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If Nixon deserved points for going to China, Rand Paul deserves
points for going to Detroit — and trying to convert the GOP
from a pasty white guys’ party to a multi-hued one where everyone,
even people with “pony tails, tattoos and earrings,” are
welcome.

But his actual plan to try and save Detroit by creating Economic
Freedom Zones, I note in the Washington Examiner this
morning, is simply old garb with new accessories. It’s basic
premise that it is not government but entrepreneurs who can revive
economic basket cases like Detroit is obvious to everyone (except
liberals, communists and the Pope). But the problem is that the
lovers of America’s regulatory state will never unshackle
entrepreneurs and let them work their magic as this plan would
require. I note:

This approach worked well in England,
turning London’s depressed docklands into a super-dynamic hub for
finance and other businesses in the 1980s. It also transformed
India’s
Bangalore from a sleepy little town (that Winston Churchill once
compared to a prison) into a global IT powerhouse in the 1990s.

But it has been a disappointing failure in America. Why? Because
neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever managed to create
anything resembling a genuine enterprise zone.

Go
here to read the whole thing.

If Nixon deserved points for going to China, Rand Paul deserves
points for going to Detroit — and trying to convert the GOP
from a pasty white guys’ party to a multi-hued one where everyone,
even people with “pony tails, tattoos and earrings,” are
welcome.

But his actual plan to try and save Detroit by creating Economic
Freedom Zones, I note in the Washington Examiner this
morning, is simply old garb with new accessories. It’s basic
premise that it is not government but entrepreneurs who can revive
economic basket cases like Detroit is obvious to everyone (except
liberals, communists and the Pope). But the problem is that the
lovers of America’s regulatory state will never unshackle
entrepreneurs and let them work their magic as this plan would
require. I note:

This approach worked well in England,
turning London’s depressed docklands into a super-dynamic hub for
finance and other businesses in the 1980s. It also transformed
India’s
Bangalore from a sleepy little town (that Winston Churchill once
compared to a prison) into a global IT powerhouse in the 1990s.

But it has been a disappointing failure in America. Why? Because
neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever managed to create
anything resembling a genuine enterprise zone.

Go
here to read the whole thing.

Time has
picked the pope as its person of the year, thus angering those
readers who are certain that the title should have gone to some
other figure (usually Edward Snowden). My position this year is the
same as every year. As I put
it back in 2002, after the magazine gave its honor to a
trio it dubbed “The Whistleblowers”:

My hat goes off to Time—not for its
selection, but for once more inspiring so many people to discuss
the world’s single vaguest annual award as though it were
meaningful and important. Even People‘s yearly
announcement of the Sexiest Man Alive—isn’t it funny how the
sexiest man alive always turns out to be famous already? What are
the odds of that?—has the advantage of being restricted to one
qualification (sexiness); if an aggrieved fan wants to dispute the
pick, she at least knows what she’s disputing. To this day, I’m not
sure how one outqualifies someone else to be Man of the Year. The
magazine’s definition—”the single person who, for better or worse,
has most influenced events in the preceding year”—isn’t helpful,
since the mag regularly ignores the “single person” bit in practice
and doesn’t seem very interested in the admittedly impossible task
of measuring “influence,” either.

Nonetheless, each December people behave as though there is some
platonic ideal Man of the Year out there, and that the
disinterested scientists at Time somehow misidentified it.
Last year the rap on the editors was that they only picked Rudy
Giuliani because they were too scared to select Osama bin Laden.
(Their stated rationale was that he was “not a larger-than-life
figure with broad historical sweep,” but “a garden-variety
terrorist whose evil plan succeeded beyond his highest hopes.”)
This time the complaint is that they’ve picked three people whom
hardly anyone’s heard of and who didn’t make much of a difference
in the big picture anyway. (They are nonetheless, one presumes,
larger-than-life figures with broad historical sweep.)…The more
dissension, the bigger the buzz; the bigger the buzz, the better
for Time. What can I say? It’s a great way to sell
magazines.

“When I’m talking to a libertarian and I make the point that the
USDA food pyramid is not god’s truth, they’re like, ‘Oh, right, of
course it isn’t,’ says John Durant, author of
The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong
Health. “It doesn’t require a lot of persuasion that the
official guidelines on diet are wrong.”

