2-27-16 Hodgepodge

Leftists: The Uber Made Him Do It

Investor's Business Daily explains the bizarre leftist attacks on Uber in the wake of a recent mass murder in Michigan by a man who also solicited riders with the app:

What bothers them is that Uber -- and Lyft, and other fast growing Internet-based sharing services -- don't depend on government-issued licenses, inspections, regulations, etc., to protect its customers.

Uber does do background checks on its drivers -- looking for a criminal record or motor vehicle violations -- but it relies on real-time customer ratings of those drivers to maintain safety and quality. If a driver's average rating falls below a set level, they're booted from the service.

It's a brilliant free-market solution for consumer safety, much like eBay's rating system for buyers and sellers who never meet face to face.

The article goes on to list quite a few crimes committed by government-anointed taxi drivers, including, an incident in New Orleans, in which, a "Yellow Cab driver shot a woman who had the misfortune of pulling up next to him at a stop light."

Weekend Reading

"Do you want what real conservatives want, Mr. Trump?" -- Michael Hurd, in "An Open Letter to Donald Trump" at Newsmax

"It's unhealthy to expect a partner to change fundamentally." -- Michael Hurd, in "How (Not) to Ask Romantic Partners to Change" at The Delaware Wave

"Calling [rushing] multitasking is nothing more than a silly rationalization." -- Michael Hurd, in "Six Steps to Help You Slow Down" at The Delaware Coast Press

Rights Need Not Apply?

The Nashville chapter of Black Lives Matter recently accused a public library of "white supremacy" for refusing to host (at public expense) a meeting "only black people as well as non-black people of color [would be] allowed to attend."

This charge is wrong-headed, because the library is a government entity. Thus, since there can be any number of reasons, including bigotry, for holding an event open only to people with certain visually identifiable traits, it must refrain from hosting any such events. Allowing a government entity to do something like this would set the precedent for a return to the Jim Crow era.

That said, the church that finally hosted the event does have property rights, and should be allowed to host such an event, for whatever purpose. (And if it the purpose were bigotry, shame, ostracization, and boycotts -- not property-rights-violating "anti-discrimination" laws -- are the proper response.)

It is easy, after seeing the near-hysterical response to the phrase, "All lives matter," by many BLM'ers to pounce on this incident as an example of anti-white racism, which it may well be. But more bothersome is the fact that the government has had a long history of violating property rights, via Jim Crow in the past, by racial quotas and affirmative action today, and by its numerous intrusions into the private sector (of which public libraries are but an example) throughout our history. This makes it possible for pressure groups to acquire power over individuals that they should not have. Unlimited government -- not racism, which unlimited government can greatly empower -- is the greatest threat to freedom these days, and it must be curtailed. Government must be brought back to within its proper scope, which is the protection of individual rights.

-- CAV

Updates

2-28-16: Corrected a typo.