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Our friends on The Left, especially The Professional Left, use emotional arguments to win hearts and minds. We conservatives are typically not very good at storytelling, which puts us at a disadvantage when trying to win debates over public policy. This disadvantage becomes more pronounced when we fail to counter the false premises of The Left. When we let an underlying premise go unchallenged, we have already lost the argument.

Too many Republicans, and even too many conservatives (not necessarily the same thing), fall into the trap of The Professional Left every single time. They'll meet the Democrats on their turf, leaving their false premises unchallenged in an attempt not to look like a typically mean Republican. When we use the language of The Left to try to beat them, the referee might as well declare a TKO before we even enter the ring. If we conservatives permanently want to change the arguments over taxes, budgets, health care, immigration, abortion, and any number of a host of public policies, we must first learn to recognize the false premises of The Left and call them out for what they are. As Napoleon learned at Waterloo, it never works out when you fight your enemy on their home turf. Reclaim the battlefield, and you claim the battle.

Here are Eight False Premises of The Left. Learn to recognize and counter them, and the argument will flow your way every time (at least until you're called Hitler, invoking Godwin's Law). Which false premise of The Left drives you craziest?

1. Mass shootings are on the rise! If we could just get rid of all the guns, people wouldn't be so violent!

This argument bears all the hallmarks of a False Premise of The Left. Take a crisis, blow it out of proportion, and demand emergency action. Voila! Rights revoked, and everybody feels better! This is the classic argument of the advocates of gun control. This argument presupposes that humans aren't naturally predisposed toward violence to assert their dominance in a dispute.

In order to defeat this argument, one must know the freely available stats on the rates of violent crime. Every outlet you can find, left-leaning, right-leaning, government stats, whatever is out there -- they all show a dramatic drop in violent crime since its peak in the early '90s. This article from National Review gives a good overview. The upshot is that as funding for police increases, violent crime decreases. About those mass shootings? According to John Lott, France had more deaths from mass shootings in 2015 than the U.S. had in all eight years of the Obama administration. This is not a uniquely American problem, and the frequency of attacks is a mere 0.078 per million people. Statistically, the chance of dying in a mass shooting event is roughly equivalent to dying in a severe weather event. Is it awful? Of course. Should we do more? Absolutely. Should we trample the rights of law-abiding gun owners? What do you think?

Originally posted here:
Eight False Pretenses Liberals Use to Frame an Argument - PJ Media

HALIFAX Nova Scotia's premier did his best to laugh off a gaffe apparently revealing the provincial election date, after a campaign video was posted to the Liberal party's website Friday.

The video, which was quickly taken down, showed Premier Stephen McNeil next to a campaign slogan and the message "on May 30th vote Liberal."

It is the strongest hint yet that an election will be called in the coming days, although McNeil refused to confirm anything.

"You saw an ad that was a mock-up of an ad, I wouldn't read too much into it," McNeil told reporters at the legislature.

"As you can tell it didn't go through the spell check or anything. There is a number of stuff the campaign is doing, but I wouldn't read too much into it."

The campaign video alsomisspells the party's slogan "Building on a Stronger Nova Scotia" spelling it as "Bulding."

The Elections Nova Scotia website says an election period is "not less than 30 days" from the date the writ drops.

The Liberal government would have to call an election by this Sunday in order for Nova Scotians to go to the polls May 30.

On the heels of aweeks-long spending spree, the provincial government tableda balanced budget Thursday, further fuelling speculation that an election is around the corner.

Still, McNeil chose to remain coy when asked whether he was denying there was going to be an election on May 30.

"There will be an election at some point in the future and I'm looking forward to that," said McNeil, who added he would be spending his Saturday night at a church dinner in his home riding.

McNeil was again asked whether someone had jumped the gun and pre-empted an announcement that is usually made by the premier.

"Well there's no campaign," he laughed.

Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie said he didn't see what happened as being funny.

Baillie said the episode looks bad on the government, and how it has handled the run-up to what seems to be an imminent election call.

"It just shows that we've got to get away from this style of leadership where you pretend you're presenting a real budget and really you are planning an election," he said. "That's why I've been in favour of fixed election dates and this is probably the strongest argument yet."

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada without a fixed election date.

Keith Doucette, The Canadian Press

Read more:
Nova Scotia's governing Liberals pull campaign ad suggesting May 30 election - rdnewsnow.com

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The only thing anyone is allowed to hear on campus is a slogan. Thinking is so 20th century (and early 20th century at that). The adults paid to be in charge have retreated to a safe place, where never is heard an encouraging word and the skies are cloudy all day.

The First Amendment has been under the latest assault for months, and this week Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and onetime chairman of the Democratic Party, finally said out loud what certain prominent Democrats have hinted at and alluded to, that free speech does not necessarily include extending it to anyone who disagrees with them.

