So in a Randian system, government doesn’t tax or regulate. Just arrests criminals and imprisons them. (I guess after a fair trial) And protects the country when it’s under attack. How they even pay for that? Your guess is as good as mine. They would say tariffs, but Randian’s also believe in free trade and part of free trade is low tariffs. In a Randian system, instead of government trying to do practically everything for everybody, short of running business’s, government does practically nothing for no one. Except when a someone becomes a victim of a predator.

So you have Democratic Socialists who say that the collective is more important than the individual. They say you can’t have people living for themselves and showing everybody how much smarter, more productive and cooler they are than Joe and Jane Average, as well as Tom and Mary Below Average, and John and Susan Moron. They say what instead society should do in a Democratic Socialist’s mind is say that at the very least Bob and Anne Rich, should take care of the Average’s, the Below Average’s and the Moron’s, because they can afford to. That if you encourage people to become independent of the state as far as trying to succeed financially, then that is exactly what will happen. So you need big government to step in and prevent that from happening so everyone is taken care of.

With the Randian’s saying, “of course we want to be free on their own! And is someone falls down, people especially Bob and Anne Rich and other Rich’s, will step in and take care of the people who fall on hard times.’ Democratic socialism, is not the ultimate of collectivist economic systems. But only Marxism beats it when it comes to collectivism. Randism, is not the most individualist of economic systems, but anarchism beats it. But Democratic socialism and Randism, are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Democratic socialism, has at least one thing on Randism, it has been tried and still in use in the world with success. Randism, well there might be more Randians than Marxists right now, but a squirrel is bigger than a mouse, so what. I’m not a fan of either, but they’re both fascinating to follow.

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The Hollywood Reporter: Victims of Hollywood’s Blacklist

Source: The Hollywood Reporter– One of the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist 

Source: The New Democrat Plus

I don’t think there’s anything more Un-American and Un-liberal democratic as punishing people simply because of what they believe and their politics. But that is what the U.S. House of Representatives decided to do in 1946-47 and they had a bipartisan coalition to do that. And they had help from the Hollywood industry itself to try to stamp out as people that they saw as Un-American because they had socialist if not communist leanings. These actors, writers, directors and other people weren’t punished because they were doing bad jobs. But because they believed in a more socialistic and collectivist society for America.

Its one thing to disagree with one’s politics and I’m certainly not a Socialist or a Communist and how supporters talk about communism I’m having a hard time telling the difference between communism and socialism. But it’s another thing to say that person or those people are bad simply because they believe there shouldn’t be rich or poor and that we need a more collectivist society and economy where everyone can do well and where there is no rich or poor. They weren’t talking about tearing down the liberal democratic form of government in America and replacing it with an authoritarian state.

If you truly love America and what we stand for as a country, then you love and believe in Freedom of Speech with almost no exceptions. The right for people to believe, think and say what they believe. Without it costing them job opportunities simply because of what they believe. Doesn’t mean people can’t be questioned, criticized and even contradicted over what they believe because that is part for free speech and debate. But you simply don’t blacklist people can cost them jobs simply because of their political beliefs. You judge them based on how good they are for the job that they are a candidate for and their qualifications for that job.
The Hollywood Reporter: Victims of Hollywood’s Blacklist

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Matthew Hormann: The Hollywood Ten, 1950

Gary Cooper

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat Plus

I don’t want to sound overly partisan here, but this was one of the ugliest anti-American, anti-liberal democratic, illiberal periods in American history. Where Americans were judged by who they associated with and political causes they supported and political candidates they may have endorsed in the past. Instead of being judged by their character and how they conduct themselves and the jobs that they do and what they contribute to America. And this period of the late 1940s early 1950s look like how elements of today’s so-called Tea Party treat Americans that don’t believe the way they do and share their culture and political values.

This period between 1947 or so when Republicans won back Congress both the House and Senate up until Senator Joe McCarthy’s so-called investigation of supposed Communists in the U.S. Government is Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh or Mike Savage Neoconservative Utopia. They accused Americans of supporting things that they claim that they don’t. Which is fascism and telling Americans that they disagree with politically that they are Un-American simply for exercising their constitutional rights of Freedom of Assembly, Speech and Thought. As well as privacy which has never been popular with the Far-Right in America anyway.

