Year: 2016

Today

Tell and Shaw

On November 18, 1307, legend has it, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell endures as a Swiss folk hero, and provides the subject of a famous opera by Rossini — the music of which is associated with, in many ears, Bugs Bunny and the Lone Ranger.

In 1926, on this date, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize for Literature, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”

Double Bubble America

bubble, Trump, election, reasons, explanations, illustration

The “unexpected” Donald Trump presidential victory has put the folks at The Gray Lady a bit out of sorts.

Heather Wilhelm at the National Review pokes and prods at the absurdities of the New York Times’s cultural cluelessness. And ably enough. So I’ll stick to The Times’s recent “six views” of America’s ideological divide:

Julie Turkewitz recognizes two well-insulated informational bubbles at play. Nothing too controversial — or very deep.

Campbell Robertson muses upon the dominance of the “elites” against which Trump’s insurgents rebel, noting that “the elites are the still the ones who get to decide who gets to be elite.”

Laurie Goodstein takes on religious culture, making much of divergent spiritual outlooks, left and right.

Julia Preston peers at immigration and the prospect of sending a message by building a “wall.”

In the manner of the other five, Sheryl Gay Stolberg digs up real-world people — as does our speechifier-in-chief, Barack Obama — to lightly probe questions of assimilation versus multiculturalism.

Manny Fernandez concludes with a (yawn) discussion of giving and taking offense.

They all miss the underlying structural basis for the divide.

On one side: folks working in the private sector — or local governments and charities, or at home — who have seen the world pass them by in terms of income and security.

On the other: government workers and consultants (and other college grads) who make more, on average, than their “real world” counterparts.

The latter has advanced as a class; the former remain in stasis . . . at best.

A mystery?

No — it’s the predictable result of what Thomas Jefferson called “the parasite institutions now consuming us.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Original (cc) photo by diana MĂRGĂRIT at Flickr

Tags big government, bubbles, democracy, Donald Trump, election, explanations, government

Thought

P. J. O’Rourke

Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

P. J. O’Rourke, as quoted in Busted : Stone Cowboys, Narco-lords, and Washington’s War on Drugs (2002), edited by Mike Gray.

Today

Confederation

On November 17, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.

On that date in 1800, the United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.

Accountability crime and punishment folly nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Virtually Useless

web, crime, virus, government, illustration

Here is something I don’t quite understand about us moderns — we, oh-so-sophisticated citizens of the world; we who say that government is instituted to help us . . . but often we expect almost no real help when it comes to even the basics.

Take this very “virtual” venue: the Internet; “the Web.”

This wasn’t a thing in the first decade of my adult life. I never expected to spend so much time “on” something that did not, then, exist in any meaningful way.

Well, computers opened up brave new worlds for us, but, did you notice? Bad guys were right there from the beginning, making “viruses” and “spyware” and “malware” of all kinds. Destroying billions of dollars of data and equipment, robbing us of the most important thing of all: time.

And what did the United States government do?

Nothing, or next to it.

Belatedly, and haphazardly, it scraped together a digital defense for its own infrastructure, and began to cook up ways to surveil us all.

But did it offer to help? What programs did it provide the public, or the states, to assist us with bad guys trying to steal our savings, credit, and virtual identities?

I haven’t seen anything. And our local governments have stood around useless, too.

Yet I haven’t heard anyone complain.

Our security has been up to us. Long ago, John McAfee invented the first anti-virus software, and an industry grew up from his kernel — and that industry is where we turn to for help.

Government has mostly just stood by — in the sole area of the computer industry that it could plausibly have warrant to “interfere.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Questions Answered:

Does government fulfill its main function consistently?

Who do Americans turn to for effective security?

The Next Question:

If government doesn’t even bother doing its main job, why give it more jobs?

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Tags crime, Internet security, limited government

ideological culture meme national politics & policies too much government

Warren and the Bogeyman State

Post author By Jim
Post date November 16, 2016
2 Comments on Warren and the Bogeyman State

“…the bogeyman government is like the bogeyman under the bed. It’s not real. It doesn’t exist.”

—Elizabeth Warren

Citation:

Tags Elizabeth Warren, government, meme

Today

John Bright

On November 16, 1532, Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa at the Battle of Cajamarca.

In 1811 on this date, John Bright (pictured above), English academic and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was born. Bright (d. 1889), famously worked with Richard Cobden against the Corn Laws (repealed in 1846) as well as for the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, which ushered in freer trade and closer interdependence between Britain and France.

Thought

Henry Adams

Those who seek education in the paths of duty are always deceived by the illusion that power in the hands of friends is an advantage to them. As far as Adams could teach experience, he was bound to warn them that he had found it an invariable disaster. Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had been always tragic, chiefly as an almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards.

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907).

Accountability general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers term limits too much government U.S. Constitution

Fear and Freedom

Protect Yourself, limited government, meme

“If Libertarian Gary Johnson doesn’t win the presidency,” I posted to Facebook last Monday, “I’m leaving the country.”

Well, Johnson didn’t win. And I wasn’t kidding. I’m writing this from a Parisian café.

Of course, I was also tongue-in-cheek, since — spoiler alert! — I am coming home next week.

This week, I’m speaking at the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in San Sebastián, Spain — a gathering of pro-initiative folks from all over the world. We want people’s votes to count, even if we disagree with their candidate or issue.

Which brings us back to Donald J. Trump’s surprise victory. Protests have broken out in several cities — some violent. And some folks say they’re scared of what Trump may do as president. Sure, one can snicker at these fearful responses as liberal whining. And to the extent they’re talking about university professors canceling tests and coddling “traumatized” students . . . well, no argument here.

Still, I don’t just sympathize when I hear people fear a politician with power, I empathize.

For a long time, I’ve been worried by out-of-control presidential power — from unconstitutionally making laws through executive orders to making war without any real check on that power. Scary. Whether that president is George W or Obama or Hillary or Trump.

Government is a monopoly on force. Therefore, by definition, government is frightening.

Democracy is often an antidote to tyranny, a check on power, but not always. That’s why folks who truly appreciate democracy believe in individual rights that transcend any vote-getting public decision mechanism.

Scared by President-Elect Donald Trump? Protect yourself: enact greater limits on government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Questions Answered:

Is fear a natural byproduct of government?

Which presidential powers lack sufficient checks and balances?

What is more important: individual freedom or democratic decision-making?

Is democracy a check on power or an enhancement?

The Next Question:

How do we go about creating greater limits on political power?

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