Author: CS Admin

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

Rand to the Rescue

Rand Paul vs. the Surveillance State

Nothing gets done in Washington?

Tell that to Kentucky Senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul. Last night, he single-​handily “repealed” Section 215 of the Patriot Act, ending the federal government’s mass collection of our phone records.

At least, for the next few days.

On the floor of the Senate, Paul blocked the USA Freedom Act, a “compromise” bill passed by the House. It would’ve required private telecoms to keep the data, allowing the government to query that data with a warrant.

“I’m supportive of the part that ends the bulk collection by the government,” said Paul. “My concern is that we might be exchanging bulk collection by the government [with] bulk collection by the phone companies.”

In a Time magazine op-​ed, he argued, “We should not be debating modifying an illegal program. We should simply end this illegal program.”

Also last week, the Tea Party Patriots joined the ACLU in agreeing with Paul’s position: the USA Freedom Act doesn’t go far enough … to protect our civil rights.

Others warn we aren’t safe without maximum snooping and info-​scooping by government:

  • CIA Director John Brennan called the metadata program “integral to making sure that we’re able to stop terrorists in their tracks.”
  • Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the expiration amounted to “a serious lapse.”
  • James Clapper, director of National Intelligence — most famous now for lying to Congress about the existence of the metadata program — declared we “would lose entirely an important capability that helps us identify potential U.S.-based associates of foreign terrorists.”

Yet, there’s not a single case where this bulk phone data helped capture a terrorist or stop an attack.

Sen. Paul believes “we can still catch terrorists using the Constitution.”

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Rand Paul vs. the Surveillance State

 

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folly free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies

Raise Your Hand, Dry and Secure

B.S.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a splash last week with an off-​the-​cuff comment. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”

The candidate whose initials are “B. S.” doesn’t call himself a Socialist for nothing.

The Democratic-​caucusing “Independent” Senator from Vermont was expressing a tired old sentiment. See his error? (Raise your hand if you know.)

To make any connection between “feeding the hungry” and cutting back on competitive products one would have to believe there is a fixed stock of wealth, and that we waste it on different brands and whole varieties of antiperspirants and sports shoes.

But there is no such fixed supply.

Supplies are concocted to meet consumer values, wants, and getting rid of competitive products means that some values are not being met … and that some folks are not being employed at the rates they could be with more diversity of commodities.

The best way to “feed the hungry” is for the hungry to feed themselves, by being productive — if children, then being fed by productive parents. And to do that, folks need to find their market niche. Which might very well entail another deodorant or shoe.

There is a realm where one person gains at the expense of someone else: redistributive government. If Sen. Sanders wants government to give more money to feed hungry people, he should consider cutting back on some other government expenditure.

Why didn’t B. S. suggest that? Perhaps more than feeding the hungry, he’s interested in feeding government, and his own pride in his own b.s. ideology.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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B.S.

 

Categories
education and schooling

Private School Choice Works

Vouchers Work

Private school choice is “in,” writes Patrick Wolf. “Far from being rare and untested, private school choice policies are an integral part of the fabric of American education policy.”

Now, these “new ideas” really upset some folks. I’m not one of them. School choice is greater freedom.

Freedom works.

Public schooling, on the other hand, is based on very different principles — and principals. It’s no wonder that a system based on compulsion (taxes, attendance, etc.) tends to have so much trouble performing well: it’s not the forced sector of the economy that booms.

Enter school choice. As long as kids must be forced to “attend” a school, I (as a parent) would rather decide which school, for both my sake and my children’s. And if I’m paying taxes, and other kids are getting tax moneys for their education, vouchers are more fair.

Wolf, writing in The Daily Signal, offers evidence that these eminently sensible policies lead to great results. “In Washington, D.C., use of an Opportunity Scholarship increased the likelihood of a student graduating by 71 percent.” Research into the effects of Milwaukee’s program show it “significantly increased the rates of high school graduation, college enrollment and persistence in college for the low-​income students.…”

Researchers at Brookings Institution and Harvard found similar results for New York City’s “privately funded K‑12 scholarship program.”

In his 1859 philosophical polemic, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that parents have a duty to educate their children — and society an interest in seeing these duties met. But that doesn’t entail setting up government schools.

It’s time to catch up with Mill’s 1859 wisdom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Vouchers Work

 

Categories
crime and punishment education and schooling folly general freedom too much government

Under Their Thumb

Free Range Kids

What if police grabbed your children off the street and held them for five hours?

