Friday Funnies

Law Professor: Stop Saying Football Players Have a ‘Constitutional Right’ to Kneel During the National Anthem. They Don’t. | Intellectual Takeout

Teresa Stanton Collett, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, sets the record straight. 

by Jon Miltimore | September 26, 2017

Football was once the place Americans could go to get away from anxiety, division, and politics.

No more. Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel for the National Anthem during the 2016 season has set off a chain reaction of sorts, one that is seriously threatening America’s pastime.

When Kaepernick was cut by the 49ers prior to the 2017 season and didn’t land on another NFL team, ESPN, Bleacher Report, and other media spent months accusing NFL owners of blackballing the quarterback for taking a stand on social justice (and largely ignoring facts that didn’t support the narrative).

This prompted more protests, which precipitated America’s commander-in-chief to weigh in on the topic—which incited an even greater media frenzy and accusations that the president was exploiting the issue for personal gain. (He probably is, but it’s rich hearing such accusations from ESPN, who has stoked the divisive Kaepernick story for months.)

Whether or not one approves of NFL players taking a knee or sitting during the National Anthem, there is one thing everyone agrees on: they have the right to do so.

“Free speech, which is enshrined right there in the 1st Amendment, is not something that you only get at certain times,” said CNN’s editor-at-large Chris Cillizza. “You get it all the time. It's literally a founding principle of this nation.”

Numerous NFL players and supporters voiced similar sentiments, including reigning Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady, a friend and supporter of the president.

“It's part of our democracy,” said the Patriots quarterback. “As long as it is done in a peaceful, respectful way, that is what our country has been all about.”

RELATED: "What Do NFL Protestes Really Want?"

There’s just one problem. The 1st Amendment doesn’t work that way.  Anyone who’s ever bothered to read the U.S. Constitution knows that the 1st Amendment begins with, “Congress shall make no law ….”

But don’t take it from me. This is what legal scholar Teresa Stanton Collett had to say on the subject:
“I don't watch football. I don't care about football. But I do care about constitutional literacy. Please stop saying football players have first amendment rights to disregard the direction of their private employers while engaged in privately sponsored activities -- which is what NFL football games are,” said Collett, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. “They have no more constitutional protection for their expressive activities than I do for mine at my private Catholic university. Any 'rights' they have are based on their contracts and employment law.”

Collett points to the case of Kelvin Cochran as an example of how few protections employees actually have. Cochran, a fire chief from Georgia, was terminated after a local councilman learned that he had published a book on faith that contained a few pages expressing support for the orthodox Christian view on sexual relations.

RELATED: "POLL: Majority of Republicans Say NFL Players Who Refuse to Stand for the National Anthem Should be FIRED"

As private employees, NFL players have even fewer protections than Cochran. (Cillizza atually acknowledges this fact later in his CNN piece: “Yes, the NFL is a private association made up of 32 team owners. And, yes, as such, they have the right to fire or penalize an employee who, they believe, engages in conduct unbecoming to the team.”)

It’s also worth pointing out what the NFL’s game operations manual says on the subject:

“The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.”

None of this, of course, means that teams should fine or fire players who decline to stand for the National Anthem. In my opinion, there is something unseemly and even authoritarian about compelling people to stand to honor a flag. But it’s also worth pointing out this is the same NFL that fines players for wearing the wrong color socks or bringing onto the field a towel that is not licensed by the NFL.

In any event, we should dispense with the idea that NFL players enjoy some magical constitutional right to express themselves during pre-game ceremonies. They don’t.

Jon is the Senior Editor of Intellectual Takeout. He previously was the Senior Editor of The History Channel Magazine, Managing Editor at Scout.com, and a reporter for the Panama City News Herald. He served as a White House intern in the speech writing department of George W. Bush. He received degrees from the University of South Dakota (M.A.) and the University of Wisconsin-Platteville (B.A.), where he studied history and literature.

Follow him on Facebook.

Follow him on Twitter: @miltimore79
 

Law Professor: Stop Saying Football Players Have a ‘Constitutional Right’ to Kneel During the National Anthem. They Don’t. | Intellectual Takeout

Hump Day Hunnies

Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World

Articles: The Deconstruction of Western Values

By David Prentice

Western Civilization is extraordinarily complex. From Greece to Rome to Europe and America, a long, multifaceted, and rich line of thought has dominated. In 1909 Harvard (oh, the irony) published a series called the “Harvard Classics” that began a major emphasis on what we now call “the great books”. Many universities nationally and worldwide used this book list as the basis of understanding who we were and how the West had come to be what it was. It was a list worthy of teaching each generation. In today’s jaded academic world, these courses barely exist.

