Author: Redactor

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Today

Estonian blow-up, Hayek’s birthday

On May 8, 1899, Austrian-English economist and philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek was born. He signed the bulk of his books written in the English language as “F.A. Hayek,” and is best known for “The Road to Serfdom,” “The Constitution of Liberty,” “The Fatal Conceit,” and many essays, several of them which are widely cited, including “Individualism, True and False” and “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”

Years earlier, on the same date in 1873, English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill died. Now best known for “On Liberty” and “Utilitarianism,” Mill’s letters were edited into book form by Hayek.

On May 8, 1946, two Estonian school girls (Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel) blew up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn.

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Thought

José Ortega y Gasset

Life is fired at us point blank.

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Today

27th Amendment, Germany surrenders

On May 7, 1992, Michigan ratified a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. The amendment had been written by James Madison and was part of the original twelve amendments that became the ten amendments making up the Bill of Rights. It bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a pay raise until after the next election, so that voters have a chance to decide whether those voting for the raise will be in Congress to receive it.

On May 7, 1945, German officials signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies at Reims, France.

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Thought

José Ortega y Gasset

The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our other faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or to break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Abridge Too Far

Sick and tired of “too much money” in politics? Worried the average citizen’s voice is being drowned out?

Thirty-six Democratic U.S. Senators have just the thing: a re-write of the First Amendment.

They’ve co-sponsored a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Senate Joint Resolution 19.

“We would give the power back to the Congress,” says chief sponsor Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM).

Wait. That’s amending reality. Congress never had any such power. The instructions in the Constitution are quite clear: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …”

These 36 solons reverse course with the wording

… Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on —

  1. the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and
  2. the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

Our brand new constitution would not contain a single word of restraint. Instead, powerful congressional incumbents would wield complete and total control over all money to be raised or spent by their competitors.

And note: they already enjoy a tremendous name recognition advantage over their challengers. What happens when incumbents limit campaign spending too low for challengers to compete?

Its negation of rights is so sweeping that the amendment actually states, “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”

No worries for the New York Times, then. But just how much of the First Amendment do the rest of us get to keep?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Today

Thoreau born

On May 6, 1862, American author, philosopher and abolitionist Henry David Thoreau was born.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Let Us Give, Too

“There are really no limits on the amount of money you can give to a campaign,” explained Chuck Todd on his MSNBC program, The Daily Rundown. “We could claim there are limits, but they don’t really exist because of the way the system works.”

Todd isn’t talking about you and me. We have limits. By law, each person in each election can give no more than $2,600 to any single candidate.

He’s focused on billionaires. You know, the Koch brothers we hear so much about, or gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson. And, on the Democratic side, the super-rich Tom Streyer, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and others.

But billionaires have limits, too. Their advantage is simply being able to afford the work-arounds. They can hire lawyers to advise them through the maze of speech and finance regulations. They can fund a SuperPAC or an independent expenditure or start a whole new organization if necessary to get their message out.

I’m not complaining. Billionaires have an inalienable right to flap their jaws and spend their money.

I’m only saying that we merely aspiring billionaires — the great American mostly washed middle class — should also be free to flap our jaws, to make our big political contribution and to have our say.

But we don’t. It’s a federal crime for you or me to donate one dollar more than $2,600 to the general election campaign of a congressional candidate we deeply believe in.

That it is a crime is the biggest campaign finance scandal of all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Magna Carta Libertatum, Clause 41

All merchants may enter or leave England unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs. This, however, does not apply in time of war to merchants from a country that is at war with us. Any such merchants found in our country at the outbreak of war shall be detained without injury to their persons or property, until we or our chief justice have discovered how our own merchants are being treated in the country at war with us. If our own merchants are safe they shall be safe too.

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Today

May 5, Magna Carta and Cinco de Mayo

On May 5, 1215, rebel barons renounced their allegiance to King John of England, which eventually led to the signing of the Magna Carta.

In 1862, troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza stopped a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico — an event leading to the popular “Cinco de Mayo” celebration.

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individual achievement

It’s Going to Be a Non-bumpy Ride

Gilad Woolf, an Israeli farmer, had a problem.

He had broken his leg . . . but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the bumpy ride he often had to endure while using a wheelchair until his leg could heal. And so — discomfort and inconvenience being the mother of reinvention — Woolf came up with an idea for a kind of wheel that could soak up the impacts of uneven terrain.

Developed over the last three years by the startup Tel Aviv firm SoftWheel, the hub of this special wheel shrinks or expands as needed to smooth out the ride. The wheel absorbs most of a shock instead of transmitting it to the vehicle and the person driving it.

“Very quickly we understood it’s not just about putting the suspension inside the wheel,” SoftWheel CEO Daniel Barel told The Jerusalem Post. “The beauty of our technology is not only that it’s an integral part of the wheel, it’s selective and symmetric. That’s the game-changer.” (See video of a Softwheel wheelchair on steps.)

The company will first create its wheels for wheelchairs, the bikes and aircraft landing gear. After several more years of work, SoftWheel expects that the technology can be applied to cars.

Thus, five or six thousand years after somebody came up with the wheel, we’ve got a smart and flexible solution for the problem of stairways, potholes and other bumps in the road.

Very cool. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.