Tuesday roundup

Progressives love to cite the Scandinavian countries as models for workable socialism. Ben Shapiro at NRO demonstrates the faultiness of this construct, on grounds of geography, population size, demographics, and, most importantly, the fact that what they practice isn't actually socialism.

And in a piece at The Federalist (the whole of which is an excellent overview of why free-market economics is the only "system" that really empowers individuals), Andy Puzder quotes the Danish Prime Minister:

In a 2015 speech at Harvard University, Denmark’s prime minister stated: “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism, therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” In 2016, a noted Danish economist told CNN that Denmark’s major political parties would oppose many of democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ regulatory policies “as being too leftist.”

At Ricochet, Hoover Institution fellow Richard Epstein makes clear that what Elizabeth Warren proposed in a WSJ op-ed last week - putting the federal government in charge of corporate charters - is economically disastrous and a trampling of freedom.

Post-America is a culturally bleak place, but apparently there are still enough post-Americans who find nothing funny about Michelle Wolf's TV "God-bless-abortions" / "viciousness-is-righteous" show that its ratings never got out of the cellar - even though it was a Netflix stream-on-demand offering - leading Netflix to cancel it.

Peter Heck at The Resurgent says that Christians ought to be straight up with postmodern secularists expressing whatever degree of interest in exploring the Bible and tell them, be prepared to be offended:

 I don’t think as Christians we should avoid telling the truth or acknowledging to those who hate the Bible that we understand why they do.

The Bible is offensive because God is holy and we are not.

It’s truly that simple. And that’s why if I might be so bold, I would suggest that as Christians we should spend less time trying to explain to people why the Bible shouldn’t be offensive to them, but instead spend our time telling them why the Bible is going to be offensive to them, and why that’s precisely what they (and we) need.

Stephen Moore invites us to contemplate this juxtaposition:

Take a wild guess what country is reducing its greenhouse gas emissions the most? Canada? Britain? France? India? Germany? Japan? No, no, no, no, no and no. 

The answer to that question is the U.S. of A. Wow! How can that be? This must be a misprint. Fake news. America never ratified the Kyoto Treaty some two decades ago. We never enacted a carbon tax. We don't have a cap-and-trade carbon emission program. That environmental villain Donald Trump pulled America out of the Paris climate accord that was signed by almost the entire rest of the civilized world.

Yet the latest world climate report from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy finds that in 2017, America reduced its carbon emissions by 0.5 percent, the most of all major countries. That's especially impressive given that our economy grew by nearly 3 percent -- so we had more growth and less pollution -- the best of all worlds. The major reason for the reduced pollution levels is the shale oil and gas revolution that is transitioning the world to cheap and clean natural gas for electric power generation. 

Meanwhile, as our emissions fell, the pollution levels rose internationally and by a larger amount than in previous years. So much for the rest of the world going green. 

The nanny state presumes to know how to raise your children - today's edition:

A proposed bill in the California Senate aims to combat childhood obesity in the state by restricting restaurants to serve children only water or unflavored milk to go along with their meals.

Senate bill 1192 says it does not prohibit a restaurant to sell, or for the customer to purchase an alternative beverage, like juice or soda, if requested by the purchaser of the children's meal.

The bill passed the Assembly on Thursday.

Backers of the bill say it is an attempt to tackle the rising levels of obesity among kids. The bill was introduced by state Sen. Bill Monning.

John Bolton says that North Korea has yet to demonstrate any seriousness about denuclearization.