Tag: Nanny State

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Likely U.S. Voters agree with the late President Reagan’s inaugural declaration that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Official_Portrait_of_President_Reagan_1981

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ,  according to Rasmussen Reports most voters continue to view big government as a problem and don’t want it, but they strongly suspect that more government and higher taxes are on the way with Joe Biden in the White House.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters agree with the late President Reagan’s inaugural declaration that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Just 27% disagree, while 14% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Continue reading Likely U.S. Voters agree with the late President Reagan’s inaugural declaration that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

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The Internet is Once Again Free to Grow and Innovate

FCC Chairman Pai

December 15,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, The FCC voted 3-2 on Thursday to approve chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to repeal “net neutrality” rules backed by the Obama Administration that reclassified internet-service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Title II prohibits “any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services.”

The Net Neutrality rules effectively deemed the internet a utility, former chairman Tom Wheeler turned the FCC ie the Federal Government into a political gatekeeper. The rules prohibited broadband providers from blocking, throttling and favoring content, which Mr. Wheeler ostensibly intended to help large content providers like Google , and Netflix gain leverage against cable companies.

Bans on throttling content may poll well, but the regulations have created uncertainty about what the FCC would or wouldn’t allow. This has in tern  throttled investment. Price discrimination and paid prioritization are used by many businesses. Netflix charges higher prices to subscribers who stream content on multiple devices. Has this made the internet less free?

Mr. Pai’s rules require that broadband providers disclose discriminatory practices unlike now. Thus cable companies would have to be transparent if they throttle content when users reach a data cap or if they speed up live sports programming. Consumers can choose broadband providers and plans accordingly. The Federal Trade Commission will have authority to police predatory and monopolistic practices, as it had prior to Mr. Wheeler’s power grab.

Despite the screams from the left Mr. Pai’s net-neutrality rollback will also support growth in content. Both content producers and consumers will benefit from increased investment in faster wireless and fiber technology. Apple is pouring $1 billion into original content to compete with Amazon, Netflix and YouTube.

Disney is buying the 21st Century Fox assets in an effort to compete with Netflix and other streaming services, build leverage with cable companies and establish a global footprint. Netflix has more than 47 million international subscribers and streams in nearly every country. Fox will keep its news and main sports channels, which can offer “live” content to consumers. The antitrust concerns should be negligible.

More positively consumers will also benefit from the speeding up of the breakdown of the cable monopoly as they offer more customized “bundles” like Hulu or a Disney stream that may cost less and no longer force large expensive packages of channels on customers  Americans will also enjoy new distribution options, which could have been barred by the old net-neutrality rules.

This week T-Mobile announced its acquisition of Layer3 TV, a Denver startup that streams high-definition channels online and will compete with AT&T’s DirecTV Now. Verizon Wireless last month said it will start delivering high-speed broadband to homes over its wireless network late next year. Google and AT&T are experimenting with similar services that will be cheaper than digging dirt to lay cable. This could be a boon for rural America.

Google, YouTube and Facebook have vigorously promoted net neutrality in theory but less in practice. While Google says it remains “committed to the net neutrality policies,” the search engine like Facebook uses opaque algorithms to prioritize and discriminate against certain content, sometimes in ways that undercut competitors. Net neutrality for thee, but not me should be Google , YouTube and Facebooks mantra . In simple terms these providers till search results to favor politically correct view points. Google, YouTube as well as Facebook should be far more transparent about these discriminatory practices.

Technology and markets change faster than the speed of regulation, which Ajit Pai’s FCC has recognized by taking a neutral position and restoring the promise of internet freedom.

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Home-baking sales ban more N.J.-only foolishness that should end

baked_goods_theridgewoodblog

New Jersey is too often the last in the nation to make a sensible change, such as its unique and onerous ban on pumping one’s own gasoline. The state acquired another such shameful status last month.

A court in Wisconsin struck down the state’s ban on the sale of home-baked goods, leaving only New Jersey among the 50 states to continue this excessive and unnecessary level of restriction.

Readers may recall buying home-baked goods at a fund-raiser. That’s because it’s legal to sell them for a charitable purpose, just not for a profit.

https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/home-baking-sales-ban-more-n-j–only-foolishness/article_4c0c9d1f-ee60-54d2-b129-26e8f2bfa9e3.html

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The last thing N.J. needs is another entitlement

Baby-3

Editorial: The last thing N.J. needs is another entitlement

April 2, 2017 at 3:00 AM

State Senate President Steve Sweeney, the sponsor of New Jersey’s 2009 paid family leave law, wants to expand the program. Giving workers paid leave from their jobs to care for a sick relative or a new baby — and paying for it with a small, capped payroll deduction — proved to be a sound idea.

