Author: CS Admin

A Spring in Their Step?

The “Free State” — Maryland — just got a little freer.

Deborah Ramelmeier, Social Services Administration head honcho, has laid forth from her mighty public perch in Maryland’s Department of Human Resources an official directive to the state’s Child Protective Services (CPS).

She finally addressed the issues in the Meitiv case.

You’ll recall that Danielle and Alexander Meitiv allowed their 10-year old son and 6-year old daughter to walk home together, without a parent or guardian or attorney present, from a public park a mile away. Silver Spring police snatched the two children off the street last December and so began a Maryland CPS investigation for neglect.

In April, the Meitiv kids were again caught flagrantly walking home from a park. This time they were held for more than five hours by police, then CPS, before their frantic parents were informed and the family reunited.

In the midst of threats, accusations, and fears, the CPS neglected to do the one sensible thing you’d expect: articulate a policy position defining just when or how or even if ever children are allowed out in public without constant and direct adult supervision.

That smidgen of sanity came last week, in Ms. Ramelmeier’s otherwise boring, bureaucratic 23-page directive. “Children playing outside or walking unsupervised does not meet the criteria for a CPS response absent specific information supporting the conclusion that the child has been harmed or is at substantial risk of harm if they continue to be unsupervised.”

Shazam! Just like that, “playing outside” and “walking unsupervised” are once again legal.

The children won’t be arrested! And their parents won’t be investigated or threatened with losing their little ones!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags child, children, CPS, law, police

general freedom

Free Brazil

Kim Kataguiri — a founder and the most prominent public face of the Free Brazil Movement, which recently led millions in protest against high inflation, high taxes, and economy-crippling cronyism — is an unusual man.

First, there’s his age: 19.

Second, there’s his background — atypical but hardly unique, given the country’s substantial Japanese-Brazilian minority.

Third and most important, there’s the fact that he’s influenced by the ideas of free-market thinkers like Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman, ideas communicated online by Brazilian and American think tanks. In consequence, Kataguiri’s popular, social-media-conveyed critique of Dilma Rousseff’s tax-happy socialist government is openly liberal in perspective.

“Liberal,” of course, as in “having something to do with freedom and responsibility.” Classical liberal. Libertarian. Not warmed-over socialist-leaning liberal, as in America’s Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Do his free-market ideas and those of other young Free Brazil leaders mean that most Brazilians inspired by the Free Brazil Movement are just as principled? No; they may just be angry at the destruction wrought by an openly socialist government. Consistency may be the furthest thing from their minds.

But they do seem open to a new, positive alternative.

Kataguiri is perhaps overly optimistic, predicting that “in the next decade or two, most of our society will not only understand classical liberalism, but defend it too.”

But I like optimism. Especially since, whether you call it “classical liberalism,” libertarianism, or “small-government conservatism,” freedom isn’t exactly winning here on our fertile soil.

Still, I invite Kataguiri to drop by the United States when he has a chance . . . and do what he can to convert us to classical liberalism as well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Brazil, classical liberalism, freedom, Kim Kataguiri, liberalism, libertarian, Milton Friedman

education and schooling national politics & policies

The Bloomberg Limit

Afraid that scandal-alluring Hillary Clinton may prove too flawed a presidential candidate, some Democrats are talking to billionaire and former three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about a 2016 presidential run.

Mrs. Clinton’s “slide is accelerating,” writes New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin. “A damaging new poll goes to the Achilles’ heel of her candidacy: People simply don’t trust her.”

Goodwin gushes, instead, at the “intriguing” possibility of Mr. Bloomberg.

“Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president,” reports Business Insider, “but the billionaire isn’t budging.”

And for good reason. He can’t win.

It’s not just me saying so; it’s Michael Bloomberg himself. Last year, he told CBS Face the Nation that he’d consider running . . . “If I thought I could win.”

His honor should know, having spent more of his own money chasing public office than any person in American history.

Why did incumbent Mayor Bloomberg have to spend so much dough? He double-crossed voters on term limits. Bloomberg promised to oppose city council attempts to weaken the limits, but flipped to grab a third mayoral term for himself.

Voter anger “over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law,” reported The Times, became . . . well, a big problem. “To eke out a narrow re-election victory over the city’s understated comptroller, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent $102 million of his own money, or about $183 per vote,” explained the New York Times in 2009, “. . . making his bid for a third term the most expensive campaign in municipal history.”

A similar price tag in a presidential race stands at roughly $23 billion. That’s a lot for anyone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton, voting

education and schooling folly

Learning Zone or War Zone

Given the stated purposes of the university — discovering, learning, teaching, engaging in open intellectual discourse — you might suppose that the pitched battles on campus would be primarily intellectual in nature. Persons set forth a view, others criticize it or elaborate a positive alternative, etc.

