June 4 marks the 1989 Chinese government crackdown on peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square, with tanks entering the square and soldiers, who opened fire on citizens outside the square, estimated to have killed thousands.
It also marks Tonga’s Emancipation [or Independence] Day, commemorating the abolition of serfdom in Tonga by King George Tupou in 1862, and the independence of Tonga from the British protectorate in 1970.
Did the recent pandemic begin as a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China?
Who knows?
But in these United States there suddenly appears serious — even bipartisan — interest in finding out.
I’ve been curious for some time, but why wasn’t more of the media interested from the beginning? Why were questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology as well as the questioners often attacked?
“[T]he newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasn’t true,” Thomas Frank, the progressive historian and author, explains in The Guardian, “that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers,” adding that he “always trusted the mainstream news media.”
Thank goodness Senator Rand Paul confronted Dr. Fauci, again, leading to Fauci acknowledging the need for further investigation into the Wuhan lab that performed research on bat coronaviruses, arguably including gain-of-function research, with indirect U.S. funding.
“Renewed focus on Wuhan lab scrambles the politics of the pandemic,” was one of several recent explanatory Washington Post articles.
Politics?
You don’t say!
“The shifting terrain highlights how much of the early debate on the virus’s origins was colored by America’s tribal politics,” the paper reported, “as Trump and his supporters insisted on China’s responsibility and many Democrats dismissed the idea out of hand . . .”
The Post should include itself when referring to Trump-blaming “Democrats.”
Another article The Post dangled before readers captures the moment — “Facebook: Posts saying virus man-made no longer banned.”
In addition to the media and social media failure on this lab-leak story, let’s not forget the “expert fail.” Mr. Frank fears that if Big Science is found to be the cause of the pandemic, it “could obliterate the faith of millions” in “the expert-worshiping values of modern liberalism.”
We should be so lucky.
What’s next: a release of Fauci’s emails?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On June 3, 1959, Singapore adopted a constitution.
If the worst government be better than anarchy, the advantages of the best must be incalculable.
Nassau William Senior, Esq., Political Economy (Third Edition: 1854), p. 76.
Firing politicians is what democracy’s all about.
But politicians don’t like being fired. Even when “You’re fired!” is a signature line. It definitely explains why incumbents tend to oppose term limits.
As shown in the long history of term limits in my home state, Arkansas.
In 1992, an all-volunteer petition drive placed the initiative on the ballot and a grassroots campaign beat the Good Ole Boy network and their $500,000 in paid media warnings of “outsiders.”
The victory sent shockwaves through the Arkansas political establishment; term limits received more YES votes than President-Elect Bill Clinton had garnered in his home state.
Arkansas pols have been at war with term limits ever since. The latest assault came in April, when legislators passed an “emergency” measure now known as Act 951.
The Act bans people found guilty of minor misdemeanors (trespassing, vandalism, any violation of drug laws) at any time in their lives — even many decades ago — from working as paid petitioners. The new law also limits the pool of petitioners to state residents, something not done for any other political job, or for those carrying Arkansas’s candidate petitions.*
That’s why Arkansas Term Limits, Liberty Initiative Fund, U.S. Term Limits, et al., filed a complaint in the federal Eastern District of Arkansas alleging constitutional rights violations under the legislature’s Act 951.
“I was never a supporter of term limits until this bunch got in office,” offered Arkansas Times editor Max Brantley in response to our lawsuit, “and gave themselves essentially unlimited terms and set about running roughshod over human rights.”
Cries of “You’re fired!” are coming soon. But first, to pry back petition rights in Arkansas, the catchphrase is, “You’re sued!”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* In recent years, similar residency requirements have been unanimously struck down in rulings of the 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th federal Circuit Courts of Appeal. Earlier this year, a federal judge enjoined enforcement of Maine’s similar law.
meter / JG
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On June 1, 1792, Kentucky was admitted as the 15th state of the United States. Four years later, Tennessee became the 16th state.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, King James Version
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
On May 31, 455 A.D., Emperor Petronius Maximus was stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.
On that date in 1578, King Henry III laid the first stone of the Pont Neuf (New Bridge), the oldest bridge of Paris, France.
In other rock history, May 31, 2013, marked the closest approach to Earth that the asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon will get until two centuries hence.
Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.