People in Hollywood were simply denied jobs and the ability to earn a living simply because of who they may have associated with in the past and political candidates they may have endorsed. Not because of movies that they made or roles that they played and how they played them and how they made movies. But what they did in their personal and free time. Endorsing political candidates that members of Congress both in the Republican Party and Democratic Party and executives in Hollywood saw as dangerous. And this is one of the ugliest periods in American history both in Hollywood and in the U.S. Congress.

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HBO: Real Time With Bill Maher- Bernie Sanders Standing Up For Socialist Values

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

At risk of sounding simplistic, there’s a reason why we live on a planet with somewhere around a hundred-eighty countries or so and not live on a planet with no countries, but with one huge central authority in charge. Because we have different populations, people’s, cultures, values and everything else all over the planet. And what works in one country or even in a block of countries, might not work somewhere else with a completely different economy, with different resources, responsibilities, threats, populations and everything else.

My point is that U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters, the social democratic-left in America lets say, have a tendency to say, “this is how it’s done in Europe with government doing so much for their people and everything else. It seems to work there and their people love it. Which is why should adopt that economic system here and do it the European way”. Apparently unaware, or ignoring the obvious facts that Europe and the states there are completely different societies. That for one thing don’t even have to worry about their own national defense, because America is responsible for it.

Americans tend to be rugged, individualist, free, wanting to be able to make their own decisions and live their own lives. And in many cases hate to have to take any public or even private charity. And when they do, they tend to see that as some type of failure and have let themselves and their families down. Europe is the complete opposite of that and if anything love taking public assistance from their government and would riot if the government were to cut their public assistance. And freak out about having to pay for their own childcare out of their pocket and not taxes and actually have to take responsibility for themselves. And this is just an example of the culture differences.

Americans figured out a long time ago, well most of us did, our Socialists are still late to this dance, or still at the door, or not even there yet, perhaps sitting out the dance that there’s a limit to what we want government to do for us. That instead we want to be free as possible to take care of us as much as possible. And then if we run into financial trouble, like being out of a job and just lost our savings as part of that result, then we would want to be able to take public assistance in the short-term until we can get ourselves back on our feet. With a good job that gives us the freedom to do those things.

That’s the main difference from a liberal democracy, a liberal society the free society that the American Founding Fathers, the Founding Liberals wanted to create for America. And in the last two-hundred plus years we’ve worked as a country to improve our society so as many Americans as possible have that freedom to manage their own lives and Europe. Which is the opposite of that where they want to be taxed to the point where no one is completely free to take care of themselves. Because they believe when they move as a national unit, they move better with no one being too rich or poor and moving together.

So when Bernie Sanders Social Democrats say that, “Europe does it this way, so should we”, they are comparing Massachusetts with Texas. What is done in Massachusetts, is not wanted in Texas and vice-versa. Both states have figured out an economic system and government that works for them. But that doesn’t mean it will work for everyone in the country. Americans like being able to have the freedom to make their own decisions and you need your money in order to do that. Europeans at least in a lot of cases see that as selfish or materialistic and would freak out and even riot if their government’s forced them to take responsibility over their own lives. Just some of the differences between America and Europe.

HBO: Real Time With Bill Maher- Bernie Sanders Standing Up For Socialist Values

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Radical Films: U.S. House Un-American Activities- Looking For Communists in Hollywood

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

The House Un-American Activities Committee and then later the Joe McCarthy Government Oversight Committee in the Senate were classic cases of guilt by association. Because they assumed some Americans were Un-American and not deserving of being Americans simply because of people they may have associated with and political positions they may have held. Not because of any illegal activities they have been involved in. Which is how we are supposed to judge people’s involvement in criminal activity.

The United States a liberal democracy where Americans have the right to believe what they believe. And say what they want to say with a few exceptions. Like encouraging violence or libeling people without any basis in fact. Yelling fire in tight public spaces. But for the most part our own politics is our own business. And we are free to either express our own political opinions, or opinions about any other subjects or not. And not be held criminally libel because of what we believe.

But what we got instead from these Congressional communist investigative committees was guilt by association that ruined a lot of good productive Americans lives. And for what, so people on the far-right and people simply just looking for political advancement, Senator Joe McCarthy comes to mind, could have a big issue and use it to advance their own political careers. No matter who they may hurt along the way which is about as Un-American as it gets.