This was the epitome of Western thought. From Plato, the Judeo/Christian writings, Epictetus, Augustine, Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and many more, and with such depth, the list was genuinely incredible. I remember asking a professor why we didn’t study more contemporary books, rather than these stuffy old tomes. He replied, “Because they have stood the test of time.” Checkmate. You could say that they once formed the basis of thought for both liberals and conservatives in the country, that they helped make America great. Post-World War II, most boomers studied the great books.

Enter the deconstruction. It had begun prior to the 1930s. It was the critical theory of the Frankfurt School that began our slow death march. Our academics fell for this critique of Western thought. Howard Zinn and the current group of “historians” all put their stamp on calling these books as the progeny of “dead white men.” The left, being who they are, readily accepted this new history.  It was not necessary to debate or discuss actual historical ideas. It was more important to call them old, dead, and white. The democrat party may as well call its platform the epitome of the deconstruction of the West.

The deconstructionists have been winning. Our universities have literally gone insane, teaching every new critique about our culture that pops up. Just look at any liberal arts college course list. Most are pretty sick, intent on salting the mental constructs of their students so they can be good leftist role models. They want students spouting the aphorisms of ignorant live professors who forgot how alive the classics are, if they ever knew. If you want to know the fruit of this teaching, just look at what the universities have instituted in recent years: safe rooms, therapy dogs, crying sessions, counselling. They are still melting down.  A generation lost in space, in the mentally “safe”, and very demented spaces of the professoriate.

C.S. Lewis saw this budding phenomenon back in the 1930s. In his writings, professors spouting the deconstruction theories were the villains, universities were the vehicles, bureaucracies were the model for Hellishness, and leftist politicians rounded out the whole bad barrel of apples.

In his novel, That Hideous Strength, there are powerful scenes where his hero, Ransom, battles a professor/politician who has given himself over to these new forces. Ransom watches as the professor deteriorates mentally and morally, finally realizing what this new philosophy leads to. He sees the formerly brilliant professor becoming sotted with viciousness, self-indulgence, and foolishness.  Ransom finally understands he has to fight this man, and his philosophy, to the death. Literally.

These scenes are powerful foreshadowing of what has happened in our deconstructed country. C.S. Lewis and his good friend Tolkien envisioned the great earthly battles to come, writing fiction about the courage of those who would fight against  deconstructionist enemies.  

Donald Trump this week gave a speech in Poland lauding Western values, stating our vulnerabilities, and wondering if the West has the will to survive. He is encouraging those in the West who have the mettle to rise up and reclaim our heritage. He is engaging the battle against those who would tear it down. Trump knows the stakes. When he talks about making America great again, it’s likely because he understood the courses of great books, and knew the greatness of what was once handed to us.

Pope John Paul II gave some great speeches about what he called “the culture of death. How fitting that Trump would give his latest call to arms in Poland. How fitting that Poland, so historically war-torn, sees the battle clearly. How fitting that they are already in the fight to preserve the West, one of the few European countries to do so.

So now it comes to us here in the U.S. Will we finally realize this is a fight for a decent civilization? Or will we succumb to the petty, banal viciousness of the deconstructionist left? Will we steel ourselves to overcome this well-funded leftist blitz against our culture, or will we go out with a whimper?

Source:
Articles: The Deconstruction of Western Values

The 'Jesus of history' -- Memory or Myth?

Rocketman (A Kim Jong Un Parody)

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Facts Don't Win Fights: Here’s How to Cut Through Confirmation Bias

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Why It Matters That Kids No Longer Play with Wild Animals | Intellectual Takeout

Annie Holmquist | September 15, 2017

When it comes to children’s stories, an old favorite of mine is The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett. Being a classic, many will know that the story revolves around three children who discover a long-abandoned garden. The garden soon becomes a place of healing and restoration as the children make it their own.

