Author: CS Admin

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general freedom ideological culture responsibility

Gases and Masses

Global Blame

For once, The Washington Post headline actually reflected the commentary: “America is the worst polluter in the history of the world. We should let climate change refugees resettle here.”

Michael B. Gerrard, associate faculty chair at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, presents a gloomy, doomy picture of earth 85 years from now.

“Toward the end of this century, if current trends are not reversed,” he writes, “large parts of Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Vietnam, among other countries, will be under water.”

And we need somebody to blame. Today.

Step forth, America!

“[I]ndustrialized countries ought,” Gerrard argues, “to take on a share of the displaced population equal to how much each nation has historically contributed to emissions of the greenhouse gases that are causing this crisis.”

The World Resources Institute places responsibility for 27 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions between 1850 and 2011 on us. Therefore, the U.S. must care for 27 percent of the world’s climate change refugees . . . eight decades from now.

It’s only “fair,” according to the dean, that “The countries that spewed (or allowed or encouraged their corporations to spew) these chemicals into the air, and especially the countries that grew rich while doing so, should take responsibility for the consequences…”

Especially?

Is Gerrard battling so-called “carbon pollution” or . . . wealth?

I have a simpler plan, one not based on collective “justice” — fantasies of what whole nations somehow “deserve.” People should be free to move where they think they will be better off.

Will that still be America?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Global Blame

 

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folly nannyism national politics & policies

Doom Fails to Arrive on Schedule

DOOM

Doom is not always bad. I’d appreciate the doom of nonsensical doomsaying, for instance. . . although I doubt that that glorious day will dawn anytime soon.

Equally unlikely is an apology from ABC and Chris Cuomo for pitching, back in 2008, a muddled ABC special, “Earth 2100,” about all the disasters expected to arrive by 2015, among other years.

The idea? Forecast the harm inflicted by allegedly man-made global warming and collateral calamities, via the scientific methodology of being safely vague or just making stuff up. One way the network secured data was to ask viewers to pretend they’re in the future and then “report back.” (Well, it was 2008, a more primitive era. They did things like this back then.)

Here’s a sample of what ABC purveyed as possibly impending:

  • “Temperatures have hit dangerous levels.” (Time for air conditioning and/or heat!)
  • “We’ve got more people, less and less resources. That’s a recipe for disaster.” (Let markets be fully unfettered so we can be sure to get more and more instead!)
  • “It’s June 8, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99.” (Unless that’s a big carton, no. Try $3 or $4 a gallon.)
  • “We’re going to see more floods, more droughts, more wildfires.” (Good work, Nostradamus!)

We still get storms. (Always had ’em; always will.) And inflationary Fed policy and other bad governance still swirl on the horizon. So let’s have shelter, fire departments, umbrellas, and market-friendlier policies; and let’s not reside on hurricane-prone beaches.

Thanks for the heads-up, Chris.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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DOOM

 

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folly general freedom government transparency national politics & policies too much government

Safety, Savings and Symbolism

NSA Hydra

How can the U. S. save $2.5 billion a year, reduce the federal workforce by 4,000 hires, and engage in a symbolic act of undoubted patriotism, all at the same time?

Get rid of the Department of Homeland Security.

Matt A. Mayer, a former DHS employee who claims to have “written more on DHS than just about anyone,” writes in Reason that dismantling DHS would increase co-ordination and decrease inefficiencies.

Since DHS was put in place, in 2003, to increase governmental co-ordination in the face of terrorist threats, Mayer’s charge that it serves the opposite cause should . . . give us pause.

Establishing the DHS didn’t get rid of turf wars. Why would it? It increased the turf rather than merely reroute chains of communication and command. All other agencies still exist. Extra turf exacerbates co-ordination difficulty.

And then there’s what state and local law enforcement faces: “the multi-headed hydra.” The federal operation remains fragmented, which “only ensures that key items will fall through the cracks between these departments, whose personnel spend far too much time fighting each other for primacy than they should. Our enemies couldn’t ask for a more fertile environment within which to attack us.”

I added the italics, for emphasis.

Ever since Jimmy Carter ran for the presidency on consolidating bureaucratic departments in the nation’s capital, but delivered, instead, new departments, the “logic” of adding new bureaucracies onto old has proven to be the “easy answer” for insiders. But a transparent failure, for everyone else.

So, start over. Get rid of the inefficient monster.

And take heart: republics don’t have “homelands”; empires do. Let’s stop playing the wrong game.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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NSA Hydra

 

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Common Sense

Bribing a Legislature

Eyman

Just when big government boosters in the Evergreen State thought it was safe to raise taxes, Tim Eyman and the group Voters Want More Choices have returned to the streets with Initiative 1366.

When his previous and similar effort, I-1325, fizzled last year, opponents were ecstatic, celebrating Eyman’s perceived obsolescence. Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connolly wrote a year ago that, “the promoter may finally have exhausted his 15 years of fame.”