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VOA News: ‘Rebels With a Cause Slam Corporate Greed’

Source:VOA News– with a look at Rebels With a Cause.

“Two new films focus on fringe groups who take social justice into their own hands. With a tongue-in-cheek approach, the films The East and Now You See Me offer 21st century Robin Hood-type plots where young vigilantes target corporate greed. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.”

Source:Encula Rutchel

Sounds like the Symbionese Liberation Army of the 21st Century. The Symbionese from the early and mid 1970s were also New-Left (if not Far-Left radicals) who were fed up with poverty and what they called corporate greed. And saw the wealthy as the main if not only culprit with these issues. And took it upon themselves to kidnap Patty Hearst, the daughter of a very wealthy California family. And would give the Patty back only if her father paid the SLA off. And then the SLA would give the money to poor people in poor Oakland communities and other towns in California. Rebels With a Cause, aren’t kidnappers, but people who also have a similar Robinhood image.

Apparently this movie was first put forward in the fall of 2011 when Occupy Wall Street came out. And they became the New-Left radicals of this decade that were going to fight against what they saw as greedy capitalism and private enterprise. If not capitalism and private enterprise all together. And fight for new wealth redistribution to tax money from the wealthy to take care of the poor. But by in-large there haven’t been any terrorists linked to OWS. Just people protesting for not having permits and causing disturbances, but not actually robbing banks and taking people hostage. Unlike the SLA.

Whether you’re a fan of what’s corporate greed and crony capitalism, or not and I’m sure as hell not as a Liberal, there are ways of fighting bad things and ways not to do that. Violence, almost never accomplishes political objectives when you don’t have the people behind you and you’re just a fringe group.

The way to fights injustice in America, is to have the people behind you and build a movement and get the resources that you need from the people behind you. And then form a protest movement to accomplish your objectives. Publish articles, put together publications about what you’re trying to accomplish and back politicians and political candidates who believe in what you want. And will then fight for it. Instead of violently trying to overthrow the system and creating new victims.

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The New Republic: Cass R. Sunstein- ‘Why Paternalism is Our Friend’

Source:The New Republic– New York City Nanny, I mean Mayor (call it a slip of the tongue) Michael Bloomberg.

Source:FRS FreeState

“The nanny state is in the news. A lot of people have been outraged by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to restrict soda sizes, recently overturned by a state court, and some people do not much like his proposal to ban cigarette displays in New York stores. If you share the outrage, you should recognize that various forms of paternalism are all around you, and at least some of them aren’t so bad.

Last year, new government regulations required automobile companies to increase the fuel economy of their cars, to a point where the fleet-wide average must exceed 50 miles per gallon by 2025. True, those regulations will reduce air pollution and promote energy independence, but the majority of the benefits come in the form of gas savings for consumers. For those who abhor paternalism, here’s the problem: Consumers can already buy high MPG cars, and many of them just aren’t doing so, even though they might well save money over the life of the vehicle. If the government is making the fleet a lot more fuel-efficient than consumers demand, is it operating as the national nanny, or the Gasoline Police? Should people be outraged about that?

Paternalism comes in a lot of shapes and sizes, and to come to terms with it, we need to offer a working definition. What seems to unify paternalistic approaches, however diverse, is that government does not believe that people’s choices will promote their welfare, and it is taking steps to influence or alter people’s choices for their own good.”

From The New Republic

“New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a two-time Nanny of the Month and 2009’s Nanny of the Year, is back to save us from ourselves yet again!

In order to promote breastfeeding, Bloomberg has ordered all public city hospitals to lock up free samples of baby formula. New mothers who are unable to breastfeed – or simply choose not to – can still get formula, but only after enduring a lecture from a hospital employee on the benefits of the boob over the bottle.

Reason TV’s Kennedy spoke with Susan Burger, a certified lactation consultant, who supports the mayor’s initiative on the grounds that “the real intent of that law is to protect breastfeeding mothers [and] their freedom of choice to breastfeed.”

Source:Reason Magazine– New York City Nanny, I mean Mayor (call it a slip of the tongue) Michael Bloomberg.