Beyond this basic plot, however, is a tale of two boys. Dickon, a country boy of few economic advantages, lives almost by his own wits, becoming strong, capable, and knowledgeable about animals of all kinds. Colin, on the other hand, is a spoiled brat who lives his life indoors, surrounded by every amusement one can imagine, but clueless and frightened of outdoor life and creatures.

Although the contrast between these two boys has long been familiar to me, it wasn’t until I read an Atlantic article entitled, “Kids, Go Catch a Racoon,” that I realized how they portray two very different eras of childhood.

As the article’s author Ben James explains, before the 1970s, it was quite common for children to live an independent, exploratory life in which pets of all shapes and forms (think snakes, racoons, and skunks) were a regular part of childhood. This is evidenced through The Golden Book of Wild-Animal Pets which James says informed children how to catch wildlife, tame it, and care for it, all with an apparent lack of parental involvement. This, of course, is the type of childhood which Dickon illustrates.

Citing historian and author Steven Mintz, James explains how we have drifted away from the era of Dickon-like childhood – and the consequences which this brings:

The geography of childhood was wider in those decades, and the expectation was that kids would make bold use of their unsupervised time. “There truly was a sense that childhood needed to be a period of freedom, of group bonding, of risk-taking,” he says, “and it had to be spent out of doors as much as possible.”

In regard to animals, Mintz, who was himself a child during the ’50s, recalls at least one friend who owned a pet ocelot ($45, according to the Golden Book), and another who had a monkey. But in the 1970s, he says, something fundamentally changed. “No longer was a cast on an arm or leg a badge of honor, signed by classmates. It raised the specter of abuse or parental carelessness.”

“In a thousand ways, kids’ lives are safer and healthier,” Mintz adds, “but perhaps not in the ways that matter most.”

In other words, we have taken the happy, Dickon-esque childhood, which encouraged children to be independent explorers, and instead cultivated the petulant, incapable, and safe-guarded children who look like Colin.

In today’s world, it’s not uncommon for Americans to be perplexed over young men loathe to leave their videogames and mom’s basement couch.

It’s also not uncommon to hear how many young people have difficulty surviving college without safe spaces to retreat to in times of trouble.

Furthermore, a number of employers are now recognizing how difficult it is to find new college grads who don’t need ego-massaging on the job.

Is it possible that these attitudes are the outgrowth of the modern approach to childhood? If, instead of nurturing Colin-like children, we were to return to raising Dickons – who loved and lived in the outdoors, learning self-sufficiency and survival in the midst of risks and dangers – would we soon see a change in the type of adults the population has to offer?

[Image Credit: Pixnio]

Annie is a senior writer with Intellectual Takeout. In her role, she assists with website content production and social media messaging.  

Annie received a B.A. in Biblical Studies from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul. She also brings 20+ years of experience as a music educator and a volunteer teacher – particularly with inner city children – to the table in her research and writing. 

In her spare time Annie enjoys the outdoors, gardening, reading, and events with family and friends.
 

Why It Matters That Kids No Longer Play with Wild Animals | Intellectual Takeout

Corporate Tax Rate Reduction: Zero Percent Would Be Better Than 15

Cutting the rate is not enough

 

Donald Trump’s tax plan calls for reducing the corporate-income tax to 15 percent. That’s about 15 points too high.

 

Mitt Romney was mocked for insisting “corporations are people,” but he was right: A corporation is a cooperation, a group of people acting together as one corpus for a particular purpose. And it would be easier and more simple to tax the people.

 

Corporate income is unlike individual or household income in that it is broadly defined as income minus expenses, meaning ordinary business expenses, whereas the individual taxpayer can only deduct certain narrowly defined expenses, such as mortgage interest. The simplified version: If Corporation X makes $1 billion and has $900 million in expenses, then it has $100 million in taxable income, which is subject to a top rate of 39 percent. Most corporate income is taxed at the highest rate.

 

Even the simplest version of this structure creates opportunities for shenanigans and incentives to pursue them. But the real-world version isn’t simple at all, and it makes things much, much worse. Politicians create tax incentives that reward businesses for doing things they like and punish them for doing things they don’t like, while corporate interest groups invest a great deal of time and energy in lobbying for tax favors. Some of that is pretty crude: Democrats have for years been trying to monkey with business-expense rules to punish companies for outsourcing, so that a cardboard box bought for moving business records from the headquarters in St. Louis to the warehouse across town would be a deductible expense but the same box used to move business records to a new call center in the Philippines would not be deductible. Some of it is more subtle and more complicated, i.e., engineering deals and business units in such a way that artificial capital losses and expenses can be racked up and stored away to reduce (for tax purposes) future income. There’s an old joke that General Electric is the world’s greatest tax-law firm, with a sideline in manufacturing, but consider also that blockbuster films that do billions of dollars in business routinely show little or no profit for tax purposes. Famously, Return of the Jedi has never made a dime, so far as the IRS is concerned.

