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Update

Who Is Toxic Now, Really?

On Tuesday last week, Paul Jacob discussed the phenomenon of Europeans and other soccer — er, football — fans attending the World Cup games and getting to know Americans during and between gams, which occurred all over the states.

They were enthusiastic.

Like many other commentators, Paul quoted FreddyLA7, a Deutschländer who microblogged his American odyssey on X and became famous.

No sooner said than an emendation became necessary, for Freddy closed up his X account.

FreddyLA7 stated on Instagram Stories that he had planned to delete his X account at some point. His account’s deletion occurred shortly after Germany’s elimination from the World Cup, following a penalty shootout loss to Paraguay on June 29 (when Paul’s commentary was being prepped).

But there is more to the story: FreddyLA7 stated that the online response to his posts became “too toxic” and was “ruining the fun” of his travels, citing the platform’s toxicity and intense online backlash from the comment sections as reasons for deactivating his account.

All sorts of people — such as actor-author Stephen Fry — talk about how toxic X has become. They usually blame it on Elon Musk. Or, as in Fry’s case, “capitalism.” That is because it is leftists who make this complaint.

But it was not right-wing trolls who discouraged FreddyLA7. Everyone knows that. X may be toxic in varying ways, but the idea that the blame squarely falls upon conservatives and “reactionaries” and anti-leftists is preposterous. Freddy bugged the left because he was enthusing about America. And the left, today, tends to hate America . . . as well as the very kinds of Americans Freddy found charming.

“Too many people seem to have a problem with us having a genuinely good time here in the country,” said Freddy.

Categories
Today

July Fifth

The Liberty Bell left Philadelphia by special train on its way to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, on July 5, 1915 — the last trip outside Philadelphia that the custodians of the bell intend to permit.

In 1937 on this date, Spam, the luncheon meat, was introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years, was formally certified by President Richard Nixon on July 5, 1971.

On July 5, 1995, Armenia adopted its constitution, four years after the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.

Categories
Thought

Aeschines

εὖ γὰρ ἴστε, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ὅτι οὐχ αἱ παλαῖστραι
οὐδὲ τὰ διδασκαλεῖα οὐδ᾿ ἡ μουσικὴ μόνον παιδεύει
τοὺς νέους, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον τὰ δημόσια κηρύγματα.

For you are well aware that it is not only by bodily exercises, by educational institutions, or by lessons in music, that our youth are trained, but much more effectually by public examples.

Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon (330 BC), III.246.

Categories
video

Upon What Does Liberty Rest?

On Independence Day, perhaps consider upon what principles and habits of sociality liberty depends.

Here is food for that contemplation:

Categories
Thought

Proverb

Öküz saraya çıkınca kral olmaz. Ama saray ahır olur.

When an ox enters a palace, it doesn’t become a king but the palace turns into a barn.


Circassian proverb, traditional.
Categories
Today

July Fourth Events

1054 — A supernova was spotted by Chinese, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers. The celestial event occurred near the star Zeta Tauri, remaining, for several months, bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.

1776 — The Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence that had been submitted by committee members Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, thus formalizing its policy of secession from the empire of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1803 — The Louisiana Purchase was announced to the American people.

1804 — Nathaniel Hawthorne, American author of The Scarlet Letter, House of Seven Gables, The Blithesdale Romance, and other classics, was born. Hawthorne became part of the Young America literary movement spawned by Loco-Foco political activism in New England.

1826 — Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, died a few hours before John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States’ Declaration of Independence.

1826 — Stephen Foster, composer of “Old Black Joe,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and many other classic American songs, was born.

1827 — Slavery was abolished in New York State.

1831 — Samuel Francis Smith wrote “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” for Boston’s July 4th festivities, set to the tune of Great Britain’s national anthem, “God Save the King/Queen.”

2009 — The Statue of Liberty’s crown re-opened to the public after eight years of closure that resulted from security concerns following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Categories
defense & war general freedom ideological culture

These Difficult States

I’ve been a U.S. citizen for more than a quarter of the 250 years that there has been a United States.

Proud to be an American? Yes. Not because my country, or more specifically our government, has always been spectacular, or even in the right. I’ve taken a few lumps battling against the government. 

More than “proud to be an American,” which was admittedly an accident of birth, I’m proud of America. Even with all its faults, this country has been the greatest force for good, for freedom, for peace, for human dignity in the entire history of the world. 

Certainly, I get no personal credit for the revolution. I wasn’t around. I had no hand in writing the Declaration of Independence or the First Amendment. But I can recite parts. 

And defend them against modern foes. 

No blame goes to me for slavery — or any glory for ending it. Likewise, I didn’t storm the beaches of Normandy or plant the flag at Iwo Jima. I’m honored, however, to know men who did. Without those American kids, Europe and Asia would have been completely conquered by regimes of unspeakable evil. 

Those GIs were billionaires . . . saving truly billions of lives, physically and spiritually.  

We Americans — and the whole world — owe a grand debt to the ideals of the American Revolution and the blood and courage of Americans of yesteryear. One we can never fully repay. 

But we can pay it forward. By fighting to keep the Republic alive and well.

I think we all sense that these current times are those “that try men’s souls.” There are internal forces ripping at the fabric of our culture as well as militarized authoritarian forces on the march abroad. 

The first 250 years proved difficult; the next 250 may even be more so. But we say “The United States of America,” not “The United States of Easy.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Thought

Dr. Edward P. Philpots

Voyager upon life’s sea:—
To yourself be true,
And whate’er your lot may be,
Paddle your own canoe.

Dr. Edward P. Philpots, Paddle your own Canoe; written for Harry Clifton; appeared in Harper’s Monthly, May 1854.
Categories
Today

July Third

On July 3, 1775, George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1952 on July 3, Puerto Rico’s Constitution was approved by the Congress of the United States.

Categories
general freedom ideological culture

Where Independence Happened

Semiquincentennia, July 4, Independence Day, United States

The semiquincentennial of the United States could be celebrated today, July 2, 2026.

It was on the Second of July in A.D. 1776 that the Continental Congress decided to remove itself from the sovereignty of the king in Great Britain, George III. The representatives from the breakaway colonies did this in the affirmative with Richard Henry Lee’s “Resolution of Independence.” Congress appointed a “Committee of Five” to draft a Declaration, which was accepted on July Fourth — the day we have come to celebrate Independence Day. 

But independence was not mere congressional fiat. It had been brewing in the states; at least six of the colonies’ royal governors had fled or been sent packing in the revolutionary summer of 1775.

In 1775, most colonies possessed

  • functioning legislative bodies making domestic policy decisions;
  • militias organized without royal direction;
  • courts operating with locally appointed judges;
  • trade regulation occurred despite Parliamentary acts.

And some colonies even raised taxes and spent money sans royal approval.

By late 1775, several colonies had taken major steps toward self-government. Virginians had created a new form of government, the “constituent convention,” independent of the Crown, in 1774. Colonial New Hampshire became the first to adopt a written constitution. South Carolina had adopted an interim constitution in March 1776. Weeks later, the Halifax Resolves explicitly authorized a vote for independence. On the Fourth of May, Rhode Island publicly rejected the King.

There’s a lesson here. The groundwork was not laid in Congress — much of it conceived and brought to fruition by men and women who are not in the history books. 

If we want to Make America Free Again, we have to lay a foundation.

In the states.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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