Paul Jacob How far are we away from a completely vindictive, murderous madness like The Terror of revolutionary France? I know, no one is talking of guillotines. Well, almost no one. I’ve seen a certain cartoon poster from Seattle that features a guillotine and the severed head of Jeff Bezos,…
Once upon a time, President Donald Trump was against attacking Syria merely on grounds that its dictator is a murderously bad guy — despite numerous chemical attacks on civilians in opposition-occupied and -contested areas that had been blamed on Syrian dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad. Almost exactly a year ago, a…
The First Amendment, I think I’ll keep it. Not so for 44 sitting U.S. Senators — all Democrats. They’re proposing Senate Joint Resolution 19, which would amend the U.S. Constitution by scratching out a sorta important part of the Bill of Rights. Senate Joint Resolution 19 would repeal the First…
“Prosecutors are nearing a decision on whether to charge President Biden’s son Hunter with tax- and gun-related violations,” The Washington Post reports. Last October, the paper disclosed that, after a four-year investigation, federal agents had “gathered what they believe is sufficient evidence to charge him.” Hunter Biden’s failure to honestly…
The past offers us many lessons. And cause for alarm. And inspiration, too. Seventy-two years ago today, three young Germans — 21-year-old Sophie Scholl, her older brother by three years, Hans, and their friend 24-year-old Christoph Probst — were put to death by the Nazis. They were decapitated — guillotined —…
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. Or so goes the old saying, its wisdom completely unappreciated by the folks producing MSNBCs Lean Forward spots, featuring various network stars spouting lame political talking points into the camera. Go figure — in…
“Life,” my parents often told me, “isn’t fair.” But President Barack Obama isn't so negative: yes it can be fair. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” our president informed the nation…
James “Whitey” Bulger adamantly denies two of the 19 murders he’s accused of committing and for which he’s now on trial in a Boston federal court, along with facing a dozen lesser charges. Decades ago, the 83-year old reputed mobster allegedly ran much of the city’s organized crime. Whitey may…
“I want to go home,” Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods whimpered last weekend. The poor, pitiful politician — announcing he would not seek election to another legislative term — cried that he had not “been fishing with [his] brother in a year.” “I have friends in my district who I…
How do you turn a fine, upstanding, conscientious and goal-driven young man into a terrorist? By fiat. That is, by treating him like a terrorist. That is, treating him very badly. Drop the whole weight of the law on him . . . for holding the wrong opinions. What opinions?…
Government is supposed to defend our rights, including rights to property. When it doesn’t — or when in the course of its job it takes our stuff without due process — it ceases to justify its own existence, appearing to all intents and purposes like just another criminal…
Sometimes the good guys win . . . but only when they stand up to the bad guys. Nowhere is this more true than in politics, especially with the increasingly vicious partisan attempts to criminalize opposition. On a fall day back in 2012, before dawn, SWAT-styled police with battering rams raided the private…
Growing from a single Arkansas discount store in 1962 to the worlds biggest retailer and largest private employer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., today provides jobs for two million people. In our modern world, thats enough to make the Bentonville, Arkansas, company big labors Public Enemy Number One, with union-backed politicians (read:…
Grover Norquist makes a good case: http://youtu.be/r3tFqzeXI0g
I’m a republican. You’re a republican. It used to be that most Democrats were also republicans. Today, I’m not even sure that most Republicans are republicans. But I’m hoping you are, whether you vote R or D or something else. Or don’t vote at all. This is not an essay…
In Common Sense, his incredible hit pamphlet of 1776, Tom Paine appealed to “the inhabitants of America”: O ye that love mankind! . . . Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe…
When times get tough, the tough . . . switch currencies. A fascinating report by Eric Garland in The Atlantic tells of the upswing in “local currencies.” In the United Kingdom, the Brixton Pound is being floated, engraved on its paper notes the likes of “David Bowie in his Ziggy…
. . . recently published on this site. . . . Date (links to PDFs) — Title (links to articles) — Topic: May 15 — Library Against Liberty — Paul Jacob on censorship, local-government-style. May 14 — A Done Decision — Paul Jacob hazards a guess about a court’s conclusion.…