Goodbye to Neverland & Small Business Tyrants
Here's the latest dispatch.
Good evening,
For you newbies out there, welcome to Outsider on the Inside. I hope this dispatch from in and around the nation’s capital on underreported topics finds you well.
If you’re just discovering my musings, here’s a backgrounder and make sure we’re connected on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Quick Thoughts
Support and follow the work of IWF’s Center for Energy and Conservation today if you haven’t already.
See how much your state spends on hunting and sporting sports (via Sportsmen’s Alliance).
Here are the 10 thirstiest Members of Congress, according to POLITICO.
In the words of my friend Sarah Selip, work smarter.
One of Colorado’s 10 reintroduced wolves has apparently died of natural causes.
Several cans of well-preserved cherries - dating back 250 years - were just discovered at George Washington’s Mt. Vernon Estate in Alexandria, VA.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next Friday’s update!
New Music Friday: ‘Goodbye to Neverland’ by Madison Hughes
Country singer-songwriter Madison Hughes, a contestant on Season 22 of The Voice and mentioned 2X in Billboard Magazine, released her new EP called Goodbye to Neverland today.
Madison give me an exclusive preview of the album recently and in our interview together out now:
“I hope that it comes across as like honest and not, you know, so fake and polished because this wasn't. It's just took so many different tries of me doing the vocals here and there. And so there's a lot of soul behind each song. All the toil we've had tried to get the songs right and finished to be recorded, like last summer, and just now are finally wrapped up. And so a lot of the songs have, like, I'd say, three of the songs are more of a soothing tone, which people really like. And then I also have some two upbeat songs on there, which I needed to give people some more upbeat recently. So kind of has that tough girl energy and a couple of them too.” – Madison Hughes
Listen to the six-song EP below and share:
Small Business Owners Aren’t Tyrants
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie believes small business owners are tyrants.
In his op-ed “The Small-Business Tyrant Has Favorite Political Party,” Bouie ranted about how oppressive 33 million small businesses to their nearly 62 million (46.4% of the U.S. private sector) people they cumulatively employ.
Despite the blue-collar affectations of some of its most visible leaders or the populist rhetoric of its most vocal cheerleaders, it has never been more obvious that the Republican Party is the party of the boss, and in particular the party of the small-business tyrant.
Who or what is the small business tyrant? It’s the business owner whose livelihood rests on a steady supply of low-wage labor; who opposes unions, resents even the most cursory worker protections and employee safety regulations, and who views those workers as little more than extensions of himself, to use as he sees fit.
The small-business tyrant is, to borrow an argument from the writer and podcaster Patrick Wyman, an especially reactionary member of America’s landowning gentry: local economic elites whose wealth comes primarily from their ownership of physical assets. Those assets, Wyman explains, “vary depending on where in the country we’re talking about; they could be a bunch of McDonald’s franchises in Jackson, Mississippi, a beef-processing plant in Lubbock, Texas, a construction company in Billings, Montana, commercial properties in Portland, Maine, or a car dealership in western North Carolina.”
Small business support is popular, bipartisan, and nonpartisan. But politically speaking, these folks - along with self-employed independent contractors - historically vote Republican. That’s a crime in this guy’s eyes. The horror!
I’ve never seen anyone lump small businesses with tyranny, because it makes no logical sense given entrepreneurship being about independence, self-reliance, and risk-taking. Hardly markers of tyranny.
The opposite, much to Bouie’s chagrin, is true. Central planning, top-down policies that invite government to have majority ownership in business, small or otherwise, is actually tyrannical. Small business owners are rightfully skeptical of high taxation, onerous regulations, and forced unionization. Why shouldn’t they be? These policies invite intrusion by the government and, by extension, tyranny.
Here’s my made a reel dissecting and debunking this asinine op-ed.
National Park Week
With National Park Week underway, I’m writing to say I’m still in awe about last week’s visit to Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington State.
Mt. Rainier was designated a park by President William McKinley on March 2nd, 1899—the fourth of 63 official national parks. The National Park Service says it was the first park to allow personal vehicles and first to institute entrance fees in 1907.
My pictures and videos don’t do the place justice.
“Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.” — John Muir
ICYMI
Articles/commentary/media appearances from the past week.
MEDIA MENTIONS
I spoke to WMAL News program, O’Connor and Company, about the push for beanless coffee.
ARTICLES/BLOGS
IWF: Let’s Reclaim Earth Day From Radical Environmentalists
Policy Chat | Celebrate Earth Day By Rejecting Net-Zero Policies
IWF: Drink Beanless Coffee To Save Our Forests? Not So Fast
District of Conservation
Catch up on District of Conservation episodes below.
And check out my new podcast, The Sportswoman Show, too!
Thank you for reading! Let me know your thoughts and encourage your friends to subscribe to the newsletter too.
—Gabriella