My beer summit with Kaelri

Kaelri is a frequent commentor here and unlike most of my detractors he refrains from attacking me personally. Since I have a policy of not commenting on my own blog I am going to respond to his last couple of statements in this post. Kaelri comments in italics.

Incarceration has exactly one purpose: to prevent and deter people from endangering the community.

Wrong. Incarceration has two purposes: to prevent and deter future crime AND to punish.

Statistically, most of the released inmates will have been there for drug-related charges, which, since drug law enforcement doesn't work anyway, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over.

What part of "drug law enforcement doesn't work?" Is it because people still use drugs? People still murder but no one is claiming that "murder enforcement law doesn't work." When you make something illegal then fewer people do it.

But again, the only reason to keep him locked up - the only reason the government should do anything with other people's money, for that matter - is if it will do some good.

Demonstrating punishment does good. If people think that there is not a larger consequence for fleeing the scene of an accident and leaving someone to die then that is the more likely response. Why hang around if you are driving drunk when you can flee and have a the chance to escape?

Just curious: how much do you think an American citizen should pay in order to "earn" the police cruiser that comes when that burglar breaks into his house? Or the fire truck that comes to stop it from burning down?

So let's send you a bill every month - your full, equal share of the government services you not only have, but take for granted.

They do send me a bill. It's called property taxes. It's itemized to include both police and fire service. Law enforcement and criminal justice is actually a job of government. It's one of the few things that they must do since we are a country of laws.

A policy that lets a government-funded insurance company compete with private insurers in a free market? To spur innovation, destroy oligopolist practices and drive down costs, all while giving individual Americans the right to choose whatever insurance option they want? If any? A true communist would be apoplectic.

Government funded really means taxpayer funded. So I would be paying for a system to compete with the one that I currently use? And the company that currently supplies me with health insurance doesn't get to set regulations? Doesn't get to create mandates? Has to worry about a profit? This is not competition. And a government that can't come out and say they want socialism has to take baby steps and work under the guise of "fairness" and "helping the poor."

If you think George Washington would have put up with this preexisting condition shit, you're out of your mind.

The preexisting condition argument is the one that I find the most ridiculous. Of cours INSURANCE doesn't allow preexisting conditions... EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE. You can't wreck your car then get insurance. But you can get a job that provides health insurance, which is how most people get their health insurance, and because it is a group plan then your preexisting condition is accepted.

Ahem. Forty years on, Medicare is one of the most popular and successful government-run programs of all time, and the senior population would pretty much lynch anyone who tried to take it away.

The "first in" on a ponzi scheme will always support the program. And if you define "success" as "out of money and rife with fraud" then I'm not sure what to say.

I like you Kaelri and I know you once said that you enjoyed reading Atlas Shrugged. I'd suggest re-reading it and remembering where Ayn Rand came from. I take the side of less government because that always means more freedom.

Save a diversity manager: punish crime victims

Mom condemns 'good-behavior' law for inmates
Earlier this year, Oregon lawmakers found a way to save about $3 million annually by releasing thousands of well-behaved prisoners early.

But the emotional impact of that law hit home in a Portland courtroom Monday.

More than three years after a driver struck her 23-year-old daughter and left her to die, Janet Tremain pleaded with a Multnomah County judge not to lop 30 percent off the killer's sentence. A law that took effect in July increased the amount of time off inmates can receive for good behavior from 20 to 30 percent.

On July 14, 2006, McDaniel was jogging on the shoulder of a road near Interstate 84 and Dodson when Corona-Rosales, then 24, veered into her, which knocked her into blackberry bushes. She lay bleeding for nearly 30 minutes until two passers-by spotted her. She died in a hospital 30 hours later.

Doctors told her family that McDaniel might have had a 40 to 50 percent chance of survival if she had been flown to a hospital immediately after impact.

Corona-Rosales was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and hit-and-run driving. He received nearly five years in prison -- 20 months of that sentence was for hit-and-run. Under the new law, he is eligible for 30 percent off the 20 months.

Because he is an illegal immigrant, he will be deported when he is released.

Perhaps state legislators should be required to be present at these hearings. They should look into the eyes of parents who had a child killed by an illegal alien that now wants out of prison early.

When they walk out of the public courthouse they can look at whatever piece of crap sculpture that is outside required by Oregon's Percent for Public Art program. Do you think that the crying mother of a dead child will appreciate the piece as she passes by?

The legislature is saving $3 million by punishing crime victims and endagering public safety but they spent half a million dollars on WES commuter rail art.

Public Art on WES Commuter Rail
The project has allocated $500,000 to fund the WES Public Art Program based on 1.5 percent of eligible project costs.

But I'm sure that any legislator could explain to the parent of a murdered child why it's more important to preserve public art than keep a killer in prison.

Are we doomed to repeat it?