From Reason Magazine

Before I get into what I really want to talk about, I’m going to start this post off with a question: What the hell happened to the New Republic? Because before they got new management and Chris Hughes became its new editor, this was a real liberal democratic magazine. The official liberal democratic magazine in America that had a healthy skepticism about governmental power. That all seems to be gone now and now they are sounding like defenders of the state, especially the nanny state.

The current version of The New Republic seems to believe that freedom is dangerous and that it shouldn’t be our goal or the job of government to protect our freedom, but literally to protect the people, as if we are morons or little children and can’t do that for ourselves. And even if that means protecting people from themselves and even locking them up for their own good when they make choices that aren’t in their best interest.

Reading the New Republic now, except for Jeff Rosen who is a real Liberal, is like reading the The Nation magazine or the AlterNet, or listening to the political commentary on MSNBC: it’s “big government knows best and has all the answers and individual freedom and choice are dangerous”.

They are paternalists on the far-left, people who I really don’t even call Progressives any more but paternalists or prohibitionists. Prohibition is a statist idea by the way, but I generally what I call people who think like this whether they are on the Far-Left or Far-Right, are nanny statists or nanny staters. People who believe that it’s the job of government to protect people even from themselves.

And when you combine paternalism when it comes to personal or social issues with socialism as it relates to economic policy and you believe in things like nationalizing the healthcare and health insurance systems, as well as the retirement system and perhaps even the banking system, maybe even the energy industry and you combine that nanny statism on social issues, you really have what looks like communism. You got a King Kong size big government there to protect people from themselves: “Because big government is our friend and freedom and freedom of choice is our enemy”. That it’s not big government that’s the problem, but that big government is our friend and should direct how we live our own lives.

Paternalism whether it comes from the Far-Left as it relates to the War on Drugs, alcohol prohibition, tobacco, junk food, soft drinks, or whether it comes from the Far-Right as it relates to violent video games or pornography, or trying to outlaw pre-marital sex, or adultery or divorce, it doesn’t work. Because if people want to do things bad enough, they’ll find a way to do it and damn the consequences.

One of the reasons why we have taxes and regulations in America is to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior. Not to manage people’s lives for them. That if you want people to make healthy choices, you subsidize that and penalize them when they make unhealthy choices.

To respond to the argument that Cass Sunstein is trying to make which really sounds like he’s trying to pick up the pieces for the nanny state proponents: the regulations he’s talking about are regulations regarding businesses, not individuals. Businesses are also not allowed to hire people to whack out the competition for them. That’s also for the welfare for the general public, but that doesn’t help his case.

 

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AP: Warren Levinson- ‘Occupy Wall Street: One Year Later’

Source:Associated Press– Pete Dutro use to be one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street.
Source:FRS FreeState

“To mark the one-year-anniversary of the Occupy movement on September 17th , current and former members talk to the Associated Press about the changes they see in the organization.”

From the Associated Press

Occupy Wall Street started off as a I guess left-wing social democratic (even though there are Communists who part of OWS) movement a year ago, that was pissed off at Wall Street and corporate America as a whole. And seeing them get bail outs while they saw the rest of the country as they put it got austerity and decided that they were: “Mad as Hell and weren’t going to take it anymore.” Or perhaps even stronger language than that)

OWS was a very focused and fairly disciplined movement, especially for Socialists who aren’t known for discipline or even believing in it. And that’s how they were successful in its first few months: “This is what’s bad, we have the people with us and we need to stop this.”

And then OWS could go about fixing the problems, instead of making them worst and were successful in not only getting attention from the national media, but getting people behind them as well. Even Democrats not so much the leadership, but some Congressional Democrats in both the House and Senate who are so far to the Left as they are and also have a hard time seeing the center and perhaps center-left with a telescope, such as OWS. And they even managed to not only communicate what they believe is wrong with the country, as far as the economy, but we’re able to start to put together their own social democratic agenda.

OWS moves from talking about what they don’t like about capitalism and corporate America, to preserving social insurance programs, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But what they would do about the “too big to fail banks”, breaking them up or nationalizing them. As well as things like universal higher education, protecting organize labor and debt forgiveness for students and other things.