Alexander and Danielle Meitiv of Silver Spring, Maryland, have been investigated three times. First, when their children were discovered playing by themselves in a park a block from their home. The second time when police picked up the kids walking home from a park about a mile away. The third investigation was launched when the Meitiv’s 10-​year-​old son and 6‑year-​old daughter were arrested and held for five hours for walking home from a different park.

Nothing came of the first investigation. In the second, CPS originally found the couple guilty of “unsubstantiated neglect.” But last week, the Meitivs received a letter from Maryland’s Child Protective Services (CPS) now ruling out neglect in the second investigation.

Gee whiz, it’s good news. But the Meitivs still have investigation No. 3 to contend with. And CPS remains completely mum on whether the agency’s letter means the Meitivs and other parents can now freely allow their kids to walk to and from public parks and other venues.

Or not.

Can we really live in the “Land of the Free” and our children not be free to walk in public? What kind of freedom is that?

If the Constitution isn’t sufficient to stop police and child welfare [sic] agencies from snatching kids off the street, terrifying them, investigating their parents and threatening to take those children, we need to pass new laws granting children the right to walk down the street …

… as long as it’s okay with their parents.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Free Range Kids

 

Categories
national politics & policies term limits

Unlimited Gall

open mind, Columbus Dispatch, term limits, initiative, ballot, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, political, politics, reading

Some claims don’t persuade. For example, the claim that starting a conversation is an effort to end conversation. Or that one “bullies” officeholders by telling constituents what officeholders are up to.

But so contends a Columbus Dispatch editorial (“Don’t let pledges close discussions”) chastising U.S. Term Limits, my old stomping ground, for spotlighting pols plotting to pulverize term limits.

U.S. Term Limits advised constituents of Ohio State Representatives Bob Cupp and Nathan Manning that neither will pledge to forbear from weakening Ohio’s state legislative term limits — and that both men serve on a commission scheming to weaken the limits.

The organization’s mailing is “out of line in two ways,” the paper opines.

First, lawmakers mustn’t “surrender their autonomy to bullying interest groups” but must consider issues “with open minds.” Should these open minds be closed to any reminders of the legitimate interests of constituents? The Dispatch editors write as if they’d never head of politics and political debate before; anyway, as if it should desist forthwith.

Second, the pledge itself is “misplaced,” because Ohio voters must approve any referendum Ohio lawmakers send to ballot; lawmakers can’t act unilaterally. True. But why take even one bad step on a bad road?

How can the Dispatch’s theme be that USTL seeks to “close” discussions of term limits? U.S. Term Limits would be delighted if all Ohioans engaged in loud and long discussions of term limits, as well as of what Ohio lawmakers hope to do to their constitutionally limited terms in office.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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open minds

 

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folly general freedom national politics & policies

Memorial Day Questions

Veterans and the political class, Obama, military, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, Paul Jacob, political, politics, blood

What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?

More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events … with their high-​priced, taxpayer-​paid military promotions.

First, vets are entitled to contracted-​for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall​.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.

Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.

Bring on the if-​you-​knew-​then questions!

But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?

We really should know … I mean, on Memorial Day and all.

President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-​ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.

Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.

Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-​messy Middle East.

The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Veterans and the political class

 

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment

Judge by the Results

Drug war results

The law exists to ensure responsibility. When someone does wrong, the police and courts are here to correct for the lapses and crimes.

That’s how law “holds us responsible” for our actions.

The War on Drugs is fought, it has been argued, because recreational drug use makes people irresponsible. So police and courts must punish, etc., etc.

But Theory must be judged not on intent, but on results.

Which are too often atrocious.

When I wrote about Bounkham “Bou-​Bou” Phonesavanh before — a toddler horribly maimed and almost killed by an incendiary during a completely fruitless drug raid on a home full of innocents — I identified the War on Drugs as the root problem: “Waging that war permits endless ‘botched raids’ like the one that almost killed Bou Bou,” I wrote last February. “So long as such invasions remain a standard means of trying to catch dealers with their stash — indeed, so long as the War on Drugs is being waged at all — innocent persons will always be needlessly at risk.…”

Now that the trial is over and the family has been rewarded not quite a million bucks in recompense, we can see, clearly, what’s wrong here.

Irresponsibility.

The police who did the foul deed? Unrepentant in court, offering bizarre excuses. What the police assailants claimed, the Pro Libertate blog summarized, “is that while he was sleeping, Baby Bou-​Bou ambushed them.” An overstatement? Perhaps — but very slight.

Meanwhile, who pays? The taxpayers. Not the guilty cops.

If we continue to allow this “war” we will continue getting unaccountable policing and the tragedies that necessarily result.

