Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Update

Parasites!

“America appears to be in the midst of an outbreak of — I’m sorry, but there’s no better way to say this — explosive diarrhea.”

That was not the first sentence of Nicholas Florko’s July 11, 2026, reportage in The Atlantic. But perhaps should have been.

The article is titled “America’s Home-grown Parasite Problem.”

And no, it is not about the politics of the transfer state. You may have heard that The Atlantic has lately been turning away from its decade-long bout of woke diarrhea, but analysis of parasitism and subversion in a sociological sense — say, along the lines of Herbert Spencer, Franz Oppenheimer, or Stanislav Andreski — is too much to hope for.

The article is about something more, uh, down-to-earth: the parasite known as Cyclospora cayetanensis. Which can cause an illness, cyclosporiasis. It is all gruesome stuff, and can be read about in The Atlantic.

Today

The Weehawken Duel

On July 11, 1804, General Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, and Colonel Aaron Burr, third (and sitting) Vice President of the United States, took part in a duel at a site known as the Weehawken Dueling Grounds, a narrow ledge about 20 feet above the river, which, at the time, offered a secluded spot with a clear view of Manhattan.

Hamilton, less than 50 years of age, died the next day of complications from a bullet wound; Burr, who was not hit, died on September 14, 32 years later at age 80.

The ledge eroded away later, as has the practice of dueling.

Thought

Aeschines

ἐντεῦθεν γὰρ ἰσχύσετε, ὅταν εὐνομῆσθε καὶ μὴ
καταλύησθε ὑπὸ τῶν παρανομοῦντων.

For then only will you be strong, when you cherish the laws, and when the revolutionary attempts of lawless men shall have ceased.
Aeschines, Against Timarchus (346/5 BC), I.5.

Today

The Weehawken Duel

Hamilton, less than 50 years of age, died the next day of complications from a bullet wound; Burr, who was not hit, died on September 14, 32 years later at age 80.

Accountability ideological culture

No Vacation from Antisemitism

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 10, 2026
3 Comments on No Vacation from Antisemitism

Yoni Birnbaum, antisemitism, Israel, Judaism, blacklist, discrimination

Is it possible to discriminate against a Jew for being a Jew without knowing that this is what one is doing?

Yoni Birnbaum, a Jewish man and rabbi, reports on what happened after he reserved a vacation rental in France.

The property owner emailed to say that he had noticed the word “rabbi” in Birnbaum’s email address and therefore felt it necessary to inquire whether Birnbaum was sufficiently critical of Israel before letting the booking stand. If not, the reservation would be cancelled.

This wasn’t a litmus test to which all prospective renters of the property were being routinely subjected. The owner acknowledged that only because he had noticed that Birnbaum was Jewish was he demanding to know his views on Israel.

Birnbaum replied, in part: “No doubt, you wrote your email to me out of some kind of twisted sense of virtue. But it seems clear to me that what lies at the heart of your demand for me to declare my views on the conflict in the Middle East, is that to you, before anything else, I am a Jew. Therefore, at the very least, you feel you have to test me and family. . . .

“In other words, you wished to subject me to a purity test. Am I one of the ‘good Jews’ or one of the ‘bad Jews’?”

Not the worst thing that can happen to somebody. But it has something in common with the very worst that can happen.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Tibor R. Machan

Ethics requires the kind of personal reflection, in the end, that no one else can do decisively for any individual.
Tibor R. Machan, The Promise of Liberty: A Non-Utopian Vision (2009), p. 69.

Today

Anti-Bankster

The “killshot” moment in the “Bank War.”

On July 10, 1832, U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, in effect ending formal central banking in the United States until the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

ideological culture U.S. Constitution

Constitutional Tourism

birthright citizenship, China, Constitution, foreign policy

“I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social last week, after the Supreme Court struck down his executive order, which declared that children born of mothers in the country illegally or on a temporary visa were not covered by the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14th Amendment.

Mr. Trump was referring to “birthright tourism,” pregnant women traveling to this country with the sole purpose of giving their child automatic U.S. citizenship. In his new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, Peter Schweizer charges that the Chinese government has “created a system whereby it’s happening on an industrial scale,” that in the last decade more than a million Chinese mothers have traveled to America to give birth.

How can we be untroubled that more than a million kids growing up in Communist China today have a legal right to come to the United States at any time?

In his concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that, “consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment,” Congress could “enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship . . .”

The president cheered the idea: “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!”

Yet, none of the other five justices in the majority left that statutory door open; it likely will require a constitutional amendment. And that should not be impossible, but in the last half-century not even one has been both introduced and ratified.

Sen. Rand Paul introduced an amendment back in April on birthright citizenship. Sen. Tom Cotton has one, too.

Constitutions exist to keep government under citizen control. If we can never alter a word in that compact, we lose that control.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Even more so, we need amendments to prevent court-packing, establish term limits on Congress, and secure that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections.

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Thought

John Hospers

A fascist is a student who, seeing the representatives of a chemical industry recruiting on campus, cries, ‘Let’s chase the bastard off! We have the right to free speech but he doesn’t!’
John Hospers, Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (1971), p. 39.

Today

A Declaration Read

On July 9, 1776, General George Washington had the Declaration of Independence read out to members of the Continental Army in Manhattan. Meanwhile, thousands of British troops on Staten Island prepared for the Battle of Long Island.