Eyman appeared down and out. Enemies rejoiced. And yet, a year later — just weeks before the deadline to turn in petition signatures to put issues on this November’s ballot — it appears Eyman’s latest initiative will easily qualify.

So now opponents squawk about all the money he has raised, and are back to hilarious and hyperbolic hyperventilating:

  • Tim Eyman “belongs in a trash bin”;
  • “I want Tim Eyman to die in a f—ing fire”;
  • I-1366 is a “destructive, hostage-taking initiative” and “”

If this be blackmail, make the most of it: “This measure would decrease the sales tax rate unless the legislature refers to voters a constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds legislative approval or voter approval to raise taxes, and legislative approval for fee increases.”

You see, the court will not allow the people to set a two-thirds vote mandate on the legislature. But the people can cut the sales tax. So I-1366 would cut the sales tax by a penny . . . unless legislators do the right thing and give the people a vote on a constitutional amendment to establish the two-thirds legislative vote or a vote of the people to raise taxes.

Clever. That is how you deal with rogue insiders.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Eyman

 

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Common Sense

Not Just Fiddling in Ferguson

Body Cam Initiative

The Missouri General Assembly adjourned its 2015 legislative session about a month ago, “having passed,” The Washington Post reported, “virtually none of the changes activists sought in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown.”

“Nothing has changed,” acknowledged State Rep. Clem Smith.

The Post story concluded, “Advocates plan to use the results of a state commission on Ferguson, expected to wrap up its work in the coming months, to engage lawmakers during the summer and work with them on pre-filing bills for the next session.”

Wait . . . until next year?

Denise Lieberman, a senior attorney for the Advancement Project and co-chair of the Don’t Shoot Coalition, conceded that, “Long-term policy change takes time.”

Hmmm, experience tells me “time” isn’t always a friend to reform. Political change can happen incrementally, of course, but more often it rushes forth when people have both had enough and decide to take the initiative.

Ahem — I’m talking about the ballot initiative.

No waiting.

This afternoon, a committee of seven Ferguson, Missouri, citizens, led by Nick Kasoff, will file a ballot measure to require on-duty Ferguson police to wear body cameras. The charter amendment also mandates greater transparency for criminal justice information, while providing privacy protections.

Liberty Initiative Fund, where I work as president, is proud to have provided the Ferguson group with model language. We’ll also work with Kasoff on gathering the roughly 2,500 signatures of Ferguson voters on petitions required to place the issue on the ballot and win early next year.

You don’t have to wait, either. Liberty Initiative Fund helps people across the country take the initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Body Cam Initiative

 

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First Amendment rights general freedom

Reason Requires Freedom

Reason and Freedom

For two weeks, Reason magazine was stopped by court order from talking about two government actions.

It started with online comments.

Everyone who samples the Internet knows that although some un-moderated remarks are judicious and thoughtful, others are intemperate and un-thoughtful. Freedom of speech subsumes the latter just as much as the former — unless and until a published comment can be honestly construed as a genuine threat of violence, as opposed to mere venting.

Reason was first hit with a subpoena that “demanded the records of six people who left hyperbolic comments at the website about the federal judge who oversaw the controversial conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.”

The subpoena is itself debatable, the Supreme Court having recently noted that context is relevant to determining whether an online “threat” is a genuine one.

Not debatable? The gag order that soon followed, prohibiting discussion of both the subpoena and the gag order after Reason notified the affected commenters so that they would have a chance to defend their right to anonymity.

Reporting at the magazine’s “Hit and Run” blog, Reason editors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch explain why the prior restraint represented by the order is unconstitutional and a bad idea.

For Reason, the situation was unprecedented; but similarly wrongful gag orders have become commonplace.

If we lose freedom of speech in this country, it won’t be all at once but bit by ugly bit.

This episode? One of the ugly bits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Reason and Freedom

 

Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets

The Fed Feeds a Scam

D. Stockman

Real and effective “anti-establishment” ideas come from unexpected places. That is, they are unexpected if you read only the dominant media and its insider sources, or follow politics only during the quadrennial presidential farce.

Quite a few news junkies would be surprised at David Stockman’s critique of current Federal Reserve behavior and policy, for example. In “Why Ronald Reagan Is Rolling In His Grave: The Keynesian Putsch At The Fed,” he charges the central bank with having managed “an economic coup d’etat” by engaging in an ongoing wealth redistribution scam — shoveling wealth to the rich.

Stockman sees the confidence of Fed Chair Yellen’s macro-policy micromanagement agenda as a scary case of hubris, of self-appointed effrontery. “Yellen & Co believe they are in charge of virtually everything on the main street economy . . . based on nothing more than their own subjective and unexplained wisdom.”

Stockman is in high form, here. Yellen’s latest pronouncement, he says, is “unaltered Keynesian claptrap. It is the arrogant over-reach of a model-obsessed academic zealot who has no respect whatsoever for the real main street economy and for the historically proven truth that free markets are the best route to prosperity and higher living standards for the people. . . .”