This poison spread, like so much of the toxic stuff polluting the body politic, from the campuses of the elite. Particularly the University of California at Berkeley, where visiting speakers with something to say cant say it because it might offend the sophomore class. Cowardice rules in the university presidents office and ignorance rules in Sproul Plaza. A speech by Ann Coulter, the firebrand columnist, was canceled because everyone was afraid of what she might say.

Miss Coulter, a slender woman who might weigh 90 pounds stepping out of a shower, was eager to take her chances facing down the mob to say her piece, whatever that piece might have been, but the Berkeley cops, the university administration, the sponsoring Young Americas Foundation and the College Republicans, all trembled, looked one way and then the other, and took a powder lest the hooded brownshirts dressed in black with robbers masks, actually disrupt the tranquility of the campus.

The editors of National Review magazine observed with a bit of acid that Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California System, was Barack Obamas Director of Homeland Security and was responsible for keeping al Qaeda out of New York and Washington, but she cant secure a lecture hall on a California college campus.

But even in defending free speech and all that free speech means, the editors prefaced their condemnation of cowardice and outrage at Berkeley with something of an apology for defending Miss Coulter: We have had our differences with Ann Coulter over the years, differences that led to our eventually declining to continue publishing her work. She is charming and funny and sometimes brilliant. She is also a glib and irresponsible self-promoter. We suspect that she will not like having that written about her. We suspect that she might write something in reply. But the editors think it is nevertheless wrong, or at least inappropriate, to chase her off the campus. Probably.

Howard Dean likes free speech and the First Amendment well enough, but with appropriate edits and the proper emendations. He looked at the work of the Founding Fathers with a physicians eye and saw that the guarantee was not absolute, as the Founding Fathers thought it was. The amendment does not protect hate speech, which he thinks is anything unpleasant for a good fellow like him to hear.

The Founding Fathers thought they succeeded in writing the guarantee in stark, plain English so plain and so clear, in fact, that even a lawyer could understand it: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. No ifs, ands, or buts, and not a single whereas. Nothing there about hate speech, exclusions, preclusions or exceptions.

This gives some people palpitations. Its no mystery why such people are invariably at the likes of Berkeley and Yale and Middlebury. Youre not as likely to see or hear proposed footnotes to the First Amendment at the likes of Southeast North Dakota State, Utah A&M or Ouachita Baptist College.

In First Amendment law, says Glenn Harlan Reynolds, the distinguished professor of constitutional law at the University of Tennessee, the term hate speech is meaningless. All speech is equally protected whether its hateful or cheerful. It doesnt matter if its racist, sexist or in poor taste, unless speech falls into a few very narrow categories like true threats, which have to address a specific individual, or incitement, which must constitute an immediate and intentional encouragement to imminent lawless action its protected.

Theres a reason why the Founders put the First Amendment first. Its the most important part of the Constitution, and as important as the rest of the Bill of Rights is, the First Amendment is the most important. With free speech, the people are armed to protect all other rights. Without it, the people are disarmed, and tyrants, the vile and ignorant like the students on certain campuses among us, rule. We allow that at our deadly peril.

Wesley Pruden is editor in chief emeritus of The Times.

Go here to read the rest:
First Amendment under attack by liberals - Washington Times

TORONTO Ontario's Liberal government is promising to inject billions of new dollars into health care in its first balanced budget in a decade, a fiscal plan designed to appeal to nearly everyone in the province ahead of an election next summer.

Crafted by a party in power since 2003 that has been faring poorly in recent polls, the $141-billion budget has measures targeted at both young and old, people who access the health care system and anyone who owns or rents a home and pays an electricity bill.

The centrepiece of the plan is a $465-million-a-year pharmacare program for children and youth, which would cover prescription medications to treat most acute and common chronic conditions for people under age 25, with no deductible or co-payment. It would start Jan. 1.

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, right, delivers the 2017 Ontario budget next to Premier Kathleen Wynne at Queen's Park in Toronto on April 27, 2017. (Photo: Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)

The plan will be most beneficial for youth who currently are not covered under private plans or the Ontario Drug Benefit program for social assistance recipients, but government officials weren't able to say how many people that captures.

In total, the government is promising $11.5 billion in new spending on health care over three years, including money to address hospital overcrowding, funding for mental health and addiction services, cash for hospital construction projects and home care funding.

The budget also includes funds for new child care spaces, money to build schools, measures aimed at seniors and previously announced cuts to electricity bills and plans to cool the housing market.

Much of the projected spending, however, is spread out over multiple years, well past the June 2018 election. But Finance Minister Charles Sousa said his "socially progressive" budget is not a ploy for votes.

"These decisions that we're making today are not based on election cycles, they're based on long-term benefit for the people of Ontario," he said.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said the budget is not, in fact, structurally balanced, because of one-time asset sale money such as the sale of shares of Hydro One and accounting "tricks," such as counting public pension surpluses as assets, against the advice of the province's Auditor general.

"This budget is a patchwork attempt by a desperate government to fix the mess they've created before the next election," he said. "If they lose this next election this is spending they'll never have to be accountable for."