Open intellectual change, however heated, is indeed often what transpires.

But on many campuses, we also witness efforts to muzzle opponents of ideas or policies. The censors contend that disagreement as such constitutes a kind of assault on them, one from which their delicate selves must be forcibly and un-delicately protected.

Thus, campus activists at Northwestern University have reported Professor Laura Kipnis for “sexual harassment” for arguing, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that “Sexual Paranoia [Is Striking] Academe,” as exemplified by prissy new rules about dating, jokes, the simplest of standard human interactions. According to her accusers, her article somehow creates a “hostile environment” for students eager to impose not only a Victorian screen on dating and talking, but also a screen, or lid, on any discussion of the Victorian screen. It’s just one example of a syndrome that could be multiplied ad infinitum.

What to do?

One thing, if you’re applying to college: omit as a prospect any school rife with the politics of repression. Boycott the anti-academic academy.

The second, larger solution: bypass the modern university altogether.

Modern technology can help with that. There are more and more ways to learn, and teach, with every day that passes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags college, free speech, political correctness

ballot access general freedom national politics & policies

The Duopoly Rules

As Americans brace themselves for another presidential campaign, USA Today’s editors hazard that the “configuration” of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) “certainly creates an appearance of a political duopoly designed to limit independent voices.”

In 1987, after the League of Women Voters displeased the two major parties, the duopoly’s respective chairmen cooked up the CPD. Both men indicated that including non-R-or-D candidates was not part of the plan.

Thirteen years later, to keep the CPD’s tax-exempt status, the CPD established a “non-partisan” rule to “fix” an opportunity for minor parties: candidates must garner 15 percent support in the polls for inclusion in the debates.

Fast forward to today, and we witness a new group pushing the CPD to drop that requirement. Change the Rule wants one third-party nominee to be included, provided that candidate is on enough state ballots to mathematically have a chance to win the presidency.

“A third person in the general-election debates would make it harder for the major-party candidates to stick to talking points and platitudes,” agrees USA Today. But the newspaper worries about “unintended consequences,” that rather than the “centrist” they want in the debates, a new system might produce someone “on the far left or far right.”

Dear Editors, the election process ought not be designed to produce a certain pre-arranged ideological outcome.

Establishing a fair system entails not limiting voter choice ahead of time. Voters should get to hear from every candidate on enough ballots to be elected president.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, debates, democracy

crime and punishment

Cops as Robbers

If there’s anything that cops should not be, it’s robbers.

By “cops” I mean anyone, including prosecutors, charged with protecting us against criminals. The guardians should not become predators themselves.

Thankfully, these two presumptively opposite categories of men have not become wholly indistinguishable — yet. But every day brings more evidence that we’re skating closer to that abyss.

Consider the police raid on the Michigan home of Ginnifer Hency, whose alleged crime was possession of marijuana with “intent to deliver,” i.e., to use it to assuage her own disease-caused pain, as well as that of others for whom she is a registered caregiver. Hency is fully compliant with all state law. A judge has therefore dismissed the charges wrongly brought against her.

At least one official involved in the case, then, has exhibited the respect for rights and justice that all should be exhibiting.

Good.

But questions remain.

Why was her home raided to begin with? Why was she charged? Why did police use the raid to grab loot, everything from TV sets to her kids’ cell phones and iPads?

And why, after the charges were dismissed, did a prosecutor gloat that he didn’t have to return Hency’s belongings, that “I can still beat you in civil court”?

Actually, we don’t need to know the motives of such thugs to know that they must be stopped.

The Michigan House is considering bills that would make this type of legalized robbery harder.

It should also be punishable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags crime, Drug War, police

folly general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Political Theatrics

Our suspicions have been proved: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) doesn’t secure much of anything; it is mere “security theater.”

After revelations that TSA screeners failed to find weapons and other deadly contraband in 96 percent of tests, David A. Graham, writing for The Atlantic, asked “what kind of theater this is. . . . A period drama, satirizing the 2000s? Vaudeville farce?”

Easy answer: the genre is “statism.”

Statism is the worship of government, or the reliance upon government to do many more than a few tasks. It is very old.

The ancient states arose from conquest, developing as a way to milk the masses for the benefit of the few. That’s what states traditionally do: use force to move wealth from one group to another.

Along the way, the states did do some good. Amidst all their horrors.

But mostly rulers just leveraged myth and bluster to cover crimes.

In more recent times, in this great country, the idea arose that the state should be limited to a few necessary jobs, tightly controlled by the people so that government might actually defend rights, not abridge them.

But this revolutionary democratic-republican ideology did not alter the basic nature of reality, turning the sow’s purse of the conquerors’ art into the gold of the Public Interest.

Without our vigilance, government always reverts back to its roots.

