Jun
8
2025

I'm a Sucker For Even a Subtle Bastiat Reference

Scott Lincicome makes one:

That, in turn, causes Donald Boudreaux to issue his Question for Fans of Tariffs and of Tariff Man:

If it’s ethical and economically wise to impose tariffs on foreign cars in order to artificially increase the demand for American-made new cars, is it also ethical and economically wise to impose punitive taxes on Americans’ purchases of used cars? This latter tax has exactly the same effect on the market for new American-made cars as does the former tax. If you favor tariffs on imported new cars but oppose taxes on purchases of used cars, please identify the difference you see that distinguishes one of these taxes from the other.

Since I have no patience with subtlety, I'll point you to Bastiat's famous Candlestick makers' Petition, which argues for that industry's "protection" against the "rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light."

(Also, Tariff Man's superpower of tax-setting only applies to tariffs. Right? I mean, he couldn't arbitrarily impose a sales tax on used cars! Um, he couldn't, could he?)

Also of note:

  • Remind you of anyone? Jeffrey Blehar thinks recent news implies That's a Wrap for Greta Thunberg. (NR gifted link)

    A brief note on everybody’s least favorite hectoring eco-scold: I regret to inform you that Greta Thunberg is in the news again. It barely matters why, really — more nonsense about Gaza and “genocide.” We’ll get to that in a moment, but that’s not really why we’re here.

    You remember young Greta, right? The vinegar-rictused, Swedish ecological activist whom the media turned into a global celebrity back in 2018? You probably recall some of the details, but it’s always healthy to remind ourselves of what an amazingly different era 2018 was: A teenage girl successfully leveraged her ecological neuroses to trick her parents into letting her skip school on Fridays.

    This would have been impressive enough, but then — in a move that surely must have surprised even her — the global leftist elite also decided to grant Thunberg worldwide fame and Unquestionable Moral Authority in the bargain. She was the perfect avatar, after all, eager to read from a script they had been writing in their hearts for decades now: The planet is dying, future generations are doomed to tragedy, it’s all the fault of us selfish oil-guzzling adults — and now, here’s an enraged 15-year-old girl to guilt-trip you about it.

    Jeffrey is firmly in the pantheon of Pun Salad's Favorite Writers.

    But to the query in this item's headline: Greta's trajectory is reminding me of Cindy Sheehan's descent into obscurity, once she transformed herself from "tragic peacenik mom" into "raving Marxist loon."

    The media only love you when you're useful for Establishing Their Narrative.

  • On the other hand, none of us would be here without it. Carrie Lukas thinks Michelle Obama’s Latest Lament Hints at a Gender Politics Reset.

    ​On a recent episode of her podcast, Michelle Obama said that “the least of what” a woman’s reproductive system does is “produce life.” The comment drew quick criticism — and for good reason. To be fair, Obama quickly added, “it’s a very important thing that it does,” but her initial statement confirmed a too-familiar callousness toward the miraculous process of producing a life.

    Obama’s dismissiveness of childbearing, however, may be “the least of what” was revealed in her statements. The perpetually aggrieved Obama wants to lean back into a comfortable narrative in which women are victims and progressive Democrats like her are their champions. As she puts it:

    So many men have no idea about what women go through, right? We haven’t been researched. We haven’t been considered. And it still affects the way a lot of male lawmakers, a lot of male politicians, a lot of male religious leaders, think about the issue of choice as if it’s just about the fetus. The baby.

    Obama is right, of course, that no man knows the experience of inhabiting a female body, let alone the physical experience of growing another human being. This doesn’t mean that men shouldn’t weigh in on the issue of abortion, as Obama seems to imply, but certainly it’s good advice that men should take care to recognize the profound implications that any pregnancy has on a woman anytime they are discussing abortion.

    Michelle is probably not going to go the Cindy/Greta route, but she's almost as irritating in her dismissal of "males".

  • "Due process" fans aren't making a lot of noise about this. Jacob Sullum looks at the ins and outs, ups and downs, and what the Hell happened to the Sixth Amendment: Charging a runner for using an unapproved trail defies Trump's overcriminalization order.

    When the federal government decided to prosecute mountain runner Michelino Sunseri for using an unapproved trail while setting a record for ascending and descending Grand Teton in September 2024, it seemed like a good example of a problem that President Donald Trump decried in an executive order last month: "overcriminalization in federal regulations." The National Park Service (NPS) ultimately agreed, saying it was "withdrawing its criminal prosecution referral" after "further review" in light of the president's order. But the Justice Department proceeded with the case anyway, resulting in a two-day bench trial that ended on May 21.

    That disagreement, revealed in an email chain that Sunseri's lawyers obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, raises questions about whether prosecutors met their constitutional obligation to share information that would have been helpful to the defense. It also casts doubt on whether the Justice Department is complying with the policy described in Trump's order, which said federal prosecutors should eschew charges involving regulatory crimes unless they have evidence indicating that the defendant knowingly violated the law.

    What was I saying about the Sixth Amendment? Oh, right:

    [U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie] Hambrick rejected Sunseri's request for a jury trial, which she was allowed to do under a "petty offense exception" that the Supreme Court has atextually carved out of the Sixth Amendment. That amendment says defendants "in all criminal prosecutions" have a right to "a speedy and public trial" by "an impartial jury."

    "Atextually" here means that SCOTUS made up an exception to the Sixth Amendment's guarantee in complete contradiction to the its plain language. Kinda outrageous.

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