Leviathan Ankle-Biter

Bringing down Leviathan’s welfare-police state, one ankle-bite at a time

Leviathan’s lament: I bought these voters and they didn’t stay bought!

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
May 172011
 

We need more of this.   A Leviathan Ankle-Biter Award goes to the voters of Tamil Nadu in India, who threw out the ruling party.   But the good part is the way they took the freebies that were intended to buy their votes, and then voted out the politicians who used public money to give them the freebies:

The party previously assuaged voter concerns by offering the public a share of the spoils—at one point doling out free color televisions—and promised to offer similar freebies again. But the TVs were perhaps a mistake: Voters took them, promptly saw news reports of what their rulers were up to and threw them out of power. Now the All India Anna-DMK (a splinter party founded in the 1970s) will rule.

This is from an article by Ruchir Sharma in the Tuesday issue of the Wall Street Journal.   Headline:  “Greater Expectations in India.”   Pull-out quote:  “The powerful national parties do badly in local elections.  Good.”

In our country we need more people who will take the tax credits for new energy-saving appliances, and vote out the politicians who voted for those credits.   (Energy-saving appliances are good, but tax credits for them are not.)   We need people who take the corporate welfare and vote out the politicians who enacted it.

Leviathan hates that.   Note how it treated Clarence Thomas.  They thought that when he accepted the benefits from affirmative-action programs, that he should have become subservient to the programs.   He didn’t.   Leviathan is still upset about it.

 

The Lightning Monitor Priestess

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
Jun 222010
 

I hereby confer on Caleb Stegall the Leviathan Ankle-Biter Award, to be enjoyed by him with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.

He wrote an article at Front Porch Republic in which he gently resists the the Lightning Monitor Priestess who will not allow kids to play ball under a clear sky when her oracle says there is lightning in the area.

It strikes me as bizarre how demure and passive this crowd is and these coaches are in accepting the judgment passed upon us all from a little black box. What a trifling thing it is to control man! How easily we believe in fairy tales when they come cloaked in the black box of authority and superior knowledge. And the digital readout is only the latest version of the king’s sword. In contrast to the sunny sky, my inner weather darkens and I think that here are people not yet ready to confront and resist the stifling and deadly black boxes of arbitrary authority pronouncing their judgments from Topeka or Washington D.C.

Appropriate action

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
Dec 272009
 

This is an interesting leftwing switcheroo. Usually they don’t like it when people take action to protect themselves or each other.

“One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked,” Napolitano said. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. —URL

Note how this contrasts with the snide remarks they made about the heroics on Flight 93, or the tut-tutting they emit when someone takes matters into her own hands and tackles an armed robber, or their attitude toward concealed carry.

If this is a permanent change, it’s a welcome one. In any case, I presume Janet Napolitano would join me in honoring the passengers and crew with a Leviathan Ankle-Biter award.

Not attempting to control them

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
Dec 212009
 

It’s not often that you see the word “control” used this way in the news -especially in an article about a public meeting:

Residents have expressed concern over seeing coyotes on the south side of Marshall, but City Manager Tom Tarkiewicz cautioned against worry because the animals are afraid of people. No injuries have been reported, and he said the city is not attempting to trap or control them.

We need more of that — more of political entities not trying to control everything in sight. For his good example, the Marshall City Manager gets a Leviathan Ankle-Biter Award.

Battle Creek Enquirer url here.

Villainy lurked in their hearts

 Bash the Messenger, Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
Oct 242009
 

The Leviathan Ankle-Biter award to billionaire Mo Ibrahim reminded me that the last recipient was a hillbilly Amishman that Ira Wagler had met. Which reminded me that I haven’t checked his blog lately.

I now see there’s a new article in which he tells about being interviewed by CNN:

They smiled and smiled while filming me, but villainy lurked in their hearts.

Ibrahim Prize

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter, Term limits  No Responses »
Oct 242009
 

This is the first time a Leviathan Ankle-Biter award goes to a billionaire, but Mo Ibrahim gets one.

The foundation that runs the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership said this week its prize would go to . . . no one.

Though not widely known, the prize, created by Sudanese-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim in 2007, is one of the more thoughtful efforts at bestowing honor on a public figure. For starters, the prize can go only to a democratically elected head of state in Africa. But here’s the kicker: The winner has to have left office in the previous three years.

Mr. Ibrahim clearly is all too aware of Africa’s history of being governed by strongmen who either don’t bother holding an election, or if they do, ensure that they win—forever.

So he’s designed his prize with the world’s biggest carrot: The winner gets $5 million spread over 10 years, plus $200,000 for life annually. We’d call this one of the more creative exercises in term limits.

URL here.

I’d be in favor of instituting an award like that for the U.S. Congress. Give away a couple dozen of them each year. If it would get rid of those who have been corrupted by the power of seniority, never mind any achievements in leadership, it would be cheap at twice the price.

Unfortunately, even though members of Congress can be greedy, the worst of them are motivated more by a lust for power than by filthy lucre. It might be that by getting rid of the greedhogs we’d only create more slots for the powerhogs.

Ira Wagler and the hillbilly Amish

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
Oct 102009
 

A Leviathan Ankle-Biter award goes to the hillbilly Amishman that Ira Wagler met in the south end of Lancaster County, PA.

I never heard of Ira Wagler before today, but I’ll be following his blog from now on. Erik Wesner of Amish America introduced me to it. The article about his experience in the south end is great. Ira was raised Amish, but experienced a bit of culture shock among the Amish down there, and is both funny and informative as he tells you about it. It’s great even without the Ankle-Biter bit.

Here’s something I posted on Erik’s blog about it, though:

BTW, regarding the Amishman who may once have had a run-in with a zoning officer, I am reminded that when I stop on my bike rides to take photos of houses and farms along the way, the places where I’m likely to have someone come out of the house yelling at me, asking what I’m doing, are the places that are somewhat rundown. I don’t know for sure why that is, but given that I myself live on a place that has sometimes been in a state of suspicious compliance with state and local ordinances, I can understand. BTW, these people who confront me also tend to be some of the more interesting characters I meet.

State vs neighbor

 Leviathan Ankle-Biter  1 Response »
Oct 012009
 

A Leviathan Ankle-Biter award goes to Lisa Snyder of the next county to the north of us, Barry County Michigan. From an AP article headlined, “State to mom: Stop baby-sitting neighbors’ kids.”

Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood’s children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee child care, however, don’t see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she’d be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

Fortunately, she is getting support in resisting this state of affairs. Governor Granholm who is working to get the law changed. (It isn’t often I’ll have good things to say about Gov. Granholm. I looked hard for something to snark about but all I can say is that she is doing what needs to be done in this case. And I’m not sure all people in her position would do that these days.)

No, no, we won’t undergo

 Health care reform, Leviathan Ankle-Biter  No Responses »
Sep 302009
 

A Leviathan Ankle-Biter award to these health care workers in New York:

New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be available beginning next week. Much of it is reserved for state health care workers, but there is growing opposition to required innoculations.

Health care workers in Hauppauge screamed “No forced shots!” as they rallied Tuesday against the state regulation requiring them to roll up their sleeves.

URL

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