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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

First Amendment Needs Help!

JAWBONE Act, free speech, censorship, internet, social media

Newly proposed legislation would make it harder for federal officials to censor speech by pressuring third parties to censor speech.

The bipartisan bill has been dubbed the “Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression Act”— the JAWBONE Act — introduced by Senators Ted Cruz (R.-Tx.) and Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.). 

“Government coercion of such private speech intermediaries [like social media platforms] threatens freedom of speech and open inquiry,” it asserts, “particularly for users who have no say in, or knowledge of, how their speech or access to information is affected.”

Such censorship-delegation had been brought to light by lawsuits as well as by the willingness of a reconstituted Twitter — X, under the ownership of Elon Musk — to publicize communications between the federal government and Twitter employees during the COVID-19-era assaults on freedom of speech.

The JAWBONE act would prohibit federal agencies from coercing or threatening online and other services into changing content and would give victims the right to seek damages.

Now, you might be thinking, doesn’t the Constitution already prohibit the federal government from censoring us? Well, yes. It provides no exemption for government censorship implemented via plausibly (or implausibly) deniable delegation of the task. 

But we have had many legitimate debates about constitutional meaning. Further, we have also always had many illegitimate ones, in which people — including Supreme Court justices — seek to circumvent even the plainest and most unmistakable import of constitutional provisions. 

So the Constitution needs all the help it can get.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Stigler

The essence of scientific progress is to edge up this ladder from ignorance to knowledge, and it is complicated by the fact that the ladder keeps getting longer!

George J. Stigler, first chapter to the fourth edition of The Theory of Price (1987).

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Today

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885.

On the same day in 1930, progressive Republican President Herbert Hoover — eager to please agricultural states and confident that protectionism would yield greater wealth — signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. It did not help get the country out of the Great Depression.

Three years later, investment author and two-time Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne was born

On June 17, 1944, Iceland declared independence from Denmark.

On this day in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs,” which steadily decreased civil liberty and the rule of law in America.

Exactly one year later, five men were arrested for attempted burglary on the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., igniting the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon more than two years later.

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ideological culture partisanship

Partisan Pride Divide

national pride, patriotism, democrat, republican, military, higher education, America, freedom, democracy

“How proud are you to be an American?” a new NBC News poll asked.

“At the turn of the century, three quarters of Americans were ‘extremely’ or ‘very proud,’” Steve Kornacki explained to Meet the Press host Kristen Welker yesterday. “That number’s fallen to 56 percent.”

It is a sizable drop, leading Kornacki to inquire, “What’s behind this?” before supplying an answer: “it’s partisan.”

Boy, is it. Fully 90 percent of Republicans are “extremely” or “very proud” to be Americans, with just a mere 3 percent “only a little” or “not at all” proud. Compare that to Democrats, less than a third (29%) of whom are “extremely” or “very proud” to be Americans with a whopping 36 percent “only a little” or “not at all” proud.

There is a significant divide between those 65 years old and older, 75 percent feeling pride, and the 18 to 34 age group, with only 36 percent feeling it. But those differences pale in comparison to party identification.

In analyzing the poll at NBCNews.com, Jonathan Allen points out that Americans “have little faith in their institutions.” 

The military is the only institution mentioned in the survey that received overall majority support — 60 percent had a “great deal” or “quite a bit of trust,” including 86 percent of Republicans but only 40 percent of Democrats.

A bare majority of Democrats, 52 percent, had significant trust in colleges & universities, while only 17 percent of Republicans shared that trust. “The significance: this is the only major institution,” noted Kornacki, “that a majority of Democrats feel that way about.”

Institutions often disappoint and our government has done things for which the proper emotion is shame, not pride. But the principles of individual liberty, equality and justice, proclaimed here 250 years ago, have been, as Tom Paine predicted, “an asylum for mankind.”

A source of pride.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Mises

The proof of a theory is in its reasoning, not in its sponsorship.

Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (1912).
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Today

Bloomsday

On June 16, 1961, dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union.

The great Scottish moral philosopher, political economy pioneer, and Enlightenment intellectual Adam Smith (1723-1790), best known for authoring the 1776 masterwork The Wealth of Nations, was born on June 16.

On June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered his “House Divided” speech in Springfield, Illinois.

On this date in 1963, the Soviet Space Program achieved a first with the Vostok 6 mission, placing Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova into orbit as the first woman in space.

June 16th is Bloomsday, a celebration of the life and work of Irish expatriate author James Joyce (1882-1941). The date was selected because June 16, 1904, was the date in which Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses was set. The ceremonial day is named after the character Leopold Bloom.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture

What the Trillionaire Can’t Do

Elon Musk, trillionaire, billionaire, debt, interest, spending

When Elon Musk took SpaceX public, last week, the value of his stock in the company was said to amount to about $866 billion, which — added to other holdings — makes the “world’s richest man” now a trillionaire.

Capitalism’s first. 

So of course nearly every left-of-center journalist, blogger, and social media warrior decried the enormity of the record.