The TSA is simply the latest myth-and-bluster-backed scam aiding the ludicrous notion that government is all-powerful . . . while providing only faux security. Get rid of it; let its people go. Then watch airlines come up with more effective, less intrusive, more passenger-friendly security systems.

Want theater? Try “vigilance theater.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags security, statism, terrorism, TSA

nannyism national politics & policies

For and Against?

Bad ideas take a person only so far.

Proponents of a widely destructive policy may be loath to relinquish it altogether when destructive consequences loom. Yet they may also loathe to see it applied consistently — because of the pain it’ll cause their particular gang.

Harm to others inflicted by lousy ideas? Fine!

Harm to yourself? Not fine!

Hence the semi-reversal by Los Angeles union officials of their demand for a minimum wage of $15 an hour, recently approved by LA’s city council. Union leaders have been among the most ardent proponents of the new minimum, which until now they’ve insisted must be imposed equally, no exemptions for special hardship.

But now union reps like Rusty Hicks want exemptions for unionized companies so that unions are free to negotiate an agreement that, as Hicks puts it, “allows each party to prioritize what is important to them.” Wow! Sounds like he might favor free markets, in which parties to a trade participate, voluntarily, only when priorities are aligned and each expects to gain.

Many motives for Hicks’s contradictory stance are plausible. One is that the requested exception would encourage companies to unionize to escape burdensome new costs. Accept one burden to escape a worse one.

Instead of letting unions cripple all workplaces but their own, let’s “allow each party to prioritize what is important to them” across the board, by letting employers and employees negotiate without any political interference whatever.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags labor unions, minimum wage

crime and punishment

Life in Prison [x 2]?

As I worried, this weekend, about Dr. Annette Bosworth, and her future sentencing for the “felonies” (minor infractions) she committed in South Dakota, others were similarly anguished about Ross Ulbricht.

A judge just gave him two life sentences in prison for setting up the “Dark Web” anonymous trading service “The Silk Road.” He begged for leniency — “just give me my old age,” the 31-years-old pled — but District Judge Katherine Forrest proclaimed “lawlessness must not be tolerated,” judging Ulbricht “no better a person than any other drug dealer.”

According to the BBC, “Prosecutors say that six people who died from overdoses bought drugs via the site and that such untraceable deals earned Ulbricht at least $18m.” This is supposed to make us hate him as a “drug dealer.”

Which he wasn’t. He set up a trading website — albeit a no-tax, black-market one. The actual trades were the responsibility of the traders. Like on eBay. Emptors caveated, knowing what they were doing.

Curiously, his site could only be accessed using software produced by the U. S. government. Using the judge’s rationale, maybe the federal government should be tried?

Some would say that drug overdoses are the responsibility of the drug users — but more to the point, the main factor in illegal drug overdoses remains their illegality. Not given the sunshine of a legit market, actual dosages are hard to manage: producers don’t usually bother with consistency, immune as they are to the reputation aspects of legal markets, not to mention any regulation or tort law influences that affect legal products’ safety.

In reality, those six deaths are more a result of the government than Mr. Ulbricht.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob

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Tags crime, Drug War, free trade, Ross Ulbricht

crime and punishment initiative, referendum, and recall

No Part Justice

Dr. Annette Bosworth was convicted last week on twelve felony counts. She now faces as many as 24 years in prison, $48,000 in fines . . . and the likely loss of her medical license.

Her crime? She circulated six nominating petitions to get on the South Dakota ballot in 2014. Thirty-seven people signed — at her medical office and at a Hutterite colony (where she sees patients) — while she was on a medical mission to help typhoon victims in the Philippines.

Dr. Bosworth’s sister was one.

But the affidavit on the petition reads that the circulator must actually witness each person’s signature being affixed. Bosworth should not have signed it.

Hence six counts of perjury and six more, one for each false document filed.

In court, Bosworth testified that her attorney — who legally notarized the petitions — told her she met the legal definition of a circulator.

Last month, I traveled to South Dakota to release a Citizens in Charge Foundation report on this prosecution. One key finding? While the threatened penalty is the most severe any American has ever faced in a petition-related case, Dr. Bosworth submitted signatures of people she knew and who very much did support her. No forgery, no fraud . . . against the voters.

In response, the state’s largest newspaper reported that, “[Attorney General Marty] Jackley said that it’s ‘well understood in state law’ that the offenses Bosworth faces are punishable by probation and not jail time.” Then after her conviction, Jackley suggested a presumption for “either no or limited actual jail time,” adding, “but that presumption can be overcome by a defendant’s conduct.”

Annette Bosworth should be held accountable. But aiming to ruin her life isn’t any part of justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Annette Bosworth, Dr. Annette Bosworth, justice, law