But now OWS seems to be about complaining about ever society ill that the country seems to be going through. Jump from one problem to another without any real focus or discipline and living up to one of the negative stereotypes that Socialists have. They’ve become like kids who when they get a new toy, they see something else that they want and now have lost all interest in their first toy. They’ve become like children.

That’s how Occupy Wall Street started out, but by the late spring and summer they had already lost whatever momentum they were able to build up from the fall and winter of 2011-12 and started looking more like rioters or anarchists and with all the arrests they started piling up. They were like fireworks that are lighted on July Fourth, that burn out with in minutes. And started piling up arrests at their rallies and events. And once a movement gets to that point, its hard for Americans who unless they are die-hard supporters of you, to take you seriously: “Why should I pay attention to them. They are just some whacked-out fringe: why should I take them seriously.”

And because of this, the Democratic Leadership, has never really gotten behind them. Because unlike Republicans, Democrats understand that there’s a certain responsibility to being part of a major political party. That you can’t afford to look like you are part of a fringe movement, because you are supposed to be the adults in the room.

Right now in America again unless you are a big supporter of Occupy Wall Street, they look like some whacked-out Far-Left socialist party, that are champions of big government and high taxes, which hasn’t played well in this country for a long time.

And even worst, OWS looks like anarchists people who are so out of their minds they aren’t capable of having an adult conversation, which is why they are struggling to be taken seriously.Even fringe movements need ties and have a base with reality and how the world works, so they can be as successful as possible. Even if it comes off as stale or old school to their supporters.

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Associated Press: Raw Video- ‘New York Debates Proposed Ban on Sugary Drinks’

Source:Associated Press– a spokeswoman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Independent, New York)
Source:FRS FreeState

“New York faced the next step in a bitter battle over large sugary drinks Tuesday, with the soft drink and restaurant industries protesting the mayor’s proposed ban and the public lining up to have its say.”

From the Associated Press

NYPD: “Son, you need to put that slurpy before it eventually kills you or rots out your teeth.” No, I don’t know if that cop in this cartoon actually said that to this little boy, but that’s the attitude that nanny statists on the Far-Left represent in America: “Big Government knows what’s best for the people. The people are too dumb to make their own decisions.”

Source:FRS FreeState– Welcome to Mike Bloomberg’s New York Nanny.

Another example of blogging on a slow news day, I’m probably just a step away from bloggers block if there’s such a thing. And if there isn’t, I just invented it.

I know I covered this back in June (but like I said, it’s a slow news day) but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently has had some vision that he knows how New Yorker’s and perhaps Americans in general, how they should live better than the people themselves. He has the classic one- size fits all to governing, that if this works for him or other people, that it must work for everyone.

In 2008 the prospect of Mike Bloomberg running for President as an Independent, didn’t bother me. He seemed like a classical Northeastern Republican: “keep big government out of our wallets and bedrooms” Republican. But now he seems not only believe that big government should be in our wallets, like calling for all the Bush tax cuts to expire on everyone, including the middle class, but Mayor Bloomberg also wants big government down our throats. Telling us what we can drink and how much we can drink, he’s becoming a hero in today’s so-called progressive (communist, in actuality) politics.

What New York is attempting to do with soft drinks is another example of prohibition. If New Yorker’s can’t get large sodas in the city, then they go to Long Island, North Jersey or Connecticut, someplace where people have the freedom to decide how much they can drink and eat. Of course as long as they have the money to pay for it and then if that jurisdiction has a sales tax, they’ll end up paying taxes on those products that they buy. Which will go to help that jurisdiction pay for schools, roads, hospitals, everything that communities need to be vibrant.

Tax money that could’ve otherwise been spent in New York is now helping local jurisdictions outside of New York, pay for those services. That’s what leftists and religious fundamentalists have never figured out about prohibition, that just because you tell people they can’t do something, doesn’t mean they stop doing it. It’s just done in other ways and in other areas.

If you think people are living unhealthy and you believe that this unhealthy living is somehow negatively affects the rest of society as a whole and you want to correct that bad behavior, what you should do is incentivize people to correct that behavior. Have them pay a price for living unhealthy, short of putting them in jail. And have them pay a financial cost for living unhealthy. Like taxing soft drinks extra than what you would tax water or milk.

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