Read more at:

Corporate Tax Rate Reduction: Zero Percent Would Be Better Than 15 | National Review

Jesus And The Hidden Contradictions Of The Gospels : NPR

Bible scholar Bart Ehrman began his studies at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Originally an evangelical Christian, Ehrman believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of God. But later, as a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, Ehrman started reading the Bible with a more historical approach and analyzing contradictions in the Gospels. 

Ehrman, the author of Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them), tells Terry Gross that he discourages readers from "smash[ing] the four Gospels into one big Gospel and think[ing] that [they] get the true understanding."

"When Matthew was writing, he didn't intend for somebody ... to interpret his Gospel in light of what some other author said. He had his own message," Ehrman says.

To illustrate the differences between the Gospels, Ehrman offers opposing depictions of Jesus talking about himself. In the book of John, Jesus talks about himself and proclaims who he is, saying "I am the bread of life." Whereas in Mark, Jesus teaches principally about the coming kingdom and hardly ever mentions himself directly. These differences offer clues into the perspectives of the authors, and the eras in which they wrote their respective Gospels, according to Ehrman.

"In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is not interested in teaching about himself. But when you read John's Gospel, that's virtually the only thing Jesus talks about is who he is, what his identity is, where he came from," Ehrman says. "This is completely unlike anything that you find in Mark or in Matthew and Luke. And historically it creates all sorts of problems, because if the historical Jesus actually went around saying that he was God, it's very hard to believe that Matthew, Mark and Luke left out that part — you know, as if that part wasn't important to mention. But in fact, they don't mention it. And so this view of the divinity of Jesus on his own lips is found only in our latest Gospel, the Gospel of John."

Ehrman teaches religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible, is now out in paperback.

This interview was originally broadcast on March 4, 2009
 
Read more here:
Jesus And The Hidden Contradictions Of The Gospels : NPR

College Illiteracy is Growing | Intellectual Takeout

Annie Holmquist | February 17, 2017

For a number of years, it was assumed that public education was swimming along, efficiently educating children of all ages. More recently, the products coming out of public schools have caused a troubling concern to leap into the minds of adults: are schools dumbing down the content they teach to students?

That concern seems to have now made its way into the minds of university professors, as evidenced in a recent study conducted by the Times Higher Education. The study examined over a thousand higher education professors and administrators in several English-speaking countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, and predominantly the U.K.

Judging from the comments of these professors, the students they are seeing come through their classrooms are ill-prepared, unwilling to study, and in need of kid-glove treatment. Some of the choice comments from these professors include:

• “Each year, the entry requirements for undergraduate programmes are reduced, meaning we get a high number of students who are almost illiterate.”
• “We were told [by managers that] we are not allowed to ‘draw attention to’ those students who turn up to seminars having done no preparation whatsoever because it might deter them from attending future seminars (which they also wouldn’t have been prepared for)….”
• “Students study to pass exams, no longer to study a discipline.”
• “Few students will read the material on the reading list, [relying] instead solely on lecture handouts or PowerPoint slides….”

When asked if their students were well-prepared academically for university course work, almost half of professors disagreed:

Meanwhile, a majority of professors agreed that today’s students are “intellectually less able” to function in a university than they were in the past:

It has long been the goal of today’s schools to ensure that students are “college and career ready.” Judging from the observations of college professors, that goal is not being realized.

One could cast blame in many directions to attempt to explain why students are not intellectually prepared for college. But is it possible that the main reason stems from the fact that schools are simply not set up to train students to think for themselves?

Former New York teacher of the year, John Taylor Gatto, once said:

“Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid.”

Until we remove this mentality from the education system, then how can we expect students to be intellectually ready to do the studying, reading, and thinking that higher education demands?

