Progressives Seek To Impose the Iron Cage on America

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 12:25 PM  | 

Sociologist, Max Weber famously wrote about the good, the bad and the ugly facets of bureaucracies. He saw them as a necessary evil that needed to be kept in check. He feared a technocratic dictatorship of Nietzchean Last Men. Weber’s argument is described below.

Iron cage, a sociological concept introduced by Max Weber, refers to the increased rationalization inherent in social life, particularly in Western capitalist societies. The “iron cage” thus traps individuals in systems based purely on teleological efficiency, rational calculation and control. Weber also described the bureaucratization of social order as “the polar night of icy darkness”.

-(HT:wikipedia)

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It is Time for Some Honesty.

By: Thomas Crown (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 11:18 AM  | 

In a turn of events that should be a surprise only if you’ve never heard of Mitch McConnell before, the Senate — with one heck of a lot of Senate Republicans, including nominal conservatives, agreeing — just decided to hike taxes on small businesses and skip any spending cuts of any kind, and over a third of the Republican caucus including the Speaker agreed. Indeed, | Read More »

Breaking Down the Fiscal Cliff Deal

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 10:01 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to break down the Fiscal Cliff deal, what it does and doesn’t address and the business community’s reaction.

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‘House GOP in Disarray’ Isn’t Just Liberal Media Spin

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 09:17 AM  | 

Many Republicans are trying ton convince themselves that they will make up ground on the spending side of the equation come the debt ceiling fight. Mr. Obama says he will not negotiate, but he is going to have to. The problem for the GOP is that its House leadership is working at cross purposes and really is in the disarray the “liberal media” keeps saying. | Read More »

Is There Really a Difference Anymore?

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 06:54 AM  | 

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike.  No questions, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.  [Animal Farm, last paragraph] Republicans were ushered into power in 2010, buoyed by | Read More »

A New Agenda

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 2nd at 04:30 AM  | 

As we start the new year, it is sad to see so many Republicans patting themselves on the back, Grover Norquist included it seems, saying, “It’s ok, it really was a tax decrease because it is Tuesday.” The one pledge to rule them all got obfuscated away conveniently and it is time to move on to a new agenda for the Republican Party. We are | Read More »

The McConnell Tax Hike

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 1st at 08:38 PM  | 

The McConnell Tax Hike will become law of the land. Mitch McConnell can and should take responsibility for it. The McConnell Tax Hike raises taxes on people making over $400,000.00, but it also raises taxes on the middle class. “More than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes.” Not only does the McConnell Tax Hike stick it to | Read More »

The House Must Act Now

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  January 1st at 02:59 PM  | 

Well, we really stuck it to the rich at 1:39 in the morning.  Whew, now we can breathe a sigh of relief.  The 40 Republicans who voted for Obama’s stimulus bill had to swallow hard voting for over $100 billion in new spending just in 2013, but at least those of us who are not super rich won’t see our taxes increase this year. Oh | Read More »

Obama Has His Revenue. Time for Republicans to Step Up or Get Out.

By: Ben Howe (Diary)  |  January 1st at 02:17 PM  | 

Most of my morning has been spent listening to the two camps on twitter and in the news. Half say we got a bad deal in the Fiscal Cliff debate. The other half say we got the best we could and should be happy with the concessions we extracted from the Democrats. From the beginning, this negotiation has been a mess. Every day we were | Read More »

House Republicans: Don’t Play the Game

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 1st at 10:15 AM  | 

Last night, without any legislative language, the Senate Republicans and Democrats voted to raise taxes. They did not just vote to raise income taxes. They voted to raise the payroll tax on all Americans. This will hurt small businesses. Ironically, this plan generates less revenue than even John Boehner’s Plan B option. But both options, as I have long maintained, were only about breaking the | Read More »

Tom Coburn, Ron Johnson, and Pat Toomey Should be Ashamed

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 1st at 09:49 AM  | 

Tom Coburn cares about the size and scope of the federal government. So do Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey. But they just voted for a tax increase with legislation that was not even publicly available. In other words, they voted for a law that was not even written for them to review. And what was in the law? Nothing to rein in the size of | Read More »

Hey House Republicans, Here’s What Obama is Saying Today

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 1st at 09:27 AM  | 

As Chad Pergram notes on twitter, Ed Henry reports the White House is calling getting the GOP to break its tax pledge, “One of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple of decades.” See how this is already being spun. Do you really want to do this? You have a choice. Oppose this deal. It does nothing to solve our problems. It does | Read More »

Senate passes Obama’s fiscal cliff tax increases in dead of night

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  January 1st at 06:52 AM  | 

In a move all too reminiscent of the passage of the ever unpopular ObamaCare, last night the Senate voted 89 to 8 to approve the so-called “American Taxpayer Relief Act” (H.R. 8, as amended). The deal was negotiated by Vice President Joseph Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. You can read the 157 page bill here. It is very unlikely that any Senator actually | Read More »

Fiscal Deal: Tax Hikes, Green Pork, Stimulus, Oh My

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  December 31st at 06:58 PM  | 

Surprise surprise, they have a deal to avoid the politicians’ cliff.  Who didn’t see that coming? Here’s an enigmatic riddle for you: what happens when Republicans publicly obsess about the degree of tax increases they are willing to accept without a commensurate demand for spending cuts?  You get tax hikes and no spending cuts!  In fact, we will spend even more as a result of | Read More »

(Alleged) Occupy Wall Street activist arrested in ANOTHER (alleged) bomb plot.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  December 31st at 04:00 PM  | 

To the best of my knowledge, accused bombmaker Aaron Greene is not linked in any formal way to last year’s plot by Occupy Wall Street activists to bomb a Columbus, Ohio bridge. Then again, it’s not entirely clear what Greene was (allegedly) planning to bomb: when the cops arrested him and his bourgeois moll Morgan Gliedman they had just gotten to the stage of putting | Read More »