Durant’s book tells the story of how he discovered his inner
hunter-gatherer, and it offers practical guidelines for how to
transition to the meat-heavy low-carb diet favored by our
Paleolithic ancestors—and a surprising number of libertarians.

View this article.

“When I’m talking to a libertarian and I make the point that the
USDA food pyramid is not god’s truth, they’re like, ‘Oh, right, of
course it isn’t,’ says John Durant, author of
The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong
Health. “It doesn’t require a lot of persuasion that the
official guidelines on diet are wrong.”

Durant’s book tells the story of how he discovered his inner
hunter-gatherer, and it offers practical guidelines for how to
transition to the meat-heavy low-carb diet favored by our
Paleolithic ancestors—and a surprising number of libertarians.

View this article.

• The latest reporting on the documents leaked by Edward Snowden
  reveals that the
  NSA uses cookies to track targets. 
• Lawmakers unveiled a budget
  deal yesterday that would avoid another partial government
  shutdown.
• India’s Supreme Court has ruled that a colonial-era law
  
  criminalizing homosexuality is constitutional.
• 
  Pope Francis is TIME‘s Person of the Year.
  Edward Snowden was runner-up.
• New York City Mayor
  Michael Bloomberg is backing legislation that would require all
  children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years who attend a
  licensed preschool or daycare to get a flu vaccine.
• Experts claim that the gestures made by the the sign language
  interpreter at the
  Nelson Mandela memorial didn’t mean anything in American or
  South African sign languages.

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At a recent event, President Barack Obama said the health care
law is here to stay and vowed, “We aren’t going back.” But 55
percent of Americans say they’d prefer to go back to the health
care system that was in place before the Affordable Care Act, while
34 percent prefer the current health care system. 

The latest Reason-Rupe national telephone poll finds the
Affordable Care Act’s troubled launch has made 47 percent of
Americans less confident in government’s ability to solve problems.
Forty-one percent say the troubles have made no difference and 11
percent say the health care law’s launch has given them more
confidence in the government.

“This is the most transparent administration in history,”
President Obama has declared. However, 57 percent of Americans tell
Reason-Rupe that the Obama administration is not the most
transparent administration in history, while 37 percent agree with
the president’s statement.

A majority of Americans, 52 percent, say they disagree with
President Obama’s views about the proper size and power of
government, while 38 percent agree with the president.

Fifty-four percent of those surveyed feel government is
generally a “burdensome part of society that impedes the ability of
people to improve their lives,” while 41 percent feel “government
is primarily a source of good and helps people improve their
lives.”

Nearly three out of four Americans, 73 percent, believe members
of Congress do not understand health care or how health care laws
impact Americans. Just 25 percent think members of Congress
understand the consequences of the health care laws they pass.

Seventy percent of Americans oppose making young people pay more
for health care to help fund health care for older or less healthy
Americans. Six in 10 oppose requiring younger, healthier people to
help fund insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. And 57
percent believe lower cost health care plans that provide fewer
benefits than required by the Affordable Care Act should be
allowed.  

Of the 44 percent of respondents who say that they liked the
Affordable Care Act when it passed, 41 percent of them like it less
now.   Of the 52 percent who disliked the law when it was
passed, 14 percent like it more now.

When it comes to health care overall, 57 percent of Americans
disapprove of the job President Obama is doing, while 38 percent
approve. Overall, however, 47 percent say they approve of the job
President Obama is doing — four points better than the September
Reason-Rupe poll. One in five Americans, 20 percent, approve of the
job Congress is doing, down slightly from September.

Full Poll 

The full poll is online here and
additional Reason-Rupe poll resources are available here.
This is the latest in a series of Reason-Rupe public opinion
surveys dedicated to exploring what Americans really think about
government and major issues.  This Reason Foundation project
is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Arthur N.
Rupe Foundation.

The Reason-Rupe poll conducted live interviews with 1,011 adults
on mobile (506) and landline (505) phones from December 4-8, 2013.
The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percent. Princeton
Survey Research Associates International executed the nationwide
Reason-Rupe survey.