Abuse has not been widespread, employers’ worst fears have not been realized and some studies have contended that companies benefit from the program.

But there is no compelling reason to expand this new entitlement, as Sweeney (D-West Deptford) is unfortunately proposing now.

Oh, wait. There is one compelling reason: To boost Sweeney’s and fellow Democrats’ chances in November, when the entire Legislature is up for election. The Democrats shouldn’t need that much help this year. But Jersey pols, Democrat and Republican, never forget what keeps them in office — giving gifts to prized constituencies.

Sweeney, in particular, is in a bit of a jam, with the powerful New Jersey Education Association, miffed by his pushback on teacher pensions, vowing to fight him. Hence, a renewed commitment by lawmakers to dangle popular proposals in front of voters — like, say, expanding the paid family leave program.

https://www.njbiz.com/article/20170402/NJBIZ01/170339943/editorial-the-last-thing-nj-needs-is-another-entitlement

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$611,318,000,000: Individual Income Taxes Set Record Through February

IRS individual taxes paid

By Terence P. Jeffrey | March 10, 2017 | 4:15 PM EST

(CNSNews.com) – The federal government collected a record of approximately $611,318,000,000 in individual income tax revenues through the first five months of fiscal 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 through the end of February), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

That is about $6,733,300,000 more than the $604,584,700,000 in individual income taxes (in constant 2017 dollars) that the federal government collected through the first five months of fiscal 2016.

Despite collecting a record amount in individual income taxes, the Treasury still ran a $348,984,000,000 deficit in the first five months of this fiscal year.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/611318000000-feds-collect-record-income-taxes-through-february-still-run-348984000000

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Millennials Falling Behind Their Boomer Parents

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Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse-off than you. Millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis by the advocacy group Young Invincibles. (Jan. 13)

https://apnews.com/35e4cd92a3da4064a7e87b0f41394f9e?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

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Ridgewood Code enforcement : neighbors are grinding old axes against other neighbors

Code enforcement Ridgewood

A common theme I keep hearing from my neighbors who call to question a policy or problem with the town departments is that when they question a policy which creates a hardship for issues like overnight parking code enforcement on several large home expansions the Village depts employees often say that it’s the neighbors are grinding old axes against other neighbors complaining about barking dogs,cars In the streets…unkept lots..this nanny nation mentality further foster the local government to create so many rules and codes on simple issues of common sense..if a hedge or a new addition to a back or side yard create a hazard the town should talk to them and seek a compromise rather than those codes and expanding mandates that take away too many rights like parking a legally owned car in front of the taxpayers House if expanded family number of cars exceeds the capacity of their garages and small driveways..common sense..overnight call in to the police if limited when you have no options and your children drive to school or work from their home too .A simple residents pass on back window would take care of this entire issue.I want the police doing other important things at night for the town and their administration than parking monitoring.

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Nanny State of the Week: Jail time for texting while walking in New Jersey

crossingthestreet theridgewoodblog.net 1

By Eric Boehm / March 28, 2016

A New Jersey lawmaker has an idea that hits a grand slam of nannyism.

It’s the rare occasion when we can celebrate an idea that is overly paternalistic, completely unnecessary, entirely unenforceable and laughably ridiculous, all at the same time.

Shutterstock image

DON’T TEXT AND WALK: Be aware of your surroundings, because texting while walking could land you in jail if one New Jersey lawmaker gets her way.

State Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, D-Camden, has proposed a bill to ban texting while walking.

Yes, while walking.

After being mocked by several news outlets in New Jersey, Lampitt apparently pulled the bill from consideration and the state has erased all traces of it from the state legislature’s website.

A one-line description of the bill still appears online, however. It says Lampitt’s legislation would have established a motor vehicle offense of “unlawful use of hand-held wireless telephone by pedestrians.”

Can you imagine receiving a traffic ticket for walking, on a sidewalk, with a cell phone in hand? That’s pretty much what the bill would have done. According to NJ.com, which first covered the proposal, the penalty for texting while walking would have been $50 and offenders could have been required to attend classes on highway safety.

Get caught more than once and you could end up in jail.

“Distracted pedestrians, like distracted drivers, present a potential danger to themselves and drivers on the road,” Lampitt said in a statement, according to NJ.com.

Lampitt was apparently not messing around with this idea. According to Philly.com, her proposal called for repeat offenders to be sent to jail for 15 days – where, one would assume, they would not be texting, interfering with traffic or walking very far.

Image via Ballotpedia

LAMPITT: State Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt’s bill is a rare occasion to celebrate a Nanny State grand slam. It’s an idea that is overly paternalistic, completely unnecessary, entirely unenforceable and laughably ridiculous, all at the same time.