The price tag for the Liberals' centrepiece pharmacare plan is not in the budget itself and was provided only verbally by staffers.

"Listen, that document is what, 296 pages long," Sousa said when asked about the absence. "You can't put everything in the document."

Plan seems last minute: Horwath

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who just this week announced a New Democrat government would bring in universal pharmacare for people of all ages, said the Liberal plan seems last minute.

"I think it's quite curious as well," she said. "All I can think of is that they made it up on the back of a napkin before they got to today."

The Liberals had promised no new taxes on families, though they are increasing tobacco taxes by $10 per carton over the next three years and giving municipalities the power to introduce a hotel tax.

In addition to balancing the books this year, the government is now projecting balanced budgets through to 2019-20. Despite reaching balance, however, the province's debt continues to grow.

It is projected to be $312 billion this year, growing to $336 billion in 2019-20. Interest on debt is the fourth largest spending area, at $11.6 billion.

Historically low interest rates helped the province get to balance, but interest on debt is still projected to be the fastest growing expenditure area, at an average 3.6 per cent from 2015 to 2020.

Nonetheless, the government paints a rosy economic outlook, projecting two per cent average GDP growth through to 2020, driven by exports and business investment.

On the infrastructure front, spending is growing from a promise last year of $160 billion over 12 years to $190 million over 13 years. The additional $30 billion will go toward new hospital projects, school renewal and child care expansion.

Ontario will also move ahead with planning a high-speed rail corridor between Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, London and Windsor, the government said in the budget. The project could cut travel times from Toronto to Windsor from the current four hours to two.

Under the education banner, about $16 billion is earmarked over 10 years to build and improve schools at a time when the government is coming under fire for rural school closures. Another $200 million will go to creating 24,000 child care spaces and subsidizing 60 per cent of them.

Seniors are also specifically targeted in the budget. A public transit tax credit for people 65 and older will see 15 per cent of eligible transit costs refunded with an average annual benefit of $130. That is estimated to cost the government about $10 million a year. The measure comes after the federal government announced it was eliminating a 15-per-cent tax credit for commuters who buy a transit pass.

There is also $11 million over three years for a seniors community grant program and another $8 million over three years for new community centres with seniors' programming. The province has also earmarked $100 million over three years for a dementia strategy that will include helping patients and their caregivers find support and improve training for health-care workers.

Read the original:
Ontario Budget 2017: Liberals Introduce First Balanced Budget In A Decade - Huffington Post Canada

A pair of popularDemocratic Party senators took shots at former president Barack Obamas $400,000 speaking fee for a future Wall Street event, a rate that equaled his yearly presidential salary. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders shared their opinions aboutthe fee with the media, although other Democrats and liberals have taken similar speaking engagements in times past.

After some time away from the spotlight, Obama has resurfaced much to the delight of his supporters. But like the adoration from the public has become a norm, so has criticism from his own party. When news that Obama would be accepting $400,000 to speak at Cantor Fitzgeralds healthcareconference later this year, liberals bristled at the idea. Cantor Fitzgerald is a New York financial firm that deals in equity and trading.

In speaking with SiriusXMs Alter Family Politics show, Sen. Warren of Massachusetts didnt mince words in answering Andy Cohens inquiry about the fee.

I was troubled by that, said Warren, writes Yahoo News. One of the things I talk about in the book [the recently-publishedThis Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save Americas Middle Class] is the influence of money.I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington. And that it shows up in so many different ways here in Washington.

While Warrens point that Wall Streets influence on politics is troublesome, Obama is not in a position to run for office nor has made it known he has any aims to lobby to sitting politicians on behalf of the finance world.

Bloombergs Steven Dennis spoke with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, also levied his criticism. I think its unfortunate. President Obama is now a private citizen and he can do anything he wants to but I think its unfortunate, said Sanders, while adding the word unfortunate a third time in his reply to Dennis. Sen. Sanders also compared Obamas speaking engagement to that of former Goldman Sachs president and COO Gary Cohns position with President Donald Trump as the Chief Financial Adviser.

The Democratic Party and liberals, in general, have turned a critical eye towards Wall Street. Yet the practice of former government leaders and officials using their expertise to earn money in the speaking arena is not new. Former president Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have all taken high-paying speaker fees in varying intervals.

Also in place are lobbying bans that Obama himself instituted while in office that would hinder former employees to address government officials on behalf of Wall Street and other special interests.

To be sure, senators Warren and Sanders have long-standing issues with Wall Streets political influence and have said in previous times they felt Obama took it easy on financial institutions while shunningmiddle-class concerns.

Obama has yet to respond to the criticism.

What do you think? Sound off in comments.

SOURCE: Yahoo News

SEE ALSO:

Michelle Obama Tweets Her Love For Beyonces Formation Scholarships

Obama Delivers Message Of Encouragement To Chicago At-Risk Youth

Go here to read the rest:
White Liberals Troubled By Barack Obama $400000 Speaking Fee - News One