Stable farm labor seems elusive in global economy
In 1986, immigration reform tried to legalize undocumented farmworkers and offer farmers a stable, legal work force. But it failed to deter illegal immigration.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act granted legal status to more than a million agricultural workers. It also introduced sanctions for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers and increased border enforcement.

But as the unauthorized work force turned legal and gained job mobility, there was substantial "leakage" of legal workers from agriculture to better-paying or more stable employment, the National Agricultural Workers Survey shows. Ten years after the immigration act, half of all farmworkers were again illegal, the survey shows.

This was one small part of the story in The Oregonian that asked how local farmers can compete in the global marketplace.

The proponents of using illegal aliens as their labor make the same arguments that proponents of slavery made. But after abolition the industry adjusted. Mechanization and efficiencies actually made farming BETTER in America.

Illegal aliens are a crutch that keep us from innovation and improvement in food production. If we legalize the current bunch they will quite their jobs and more criminals will flow across the border to take their place.

Watching CSPAN on a rainy Saturday

Some congressman just read a letter from a constituent who said that they were "embarrassed to tell people that they didn't have health care." They ended the letter by asking for those same people to pay for their health care.

When did it not become embarrassing to take something from others that you did not earn? A burglar at least has the decency to break into your house himself. Liberals want to take your money through the power of government.

Comprehensive criminal health care

Illegal immigration may threaten health vote
The illegal immigration issue is emerging as the biggest threat to passing healthcare reform in the House.

Congressional Hispanics have threatened to vote against the bill because of a last-minute threat from within the Democratic Caucus to bolster the House bill’s immigration restrictions to match those included in the Senate Finance bill.

And they’re also fighting President Barack Obama, the original sponsor of the language prohibiting illegal immigrants from accessing the public health insurance exchange.

Vulnerable Democrats may push for language that would match the Senate provision on preventing illegal immigrants from accessing a public exchange.

CAUSA, you can put away your false poll data concerning American's positions on illegal aliens. The fact that democrats who are worried about re-election (and Obama himself) are scared silly to do anything that would look like helping illegals tells us all we need to know.

My question for congressional hispanics is this: doesn't Mexico already have wonderful government run health care?

Call your representative and tell them NO coverage for illegal aliens! Actually, all you libs who read this blog can call and insist that the bill DO cover illegals because that will doom the bill just as fast.

Have they tried looking in Mexico?

IRS: $1.4 million in refunds unclaimed in Oregon
The Internal Revenue Service has 1,310 refund checks worth $1,443,545 for Oregon taxpayers that were returned by the U.S. Post Office due to mailing address errors.

Across the country, 107.8 million refund checks worth a combined $123.5 million are waiting for taxpayers to claim them.

All a taxpayer has to do is update his or her address once with the U.S. Post Office. The IRS will then send out all checks due. Undeliverable refund checks average $1,104 per Oregonian this year, compared to $930 last year. Some taxpayers are due more than one check.

I would love to see further analysis of this. How many of these checks are going to people who used an ITIN? How many used an ITIN or SSN that was a duplicate? Are there six checks that are all using the same address?

Either there are a lot of illegal aliens who are missing their "refund" check or I really don't want the same people who are in charge of the IRS to control my health care.

The people still don't want gay marriage

Dejection fills ballroom after gay marriage vote
Cecelia Burnett and Ann Swanson had already set their wedding date. When they joined about 1,000 other gay marriage supporters for an election night party in a Holiday Inn ballroom, they hoped to celebrate the vote that would make it possible.

Instead, they went home at midnight, dejected and near tears after a failed bid to make Maine the first state to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the vote in a referendum that asked Maine voters whether they wanted to repeal a law allowing same-sex marriage that had passed the Legislature and was signed by Democratic Gov. John

Special Rights Oregon has just announced that they will push for a ballot measure in Oregon to repeal our preservation of marriage law but chalk up another state where voters, when asked, reject the idea of gay marriage.

It's hard to argue with the undeniable fact that whenever THE PEOPLE, as opposed to the folks who are in theory representing the people, are asked, they say no same-sex marriage.

We have marriage equality: everyone can marry someone of the opposite sex.

It's not generous to give away someone else's money

Oregonians ask, 'Where's my subsidy?'
You've given up those nose-bleed seats in the Rose Garden and you're buying your wine at Trader Joe's. You run in the rain because you can no longer afford the gym. Even though you've taken a pay cut, the last time you remember taking an afternoon off was a furlough day.

Yet every time you turn around, the state of Oregon -- while taxing you to the breaking point -- is dishing out another public subsidy to your neighborhood tavern or green energy pipedream.

You better believe you're steamed. As you should be.

The governor and the Legislature have yet to figure out you can't plead poverty, and pitch tax increases, while freeing state agencies to indulge in this misbegotten generosity.

Our job as conservatives is to now point to the underlying principle that government picking winners and losers is ALWAYS misbegotten generosity, not just in a recession and not just with "green" energy.

It is misbegotten generosity to take money from one person or one group and give it to another who has not earned it.