ALSO IN NEW JERSEY: State ban on churches selling gravestones takes effect

Being distracted by texting is indeed a measurable problem, and one that seems to be increasing as more people spend more time with their noses buried in their cell phone screens. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimates that there were 2 million injuries to texter-walkers during 2010, a three-fold increase since 2004.

But is throwing people in jail the right response?

Lampitt’s proposal will likely not become law in New Jersey – at least not this year – but she’s actually behind the times in some parts of the state.

In Fort Lee, New Jersey, a town already famous for politically manufactured traffic problems, it’s already illegal to text while walking around. Getting caught cellphone-in-hand will leave you with an $85 fine and ticket for jaywalking.

Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department, told ABC News that the borough instituted the new fines in 2012 after having three fatal accidents involving pedestrians in the span of one year.

Other states might soon be following in New Jersey’s finger and footprints.

Texting while driving bans have been implemented in 46 states plus the District of Columbia. Fourteen states (including New Jersey) plus D.C. have bans on any and all cell-phone use by drivers.

Busy-body lawmakers in those states are now eyeing pedestrians. Variations on the “no texting while walking” bill have been introduced in Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada and New York, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. None of them have been passed into law.

Fines and jail time are completely inappropriate punishments for this type of activity, occasionally dangerous though it may be. Instead, hey, maybe just be aware of your surroundings and wait until you’re someplace safe to continue snapchatting with your friends.

And if any state is going to pass a law punishing people for texting while walking, we can only hope they make it a little bit of fun.

Instead of a traffic ticket and a fine, how about something that involves bears?

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Twitter Shadowbanning ‘Real and Happening Every Day’ Says Inside Source

HLG_Twitter_Fired_theridgewoodblog

by MILO YIANNOPOULOS16 Feb 2016888

Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.

Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.

Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.

For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.

However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/16/exclusive-twitter-shadowbanning-is-real-say-inside-sources/

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Are Western Values Losing Their Sway?

Death-to-America

By STEVEN ERLANGERSEPT. 12, 2015

London — THE West is suddenly suffused with self-doubt.

Centuries of superiority and global influence appeared to reach a new summit with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the countries, values and civilization of the West appeared to have won the dark, difficult battle with Communism.

That victory seemed especially sweet after the turn of China toward capitalism, which many thought presaged a slow evolution to middle-class demands for individual rights and transparent justice — toward a form of democracy. But is the embrace of Western values inevitable? Are Western values, essentially Judeo-Christian ones, truly universal?

The history of the last decade is a bracing antidote to such easy thinking. The rise of authoritarian capitalism has been a blow to assumptions, made popular by Francis Fukuyama, that liberal democracy has proved to be the most reliable and lasting political system.

With the collapse of Communism, “what we may be witnessing,” Mr. Fukuyama wrote hopefully in 1989, “is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

But couple the tightening of Chinese authoritarianism with Russia’s turn toward revanchism and dictatorship, and then add the rise of radical Islam, and the grand victory of Western liberalism can seem hollow, its values under threat even within its own societies.

The recent flood of migrants and Syrian asylum seekers were welcomed in much of Europe, especially Germany and Austria. But it also prompted criticism from a number of less prosperous European countries, a backlash from the far right and new anxieties about the growing influence of Islam, and radical Islamists, in Europe.

“Nineteen-eighty-nine was perceived as the victory of universalism, the end of history, but for all the others in the world it wasn’t a post-Cold War world but a post-colonial one,” said Ivan Krastev, director of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a contributing opinion writer for The Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/sunday-review/are-western-values-losing-their-sway.html?_r=0

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NEW JERSEY CHILD PASSENGER SAFETY LAW CHANGES EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 1,2015

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Any child under the age of 8 years old and a height of 57 inches shall be secured as follows in the rear seat of a motor vehicle:

a. A child under the age of 2 years and 30 pounds shall be secured in a rear-facing seat equipped with a 5-point harness.

b. A child under the age of 4 years and 40 pounds shall be secured as described in (a) until they reach the upper limits of the rear-facing seat, then in a forward-facing child restraint equipped with a 5-point harness.

c. A child under the age of 8 and a height of 57 inches shall be secured as described in (a) or (b) until they reach the upper limits of the rear-facing or forwardfacing seat, then in a belt positioning booster seat.

d. A child over 8 years of age or 57 inches in height must be properly secured by a seat belt.

If there are no rear seats, the child shall be secured as described above in the front seat except that no child shall be secured in a rear-facing seat in the front seat of any vehicle that is equipped with an active passenger-side airbag. The aforementioned is acceptable if the airbag is de-activated.