In a word: irresponsibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Drug war results

 

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Anti-​Democratic Republicans?

political, politics, 2 Party Lockout, political party, politics, exclusion, elections, democracy, collage, photomontage

The Republican Party of Ohio paid lawyers $300,000 to keep a competitor off the ballot.

Typical two-​party corruption. We can blame the party, yes — but also blame the system.

A “two-​party system” is, mathematicians tell us, the logical result of simple plurality/​winner-​takes-​all elections. That is, when the first candidate “past the post” wins enough votes to best any other, that candidate wins.

When you count votes like this, two parties emerge to dominate.

But to really rule the roost, those parties are incentivized to pile on … to make it hard for “minor-​party” challengers. Ballot access becomes a nasty business.

Last year Charlie Earl ran for the governorship of Ohio as a Libertarian Party candidate. But he was blocked from the ballot. And when the Ohio LP “filed a federal lawsuit to try to force Earl’s name on the ballot,” Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges testified that his party had nothing to do with the legal maneuvers involved.

As Borges put it at the time, “Anyone who’s looking for the conspiracy behind it — it’s just not there.”

Now, it turns out, the conspiracy was there. His party paid the bills.

Whether Borges was lying or not — maybe he was clueless about these shenanigans — the deed got done.

More important than whether Borges himself can be held culpable for the ballot-​access conspiracy, it’s the system that encourages such anti-​democratic nonsense that needs changing. First-​past-​the-​post elections must go. There are alternatives, as my friends at FairVote​.org champion.

As Ohio GOP leaders stand shame-​faced with the evidence of evildoing, it’s time to press such reforms.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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2 Party Lockout

 

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies

Promises of Murder

Thought Crimes

Senator Lindsay Graham kills me.

The hawkish Republican from South Carolina isn’t exactly standing up for limited government. His latest oration, on the presidential stump in Iowa, warned Americans far and wide that, were he sitting in the White House with his finger poised above The Button and “you’re thinking about joining al-​Qaeda or ISIL [Islamic State] — anybody thinking about that? — I’m not gonna call a judge.”

Adding mucho macho-​flash: “I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you.”

Like you, it never crossed my mind to join either the Islamic State or al-​Qaeda. So, a big “meh,” eh?

Neh.

The attacks on civil liberties, committed under the cover of fighting terrorism, must end. I hope that Section 215 of the ridiculously-​named USA Patriot Act will expire. I also want to halt the secret, process-​less, law-​less, global drone-​strike program.

And I don’t think I am asking too much for the next president to not regularly threaten audiences with wider, more gleeful and less accountable use of drones.

Remember, Sen. Graham said “thinking about.”

Even with the NSA tracking our every key-​stroke, government could still make a mistake about what we’re thinking.

Moreover, even if you disagree with me — perhaps wanting the War on Terror to be fought with more fury — it still seems counter-​productive for the wannabe POTUS: (a) to imply that Americans must be bullied out of joining the latest jihadist gang in the Middle East and (b) to suggest the Prez has the dictatorial power to summarily execute an American on the mere suspicion of a thought crime.

Graham, president? Don’t die laughing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought Crimes

 

Categories
general freedom

Rauner on a Roll

political, politics, Labor Unions, collage, photomontage, politics, protest, illustration, editorial, crowd

Last week I came not to bury a newly elected chief executive but to praise him — for not merely paying lip service to term limits, but for in fact making the passage of state legislative term limits a high-​priority, line-​in-​the-​sand policy goal.

I refer, of course, to Illinois’s new governor, Bruce Rauner.

Another controversy catching my attention pertains to union-​bullying. Governor Rauner hopes to stop public-​employee unions from extracting dues from the unwilling. These “fair share” dues are spent on bargaining strategies or political causes with which the dues-​payer may be wholly unsympathetic. Why should workers be compelled to part with part of their income to support activities they don’t consider beneficial?

Rauner is using both an executive order and a lawsuit to try to outlaw coercive unionizing of public employees. (He has also acted to liberate private-​sector employees from unions.) The order declares that dues may no longer be extracted from unwilling non-​members. The complementary lawsuit is a preemptive bid to get the order judicially sanctioned as legal.

Governor Rauner is not a union member. He therefore lacks standing in the lawsuit, so three public union members have joined as plaintiffs. Representing them is Jacob Huebert, an attorney with the Liberty Justice Center (and author of the book Libertarianism Today).

Again, I say: Yes!

To be sure, I wouldn’t endorse everything that Rauner is saying or doing, even on issues where we’re simpatico. But when you’re right, you’re right. Good going, Governor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Labor Unions