BrianGarst.com

I gave my reasons why I don’t care about the State of the Union Address. But Kevin Williamson did it better:

Kevin D. Williamson, “Great Caesar’s Ghost:”

The national self-debasement begins well before the speech is under way. Members of Congress — supposedly free men and women serving as the elected representatives of the citizens of a self-governing republic — arrive hours early, camping out like spotty-faced adolescents waiting for Justin Bieber tickets, in the hope of staking out some prime center-aisle real estate that they might be seen on television, if only for a second or two, being greeted by the national pontifex maximus as he makes his stately procession into the chamber.

…But they will listen, rapt, and the media mandarins afterward will evaluate each promise with great sobriety, ignoring entirely that the central promise made during the same charlatan’s first State of the Union address was subsequently labeled “Lie of the Year” by the great man’s own frustrated admirers. That an entire class of people should be so enthusiastic about being lied to, serially, is perplexing.

Gene Healy, “Most Americans shrug at State of the Union spectacle:”

In its modern form, the SOTU is a meaningless ritual that rarely even does the president — let alone the public — any good.

That’s bad news for a chief executive whose chief talent is speechifying. “I have a gift, Harry,” then-Sen. Obama unhumblebragged to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., some years ago, in the afterglow of a well-received speech. But according to the polling data and the political science research, it’s a gift that won’t keep on giving.

Matt K. Lewis, “How ‘overcriminalization’ makes it easier to target political enemies:”

Regardless of whether the Obama administration is targeting conservatives, or whether its political enemies just happen to be particularly corrupt and incompetent, we should be equally concerned about a growing trend that would aid any vengeful political regime: The rise of onerous laws and arbitrary regulations that criminalize the routine function of politics and business.

After all, overt political paybacks are far easier to spot (and punish) than a pervasive system whereby one must break the law in order to get ahead — and where punishment of the guilty can then be selectively enforced.

Russ Roberts, “Real prosperity:”

I don’t really like the word “market.” Too much shorthand for a rich concept of exchange that allows for the possibility of specialization that allows for more investment in capital (human or physical) that leads to higher productivity that leads to prosperity and growth. Adam Smith understood this a long time ago and his insights have somehow been lost to much of the economics profession. At the heart of Smith’s insights into exchange and specialization and the division of labor is that we get wealthy by figuring out ways to create products and services that have value to other people.  That is what is missing in the parts of Africa that Sachs was trying to help. If you don’t have ways to help other people though exchange, you can’t have prosperity or even take steps toward prosperity.