While “it’s hard to even imagine a trillion dollars” is an honest reaction — it is difficult, just as it is to imagine the projected 2026 federal “budget” ($7.4 trillion), deficit ($1.9 trillion), and the ever-increasing debt — immediately moving from awe to anger is less than honest.

Mr. Musk, Metro UK’s Brooke Davies mused, “could give every single person in the United States a share of his cash, with everyone receiving $2,917.32,” while, if he set his sites a little wider, he could “give every person on the planet a gift, they would receive $121.80.”

What’s less than honest? Elon Musk could not do this. 

Mr. Musk’s wealth is in the company that just took on new investors, driving up his shares. If he started selling his shares, the value of the stock would plummet before he found enough buyers. It is Mr. Musk’s managerial genius and technological vision that is responsible for the company’s success, so any step back from control — even by relinquishing stock — would almost certainly spell disaster. 

And if he vanished off the face of the Earth, our global civilization would feel it.

What Elon Musk’s envious haters do not seem to understand is that Musk succeeds by developing products that people, businesses, and governments are willing to pay big bucks for.

He isn’t exploitative in the negative sense, either. “In total, more than 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees” — “from execs to even welders,” says Fortune — “are expected to become millionaires in the IPO.”

Were Elon’s critics a tiny bit consistent, they’d suggest that Space X’s nouveaux riche welders also cough up unearned wealth. Contribute, evil magnates!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Stigler

A famous theorem in economics states that a competitive enterprise economy will produce the largest possible income from a given stock of resources. No real economy meets the exact conditions of the theorem, and all real economies will fall short of the ideal economy — a difference called “market failure.” In my view, however, the degree of “market failure” for the American economy is much smaller than the “political failure” arising from the imperfections of economic policies found in real political systems. The merits of laissez-faire rest less on its famous theoretical foundations than on its advantages over the actual performance of rival forms of economic organization.

George J. Stigler, entry on Monopoly in Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
Categories
Today

Pig War!

The Oregon Treaty, signed June 15, 1846, established the boundary between Great Britain’s Canadian territory and the United States of America, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, using the 49th Parallel as the handy marker. However, the treaty was not exactly clear on the territorial status of the San Juan Islands, so exactly 13 years later, to the day, a war erupted . . . over a shot pig.

An American farmer shot a pig rooting through his garden. The pig belonged to an Irishman. The two did not agree upon compensation, so “the authorities” were called in, with infantry mustering from the south and the Governor of Vancouver Island instructing marines to land on San Juan Island — though the rear admiral in charge refused to comply with the order, on the reasonable grounds that war over a pig was not worth it. Local troops from both sides lined up against each other, each commanded to defend themselves only, not shoot first. All that resulted? Insults. It turned out to be a bloodless war, discounting the pig, so it might qualify as the best war in American history.

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Update

…and then suddenly….

As the federal government’s debt climbs up to $40 trillion, it is time, once again, to mark our place on the march to insolvency, especially as it regards to the one program upon which the most number of Americans rely, Social Security. As the U.S. Debt Clock shows, there are over 63 million Americans retired on the program, over 8 million on the disabled prong of the program, nearly 65 million enrolled in Medicare, and over 88 million people getting Medicaid benefits.

That is a lot of people to support! But are these programs really in financial danger?

Reason magazine helps:

Ernest Hemingway once wrote that there are two ways to go bankrupt: “gradually and then suddenly.”

For Social Security, the “gradually” phase is coming to an end. According to the latest report from the trustees who oversee Social Security, the program will hit insolvency in late 2032 — and, at that point, benefits will be cut by about 22 percent. That moment of crisis is no longer some distant problem to be worried about in the future. Senators elected later this year will be serving their terms when the “suddenly” arrives. 

Eric Boehm, “Social Security Is Going Bankrupt Because Its Benefits Are Too Generous,” Reason (June 11, 2026).

Take a look at the 2026 Trustees’ Report linked to in the Reason article:

Trustees Scott Bessent, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Keith E. Sonderling, and Frank J. Bisignano.

What to do about the bad financing? Reason offers the obvious, if chilling, advice: cut benefits. “Benefits to most Social Security recipients could be cut significantly without pushing anyone into poverty. And that’s what should happen. Social Security is a safety net program, not one meant to finance a lavish retirement lifestyle.”

Careful readers might be tempted to note that this is not the usual way that Reason looks at Social Security. Usually libertarians and free-market economists emphasize the ill-designed nature of the program, and blame Congress for how it has handled this core welfare-state institution for nearly a century, in effect castigating politicians for the growing revenue-and-spending imbalances. And that is all very true. However, it is all water under the broken dike. Sunk costs, so to speak. We cannot do anything now about the past.

We have a program, many people rely upon it, many more people want it to carry on doing all the things it has been doing. But very soon some things just will not be possible: like paying retirees at the same rates and with the same consistency as in the past.

This is not magic. Somebody has to pay.