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Changes in NJ car-seat law take effect Tuesday

car seat

AUGUST 31, 2015    LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, AUGUST 31, 2015, 8:52 AM
BY KARA YORIO
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD

North Jersey parents have always looked forward to a child’s first birthday. Not only is it a great milestone and cause for celebration, it was the point where the law allowed car seats to be flipped from rear-facing to forward-facing. As of Tuesday, that changes.

New Jersey law is falling in line with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations, which have said that children should remain rear-facing until at least 2 years old or weighing more than 30 pounds.

“The science and studies are quite clear,” said Howard Mazin, an Englewood Hospital and Medical Center attending pediatrician, who has always urged his patients to keep their children rear-facing until age 2. “I know all parents want what’s safest for their kids.”

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The other big change in the law is that kids should be in a booster seat until age 8 or 57 inches. Previously it was until 8 or 80 pounds. Children younger than 4 years old or under 40 pounds must be in a seat with a five-point harness (ideally rear-facing until hitting the limits set by the seat manufacturer) not a booster seat using the regular seat belt. The fines have also been raised from a minimum of $10 and maximum of $25 to a minimum of $50 and maximum of $75.

https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/family/changes-in-nj-car-seat-law-take-effect-tuesday-1.1401351

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Sound Familiar : The New Totalitarians Are Here

Village _council_meeting_theridgewoodblog

Totalitarians want their rule, and their belief system, to be accepted and self-sustaining – even if it takes bludgeoning every last citizen who disagrees.
By Tom Nichols
JULY 6, 2015

There’s a basic difference in the traditions of political science between “authoritarians” and “totalitaritarians.” People throw both of these words around, but as is so often the case, they’re using words they may not always understand. They have real meaning, however, and the difference between them is important.

Simply put, authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion. Authoritarians are a dime a dozen; totalitarians are rare.  The authoritarians are the guys in charge who want to stay in charge, and don’t much care about you, or what you’re doing, so long as you stay out of their way. They are the jefe and his thugs in a brutal regime that want you to shut up, go to work, and look the other way when your loudmouthed neighbor gets his lights punched out by goons in black jackets. Live or die. It’s all the same to the regime.

Totalitarians are a different breed. These are the people who have a plan, who think they see the future more clearly than you or who are convinced they grasp reality in a way that you do not. They don’t serve themselves—or, they don’t serve themselves exclusively—they serve History, or The People, or The Idea, or some other ideological totem that justifies their actions.

They want obedience, of course. But even more, they want their rule, and their belief system, to be accepted and self-sustaining. And the only way to achieve that is to create a new society of people who share those beliefs, even if it means bludgeoning every last citizen into enlightenment. That’s what makes totalitarians different and more dangerous: they are “totalistic” in the sense that they demand a complete reorientation of the individual to the State and its ideological ends. Every person who harbors a secret objection, or even so much as a doubt, is a danger to the future of the whole project, and so the regime compels its subjects not only to obey but to believe.

Authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion.

This is what George Orwell understood so well in his landmark novel “1984.” His dystopian state doesn’t really care about quotidian obedience; it already knows how to get that. What it demands, and will get by any means, is a belief in the Party’s rectitude and in its leader, Big Brother. If torturing the daylights out of people until they denounce even their loved ones is what it takes, so be it. That’s why the ending of the novel is so terrifying: after the two rebellious lovers of the story are broken and made to turn on each other, the wrecks left by the State are left to sit before the Leader’s face on a screen with only one emotion still alive in the husks of their bodies: they finally, truly love Big Brother.

 

 

https://thefederalist.com/2015/07/06/the-new-totalitarians-are-here/

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Americans Have Lost Confidence … in Everything

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It’s not just Congress and the economy that have Americans concerned these days.

Americans have little confidence in most of their major institutions including Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, banks and organized religion, according to the latest Gallup poll.

“Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below the historical average for each one,” a Gallup spokesman said in a news release. Only the military, in which 72 percent of Americans express confidence, up from a historical average of 68 percent, and small business, with 67 percent confidence, up from 63, are currently rated higher than their historical norms. This is based on the percentage expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in these institutions, the Gallup spokesman said.

Only 8 percent have confidence in Congress, down by 16 points from a long-term average of 24 percent – the lowest of all institutions rated. The rating is about the same as last year’s 7 percent, the lowest Gallup has ever measured for any institution.

All in all, it’s a picture of a nation discouraged about its present and worried about its future, and highly doubtful that its institutions can pull America out of its trough. In a political context, the findings indicate that the growing number of presidential candidates for 2016 will have a difficult time instilling confidence in a skeptical electorate that they have the answers to the country’s problems.

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2015/06/17/americans-have-lost-confidence-in-everything