All posts by Wintery Knight

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News

Is poverty the root cause of crime and terrorism?

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Consider this story from the UK Independent.

Excerpt:

Abdulmutallab, 23, had lived a gilded life, and, for the three years he studied in London, he stayed in a £2m flat. He was from a very different background to many of the other al-Qa’ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.

[…]Abdulmutallab’s father, Umaru, is the former economics minister of Nigeria. He retired earlier this month as the chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria but is still on the boards of several of Nigeria’s biggest firms, including Jaiz International, a holding company for the Islamic Bank. The 70-year-old, who was also educated in London, holds the Commander of the Order of the Niger as well as the Italian Order of Merit.

Dr Mutallab said he was planning to meet with police in Nigeria last night after realising his son had joined the notorious roster of al-Qa’ida terrorists, and is said to have warned the US authorities about his son’s extreme views six months ago.

People who deny the reality of evil put us at risk by advocating policies of appeasement and redistribution of wealth. Those policies incentivize crime and terrorism by making criminals and terrorists feel a sense of entitlement to act immorally, since their behavior is really the fault of society.

News

Michigan DHS deducts union dues from home-based day care subsidies

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Story here from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Michelle Berry runs a private day-care service from her home on the outskirts of this city, the birthplace of General Motors. “The Berry Patch,” as she calls the service, features overstuffed purple gorillas, giant cartoon murals, and a playroom covered in Astroturf. Her clients are mostly low-income parents who need child care to keep their jobs in a city that now has a 26% unemployment rate.

Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy—and it’s happening elsewhere in the country.

A year ago in December, Ms. Berry and more than 40,000 other home-based day care providers statewide were suddenly informed they were members of Child Care Providers Together Michigan—a union created in 2006 by the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union had won a certification election conducted by mail under the auspices of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. In that election only 6,000 day-care providers voted. The pro-labor vote turned out.

Many of the state’s other 34,000 day-care providers never even realized what was going on. Ms. Berry tells us she was “shocked” to find out she was suddenly in a union.

This is why the state of Michigan is a dump – it’s not just Detroit, it’s Lansing, and Governor Jennifer Granholm.

News

Terrorist’s father warned US Embassy of son’s extremist views

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Story from UPI. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The father of Nigerian terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab says he contacted the U.S. Embassy months ago warning of his son’s radicalism.

Alhaji Umaru Mutallab received a text from his son implying he was leaving school in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, “for the course of Islam,” a family source told CNN Saturday.

Abdulmutallab had studied engineering for three years at University College London. Mutallab lost contact with his son after Abdulmutallab left London for Dubai in November 2008, CNN said. The son reportedly disowned his family members and moved on to Yemen.

First, notice how poverty doesn’t cause terrorism. Evil causes terrorism. Second, I think we need to expect more from our government. Their first duty is to keep us safe. We certainly pay them enough.