Image Credit: Gregg O'Connell bit.ly/1ryPA8o

 

Annie is a senior writer with Intellectual Takeout. In her role, she assists with website content production and social media messaging. 

Annie received a B.A. in Biblical Studies from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul. She also brings 20+ years of experience as a music educator and a volunteer teacher – particularly with inner city children – to the table in her research and writing. 

In her spare time Annie enjoys the outdoors, gardening, reading, and events with family and friends.

College Illiteracy is Growing | Intellectual Takeout

Friday Funnies

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates

 by Daniel Mitchell at The Heritage Foundation

There is a distinct pattern throughout American history: When tax rates are reduced, the economy's growth rate improves and living standards increase. Good tax policy has a number of interesting side effects. For instance, history tells us that tax revenues grow and "rich" taxpayers pay more tax when marginal tax rates are slashed. This means lower income citizens bear a lower share of the tax burden - a consequence that should lead class-warfare politicians to support lower tax rates.

Conversely, periods of higher tax rates are associated with sub par economic performance and stagnant tax revenues. In other words, when politicians attempt to "soak the rich," the rest of us take a bath. Examining the three major United States episodes of tax rate reductions can prove useful lessons.

1) Lower tax rates do not mean less tax revenue.

The tax cuts of the 1920s

Tax rates were slashed dramatically during the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent. What happened? Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s, despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1164 million in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent.

According to then-Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon:

The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people.

The Kennedy tax cuts

President Hoover dramatically increased tax rates in the 1930s and President Roosevelt compounded the damage by pushing marginal tax rates to more than 90 percent. Recognizing that high tax rates were hindering the economy, President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened? Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation).

According to President John F. Kennedy:

Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.

The Reagan tax cuts

Thanks to "bracket creep," the inflation of the 1970s pushed millions of taxpayers into higher tax brackets even though their inflation-adjusted incomes were not rising. To help offset this tax increase and also to improve incentives to work, save, and invest, President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).

According to then-U.S. Representative Jack Kemp (R-NY), one of the chief architects of the Reagan tax cuts:

At some point, additional taxes so discourage the activity being taxed, such as working or investing, that they yield less revenue rather than more. There are, after all, two rates that yield the same amount of revenue: high tax rates on low production, or low rates on high production.

2) The rich pay more when incentives to hide income are reduced.

The tax cuts of the 1920s

The share of the tax burden paid by the rich rose dramatically as tax rates were reduced. The share of the tax burden borne by the rich (those making $50,000 and up in those days) climbed from 44.2 percent in 1921 to 78.4 percent in 1928.

The Kennedy tax cuts

Just as happened in the 1920s, the share of the income tax burden borne by the rich increased following the tax cuts. Tax collections from those making over $50,000 per year climbed by 57 percent between 1963 and 1966, while tax collections from those earning below $50,000 rose 11 percent. As a result, the rich saw their portion of the income tax burden climb from 11.6 percent to 15.1 percent.

The Reagan tax cuts

The share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners jumped significantly, climbing from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. The top 1 percent saw their share of the income tax bill climb even more dramatically, from 17.6 percent in 1981 to 27.5 percent in 1988.

Harmful Spending & Complexity

Lower tax rates are important, but they are not the only critical issue. Both the level of government spending and where that money goes are very important. And even when looking only at tax policy, tax rates are just one piece of the puzzle. If certain types of income are subject to multiple layers of tax, as occurs in the current system, that problem cannot be solved by low rates. Similarly, a tax system with needless levels of complexity will impose heavy costs on the productive sector of the economy.

This WebMemo is excerpted from the author's, Daniel J. Mitchell's, Backgrounder, The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates, published July 19, 1996. The original publication, found here, contains footnotes and numerous charts.

Source:
The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates | The Heritage Foundation

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How to Deal With All the Bullshit on Social Media

Social media is a firehose of bullshit, because it’s a firehose of everything. Essential oils cure all diseases! Sharks are swimming on Houston’s freeways! Okay, not really. Here’s why we see so much garbage on social media and what to do about it.

There’s a lot of bad advice, bad science, and bad logic out there. We’re running a multi-part series to help you know when you’re being hoodwinked or when, despite your own best efforts, you end up fooling yourself. Sharpen your pencils and take a seat—Bullshit Resistance School is in session.

Read the story here:
How to Deal With All the Bullshit on Social Media