I venture to prophesy that there lies before us a bitter and an evil time.
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Author: Redactor
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Townhall: The Aged Cheese Stink
When regulators go by the books, common sense goes by the boards.
At Townhall.com this weekend, the subject is cheese. The cheese may stand alone, but artisanal cheese makers stuck together, and got something of a reprieve, from the people in government who think they know best.
- The original FDA ruling that started the stink: here.
- Why this was so wrong-headed, according to the Cheese Note blog: here.
- The coverage and appraisal of the contretemps in Forbes: here.
- For contrast, consider the latest cheese news: a Velveeta recall. Why? Not enough preservatives! The Big Cheese story, here.
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Video: Krist Novoselic on reason.tv
Fascinating interview with Krist, former bassist for Nirvana, current chairman of FairVote:
Note, Paul Jacob also serves on the board of FairVote.
This week, a major-party politician said that “we cannot let a minority of people — and that’s what it is, a minority of people — hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority.”
How can simply having a viewpoint — a very American thing to possess, by the way — terrorize anyone?
But of course, this person wasn’t talking about real terrorism. This person — a Democratic Party politician of high standing — was using the T-word to smear defenders of the Second Amendment.
Yes, it was Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, and former U.S. Secretary of State (an office she has now taken “full responsibility” for holding), who trotted out those words, allegedly to encourage “a more thoughtful” debate about gun control.
Demonizing her opponents as “terrorizing” her comrades is hardly a way to produce the stated result.
Them’s fightin’ words.
I know of no one who defends the Second Amendment and opposes the gun control agenda of the Democratic Party who also supports the terroristic activities of spree murderers. Not one.
We have more complicated reasons to oppose gun control than merely focusing on such violence.
But understanding those reasons would require a “more thoughtful” attitude than besmirching opponents with the word “terror.”
And as for terrorizing, there are few words more frightening coming from an American politician than “we cannot let a minority” exercise their rights — whether to arms or . . . holding “a viewpoint.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Auberon Herbert
We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men, cannot do.
It’s hard to keep track of things. It helps to make a list.
I’m trying to follow all the IRS-scandal stonewalling, the latest example of which is how emails inculpating Lois Lerner and others have mysteriously disappeared; with, allegedly, no server backups (see my latest Townhall column, “The Dog Ate My Country”).
How many ways have fedgov officials fudged, fabricated, prevaricated, and otherwise non-cooperated with investigators after news broke that IRS had targeted for special harassment sundry conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status?
- When the head of IRS’s department overseeing nonprofit applications, Lois Lerner, felt compelled to admit that IRS had specially targeted right-leaning organizations applying for nonprofit status, she and others put the main blame on a few low-level clerks.
- Lerner twice formally refused to testify to Congress about the doings of her own department. Yet she also asserted, formally, that “I have not done anything wrong.”
- IRS says it’ll take many years to comply with congressional requests for relevant documents. IRS was prompter when it handed abundant confidential information on conservative nonprofits to the Justice Department so that they could be selectively prosecuted.
- DOJ selected an “avowed political supporter” of President Obama to lead a meaningless “investigation” of the targeting of Obama’s critics. No prosecutions of wrongdoers are in the works.
- Initially professing outrage at the IRS’s “inexcusable” targeting, Obama later airily dismissed the affair as a “phony scandal.” On which occasion was he lying? (Hint: both.)
- Major media outlets do all they can to abet the stonewalling.
What did I miss?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
In 1910 on this date, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington. On the same day, in Tennessee, future Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was born.
In 1941, Václav Klaus was born; other June 19 births include Salman Rushdie in 1947, Kathleen Turner in 1954, and Laura Ingraham in 1964.
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Auberon Herbert
Deny human rights, and however little you may wish to do so, you will find yourself abjectly kneeling at the feet of that old-world god, Force.
The headline: “Husband and wife shoot gunmen who try to enter their St. Louis home, killing 1, police say.”
They acted when two thugs tried to force their way into their home by using the St. Louis couple’s 17-year-old daughter as a shield. She had been outside fetching something from her car when the men grabbed her.
Inside, the father happened to see what was happening and pulled out his gun. His wife also retrieved a gun. Home invader Terrell Johnson entered first and received the first bullets. He didn’t survive. His partner Cortez McClinton — arrested in 2010 on a murder charge, but eventually released because of uncooperative witnesses — managed to escape, if only briefly. His brother took him to a hospital for chest and thigh wounds. The police picked him up there.
Mom had also gotten off a shot but did not hit either intruder, leading one blogger to opine that although her heart is in the right place, she needs practice. A reader replied, rightly, that when your own daughter is directly in harm’s way, your shooting skill is hardly the only variable.
Besides, the goal in brandishing a weapon isn’t necessarily to wound bad guys, but better yet to scare them off. There’s a deterrent effect in owning guns.
I am surprised that advocates of gun control and their compatriots in the national MainStream Media are not all over this story. For here is yet another dramatic proof of the need for effective gun control on which they constantly insist.
The gun used to thwart the invaders was very effectively controlled indeed.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On June 18, 1778, British troops abandoned Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On June 18, 1838, Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert was born. Auberon Herbert (pictured) was a liberal politician in Great Britain who, after reading the writings of Herbert Spencer, became a radical individualist, promoting a doctrine he called “voluntaryism.”