Her policies, he claims, amount to “‘trickle down’ economics with malice of forethought.”

Does that sound Bernie Sanderish to you? It shouldn’t.

The case for limited government and against the Fed (and federal government management in general) are that it is modern unlimited government that serves the few at the expense of the many. Stockman is just restating very old wisdom.

Remind your Occupier friends of this. They are on the wrong team.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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D. Stockman

 

Categories
folly free trade & free markets

Prophecy Failed

Eggs, New York Times, Economics, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/

In the first week of June we were told to expect egg shortages. The avian flu had infected millions of hens: egg production would plummet.

This was news, reported as “Egg Rationing in America Has Officially Begun.” The Washington Post cited a few signs in Texan retail groceries warning customers that the stores were not in the wholesale biz, supplying eggs for restaurants and the like.

And then the follow-up: On Tuesday the New York Times reported, “Bird Flu Sends Egg Prices Up, but Slowing Demand Prevents Shortages.”

Author Stephanie Strom is probably not responsible for the title. Her copy was not horrible.

It’s hard to get over the title, though. Economist Mike Munger offered his reaction headline: “NY Times Causes Head of Mungowitz to Explode.”

Why?

One word: “but.”

The title should have read, “Bird Flu Sends Egg Prices Up, So Naturally Slowing Demand Prevents Shortages.”

Why that “slowing demand”?

I’ll let Munger explain it:

There can never, NEVER be a shortage if prices are free to adjust. Because a shortage is insufficient supply at current prices. Lagniappe: This was in the “Science” section. Yes, it was.

People buy less when prices rise. So those who value eggs less cede those humpy dumpties to folks who want them more. Fitting. Harmonious!

So the title was witless, Munger insists, “on the order of ‘Water:  Still Wet!’ or ‘That Crazy Sun:  Rising in the East Again This Morning.’”

I like “good news” stories. Too bad the Times wasn’t quite up to delivering the good news that was clearly fit to print.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Eggs

 

Categories
folly general freedom too much government

Under the Law, Not Beneath It

Magna Carta Nation

Celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta Libertatum this week, I noted how a document intended to serve the very upper classes, by limiting each others’ powers, led to liberty for all.

The Nation, on the other hand, used it to excoriate the Citizens United ruling.

“Magna Carta reminds us that no man is above the law,” wrote John Nichols on Monday. “But it should not be imagined that Magna Carta established democracy, or anything akin to it.”

Of course the Magna Carta did not establish democracy. No one said it did. And neither Britain nor America has pure democracy, if you define it . . . in Nichols fashion. What is he driving at?

If we respect the notion that the rule of law must apply to all . . . then surely it must apply to corporations.

And, surely, the best celebration of those premises in the United States must be the extension of the movement to amend the US Constitution to declare that corporations are not people, money is not speech, and citizens and their elected representatives have the authority to organize elections — and systems of governance — where our votes matter more than their dollars.

Sure, Mr. Nichols, corporations shouldn’t be above the law. But they shouldn’t be below it, either. And in America we have rights to free speech and press. Those rights “surely . . . must apply to corporations.”

Let’s increase the liberating powers of democracy: open up ballot access, de-privilege incumbents, count votes in a non-mere-plurality-wins fashion.

But let’s not throw out equal rights under the law, even in the name of democracy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Magna Carta Nation

 

Categories
general freedom U.S. Constitution

An 800th “Birthday”

Magna Carta, free speech, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, political, politics, King John

Something happened 800 years ago yesterday, something of note.

The much-loathed and legendary — but real-life — King John signed a document with his barons that limited his power. It was later called the “Magna Carta,” the great charter.

Strange history. It was signed, made a big deal of, and then quickly repudiated. But it was never completely dead, possessing a zombie afterlife, and eventually helping give birth to the Enlightenment idea of limited government, as well as to the United States Constitution.

Most of the document is concerned with the king’s relationship with his subordinate (and insubordinate) barons. There’s a lot of power-wrangling in it, it’s all about divvying up prerogatives and responsibilities and taxes and fees. But it does contain a few passages of note (I’ve listed them on my “Today in Freedom” feature, in the past, and revive one for today’s).

My friend Sheldon Richman quotes scholar John Millar (1735-1801), one of Adam Smith’s most illustrious students, to put the document in its best perspective: “A great tyrant on the one side, and a set of petty tyrants on the other, seem to have divided the kingdom . . . who, by limiting the authority of each other over their dependents, produced a reciprocal diminution of their power.”

They were selfish men, Millar notes, not much concerned with ordinary folk, “But though the freedom of the common people was not intended in those charters, it was eventually secured to them. . . .”

Britain and then America stumbled onto liberty — a general and shared freedom — by the jealousy of competing powers.

We, the people, win when our “rulers” are divided, not united.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Magna Carta